[[:Category:term cleanup/with sc]]
Shouldn't instances of {term} that leave the first parameter blank be filtered out since they don't create links?
It seemed to me that the two main reasons for making lang mandatory was to link to correct sections and to identify links to terms in certain languages, but correct me if I'm wrong (not a rhetorical device; I'm being sincere). And those two cases don't apply if there is no link created.
But now that I think about it I guess using {term} when there is no language isn't ideal.
If there is no language for a given term, and it's not translingual, then what is it? In any case, though, language codes have a purpose even without linking: they mark the text as being in that language, and select the script for that language. Of course, if the script has been provided explicitly, then there is no reason to automatically determine the script, but the first point still holds. If you write Eisenbahn in a page, then is by default marked as an English word, while Eisenbahn is marked as German. You don't see a difference, but there is a difference in the underlying markup.
Just from cleaning up a few entries I've seen {term} used for "terms" in Germanic (lolwut - maybe you can make sense of it?) and used to link a term to itself as a very roundabout way to just put the pagename in italics.