Help:Shared templates

Shared templates are templates that can be used across Wikia.

Using pages from Central Wikia
Templates on the Central Wikia can be used on any other Wikia by using   or  

One advantage of having shared templates on the Help:Central Wikia is that they are watched by a large community, and can be quickly reverted in cases of vandalism.

Updating templates
If a template is edited on the original Wikia, pages on other wikis using it should automatically update. However, this can sometimes take a short while to occur, and can be overridden by purging (add  to the URL).

Advanced usage and limitations
You can also include pages that are out of the template namespace, but instead of using  you must use   (or    if the last doesn't work). Note the use of a double colon between wikia (or w) and the full page name (the name of the page with its namespace, for example )

You must also use the correct capitalization. will work, whereas  will not.

Links and variables in shared templates are interpreted as if put on a page in the Central Wikia, except when substituting the shared template. Thus, when the shared template is included in another wiki, an internal link in the shared template shows up in the style of an internal link, but linking to the Central Wikia. However, when substituting the shared template the link becomes an internal link to a local page. A prefix makes the link an interwiki link on the Central Wikia may become a link to the project namespace for the other wiki. See also peize:Peize:Template sharing demo.

Editing and translating
Major changes that could have negative effects on other wikis should not be made to any shared templates, especially those on the Help:List of shared templates. However, corrections and improvements that won't prevent the templates from functioning in the way they were originally used are welcome.

Translations are welcome, either at the native name for the template, or as a subpage of the English name, using lang code ]] format. For example, the Russian version of w:Template:Wikipedia could go at w:Template:Википедия or at w:Template:Wikipedia/ru.

Since these templates will be used on wikis with a wide variety of stylesheets in place, be careful not to add unnecessary styling and formatting to the templates, since this might conflict with the style of the wikis they are used on.