Template talk:Message

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Was this really a good idea?

I feel like this could have been approached differently. OK, maybe using the template over plain wikitext had issues and if the issues were glaring enough to warrant its removal, I have no problem against that. But was deleting it outright, so suddenly, the best way to go about getting rid of it? If making a change/supposedly "fixing" something completely ruins most talk page content on the website, is it worth taking such measures?

A better way to get rid of the template would have been to do something similar with Template:Lang; that is, simply deprecating it. I would much rather be able to see the messages in a talk page than countless Template:Message redlinks everywhere where they're supposed to be. A notice would be enough to tell new and existing users not to use it and to use the MediaWiki default instead.

I fail to see why this was even necessary, though. What wrong was the Message template doing? Was it too over-engineered compared to the original method on basically every other MediaWiki wiki? I personally saw and had no problem with it, but if deleting the entire thing for "damage control" was a necessary course of action then I assume that it must have been wholly necessary. At some point, I might make the go-ahead and reinstate the template under a deprecation notice if someone else doesn't do it or something similar before me. This is simply way too destructive for it to stay like this. — Cheers, theki (hit me up) 18:38, 17 June 2024 (PDT)