Last week I run into several instances of templates on Commons not working in the predictable way. Some of them do not work properly and issues can be fixed by changing order of arguments in the template. For example http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Creator:Auguste_Angellier does not show the content of the "name" field and template is in Category:LangSwitch_template_without_English_version http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:LangSwitch_template_without_ English_version , which is added automatically to incorrect uses of Template:LangSwitch. I copied the exact copy of Creator:Auguste_Angellier wikicode to http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Creator:Just_a_test, and this template works as it supposed to do.
The problem is not unique, another template was "fixed" by http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Creator:Paul_Acker&diff=p rev&oldid=90023607 edit which mostly changed order of the arguments. There are more of those like http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Creator:Derick_Baegert. When unexplainable things happen with templates on Commons it is often a problem with expansion limit, however this time that is not an issue. Any ideas what might be causing same wikicode to work differently at different places?
Jarek T.
User:Jarekt