[Mediawiki-l] Template is closing unclosed tag (e.g. DIV)

[Gerrit Quast]

Hi,

some problem I was stating about a week ago already. I just give it
another try and hope for help:

Like in the portal-box skeleton template on mediawiki, I'd like to
have one template that opens a DIV container and a second one that
closes the DIV container. Between the two template calls I could place
my content. The DIV container can draw a nice portlet-like border
around the content then...

Since this is done exactly that way at mediawiki page and wikipedia, I
don't understand why it doesn't work for my installations (1.5.5
each).

The problem is that for every template, mediawiki closes tags that
left open. The second template (only the closing DIV) is escaped and
appears as clear text.

Does anyone know how to switch off this feature in case it is one?

Thanks a lot, Gerrit