Charlotte Webb wrote:
Of course the easiest strategy would be to have all infobox templates derived from an abstract base class, i.e. a meta-template (which, when edited, would globally affect all templates inheriting their properties from it).
Well, how about we boldly get that started? :) I note that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox is almost completely unused, it's just sitting there as a chunk of example text that's meant for copying and pasting as a starter point for new infoboxes. It's linked from fewer than 500 pages, and the transclusions that I've sampled all appear to be transcluded in error. So let's hijack it.
I've whipped up a quick and dirty "meta-Infobox" at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bryan_Derksen/Template_sandbox
It's pretty basic but it includes the common features I've seen on most infoboxes and I'm sure that over time people with better parser skills than I will be able to extend it with others; this is just intended to get the ball rolling. If nobody raises any strenuous objections, I'll clean up the transclusions of {{Infobox}} and move the new meta-template's code over.