Wikipedia:Don't edit war over the colour of templates

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Who cares?

Some things on the

user discussion pages
, are less important.

Somewhere near the bottom of the importance scale is the

discussing new possibilities is always to be encouraged, becoming entrenched in a dispute over such an issue is generally not constructive
, and is to be avoided at all costs.

The colours used on the Main Page are

recognized as standard, though even that only takes the form of a guideline, and the Main Page templates aren't templates in the usual sense anyway. While it's generally felt that for consistency, messages on talk pages should look like someone spilled coffee on them, this is by admission "not a firm policy" and merely "advised" for "new talk page templates". It was also decided on a long time ago, pre-dating many changes in template use as well as software changes such as ParserFunctions. Furthermore, it was decided by a vote, which is widely considered a bad idea and even evil
by some.

Notwithstanding all of this, issues of template colour, such as whether {{

edit wars. Not only that, but edit wars by administrators—who should know better—on protected templates, as well as increasingly pedantic arguments about template colour spread across several pages. This doesn't achieve anything, except an eventual change (or lack of change) in favour of whoever decides to be the least civil
and continue reverting the longest.

Therefore, don't edit war over the colour of templates.

In fact, don't revert such changes at all (provided they are not intentionally unconstructive). This does not, of course, mean that all discussion on the colour of templates is worthless. Standardization is generally a good thing. However, if an edit which changes the colour of a template (regardless of who made it) is reverted (regardless of who by), it should end there. Don't let the next edit be a revert of the revert, changing the colour again; not even if the other involved parties wander off. Extensive discussion of such changes, too, is to be discouraged—ideally, to be avoided completely—though a little explanation and statement of opinion never hurt anyone, and may be a good idea.

Indeed, it's better if you don't make the next move at all. Instead, wait for a genuine, constructive improvement to be made first, then you can think about changing the colour again. When the time comes around, chances are you'll be accustomed to the new colour and no longer care, or you'll have forgotten about the issue entirely. If you need something to do in the meantime, try improving the encyclopedia.

There's one caveat:

colourblind. Please preserve the accessibility of Wikipedia, per the colour guideline
.

See also
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