This help page is a how-to guide. It details processes or procedures of some aspect(s) of Wikipedia's norms and practices. It is not one of Wikipedia's policies or guidelines, and may reflect varying levels of consensus and vetting. |
Templates are a very powerful feature of the MediaWiki software used for Wikipedia, but mistakes can be easily made, even by experienced users. Edits to complex templates should therefore be carried out in sandboxes and accompanied by test cases to prevent bugs. Temporary sandboxes X1-X20 or the Template Sandbox may be useful places to try new experiments or for users new to template development.
For the development of entirely new templates, user sandboxes are appropriate.