Pages: Templates-List: General Use Only, Infobox-Related, Categories-Related, Sets of Related Pages, Doc.

Templates

How templates can be useful

Templates can act like a "rubber-stamp" and like a "cookie-cutter".
Wiki-page editors may create a template that contains commonly-used boiler-plate text, and use it repeatedly, like a rubber-stamp, in many different Wiki-articles.
Wiki-page editors may use variables in templates, to create custom individualized results, but with a common behavior regardless of which article invokes the template, similar to how a "cookie-cutter" gives the same shape to cookies that might have slightly different ingredients.
When a template that includes web-links, or Wiki-links, is updated to reflect link-updates, all articles that rely on the template are also automatically updated, thus saving considerable time and effort during Wiki-maintenance, and significantly increasing accuracy and correctness throughout the Wiki.

Templates are documented either in the template itself (when the template is short and simple), or in a "/doc" sub-page. The "/doc" sub-page link will be found at the bottom of the template, and will be the template's name with "/doc" appended to it (without quotes). Example: Template:Cat_State's documentation is located at: Template:Cat_State/doc

Template-names have been chosen with the purpose of them sorting alphabetically in such a way that templates with similar purposes will naturally sort together in the list.
The grouping-by-purpose is reflected in the template-lists on the following pages:

Pages: Templates-List: General Use Only, Infobox-Related, Categories-Related, Sets of Related Pages, Doc.