User:AnomieBOT/docs/TemplateSubster

Certain templates should always be substituted, although people sometimes forget. It's quite easy for a bot to go through these templates and subst them. AnomieBOT does this for all templates in Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted.

AnomieBOT simply goes through all templates listed in Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted, loads the list of transclusions for each, and edits each transcluding page to subst the templates. Specifically, it changes {{foo}} to {{subst:foo|subst=subst:}} (the parameter |subst= set to "subst:" is a common workaround in templates that predate the introduction of safesubst:).

To allow for example usage, AnomieBOT will not subst template instances that have the parameters |nosubst= or |demo=. To prevent disruption, AnomieBOT will also not subst any template that has over 100 transclusions unless that template is linked from User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force.

If the template should not be substituted automatically, edit it to remove it from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted. If just the one instance should not be substed (e.g. uses as examples), add |nosubst= or |demo= to the template invocation. You might want to edit the template to recognize |demo= anyway to avoid it adding inappropriate categories and the like.

If necessary, you can also post a message to User:AnomieBOT/shutoff/TemplateSubster to stop the bot and post a message to User talk:AnomieBOT to let Anomie know about the problem.

Try the following:

1. Make sure the template really is in Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted.
2. Make sure {{nobots }} or {{bots }} is not present on the page, and the page is not protected.
3. Make sure the template is being directly transcluded in the page. Transclusion via other templates or modules (including things like {{tlg|_show_result=y}}) are not substed by the bot.
4. Make sure the instance of the template is not using |nosubst= or |demo=.
5. Make sure the template has fewer than 100 transclusions.
   • If it does have that many transclusions, you will need to either subst those transclusions yourself or add a link to it from User:AnomieBOT/TemplateSubster force.
6. If all else fails, ask for help at User talk:AnomieBOT.

No. The TemplateSubster task only knows that the template has been requested for bot substitution, it doesn't know anything about the contents or usage of any template. If a template so often needs special treatment that bot-substing causes an unacceptable rate of problems, and these problems can't be fixed by editing the template (e.g. adding missing safesubst:), then it probably should be removed from Category:Wikipedia templates to be automatically substituted and periodically cleaned up by interested humans instead.

Specific to duplicate WikiProject banners, ultimately the error is on the human who added a defunct subproject's banner when the parent project banner it substs to was already present. See also Garbage in, garbage out.