Template talk:Lopbn-lfront

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[edit] Esoteric template

_ _ Hmm. The Esoteric-template's text is

• This template contains one or more optional parameters: see the talk page for details.
• This template employs some extremely complicated and esoteric features of template syntax. Please do not attempt to alter it unless you are certain that you understand the setup and are prepared to repair any consequent collateral damage if the results are unexpected. Any experiments should be conducted in the template sandbox or your user space.

And, yes, if you'll check the history you'll see that i put {{esoteric}} into {{Lopbn-lfront}}, so you might logically conclude that i believe {{Lopbn-lfront}} has an optional parameter.
_ _ Well, it doesn't have optionals. See template talk:Esoteric. But it does utilize {{Switch}} and therefore qualify for {{esoteric}}. Logically it should have used {{Qif}} instead, but that doesn't change its need for the esoteric tag, and its next planned revision will need not just {{Switch}} but nesting of conditional templates, which may be esoteric for you. It's {{Switch}} and {{Qif}} that use optional parameters and are at least exotic and perhaps thoroughly esoteric. IMO, the cautions about them, and about editing this template, are well-founded. It's my opinion that what i've written is reliable, but i don't think revisions of it are as likely to inherit reliability as are those of all the other MediaWiki templates i've previously writ.
_ _ Bottom line: edit carefully, after serious study of the existing markup and the templates involved, and better yet, don't edit. "Dingo's gonna bite you in the ass."
--Jerzy•t 10:20, 25 March 2006 (UTC)