User:This, that and the other/template cleanup

Why?

Mhiji (talk · contribs) said this, here:

... Also, This, that and the other's nomination of Template:G10 delayed has now actually prompted a new discussion (as you said yourself, you'd forgotten about it until the nomination) on the possibility of improving the speedy process and not just immediately deleting pages without trying to improve them - that's definitely of benefit to the project overall. Cleaning up unused templates is helpful as proved with this example and many others. I've done quite a bit of clearing up templates recently too and there are many templates which have been abandoned which shouldn't be (because the creator made them but never actually implemented them or they were just removed from pages without a good reason) and I've readded them to the relevant pages - definitely a positive for the project. And there's been many cases where I've found templates which are broken or left half-made and I've then fixed them or finished them off and put them to good use (e.g. earlier I found this and fixed it and it is now a useful navbox on a number of articles). There's also been cases where I've nominated a template because I couldn't see a use for it and editors have said that they'd made it or half made it and forgotten to finish it or implement it. There's also been times when I've nominated a navbox because it's unused with nearly all red links and the creator has then said that they had planned to create the articles but forgotten and they've then go on to create a number of articles. And there's loads of times where I've found duplicates or duplication between templates - these can actually be harmful if we're working on 2 pages which are intended to do the same thing. There's been times I've nominated templates and then because of the discussion we've found a better way to implement a template or idea. So I wouldn't call cleaning up orphaned templates a waste of time at all... Mhiji 01:47, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more. That's why cleanup is important, even though to some it might seem pedantic and unnecessary.

Rationales for deletion

The most important and clearest reason for deleting a template is unused, unnecessary, useless. Often one finds a silly template which is not used (or is no longer used) and has no foreseeable scope for use in the future. These can just be washed away.