Language codes in templates
A requirement for this to work is that the language code is mandatory. So part of the work is in making sure that all existing entries have a language.
Something else I've occasionally thought is that it would be great if the default language in any language-section were the language of that section (i.e. a language-less templated element in an English section would automatically be English). It seems to make sense and would save our poor fingers... I am probably missing some counterarguments, but I can't immediately think of any, except the lame one that it would inhibit manual copy-pasting where a second related language needs a similar entry.
I reckon that existing uses of term and context should be bot-replaced where possible; hopefully no new users will add the templates to pages, thus making the switchover more complete.
Before doing anything Dan doesn't like? Just look at this: Wiktionary:Beer_parlour/2015/November#Rhymes_navigation. Dan has been reverting a user just for using a template he doesn't like. He's made himself the consensus police, editor choice be damned. I think it's time that we just tell him to stuff it and no longer let him do this.
In your linked thread, Dan says something was done "by user CodeCat by a bot and without consensus". A vote is the way to gain concrete consensus before you do something; then you can safely do it without individual user opinions mattering, since they had the chance to vote against it. (If there was one, and Dan is wrong, then never mind, but I don't see you refuting it there.)
But every edit that is not endlessly discussed and voted on has no consensus, doesn't it? Clearly, some nonconsensual edits are allowed; someone is allowed to introduce a new template for a particular function for example. No vote was needed to introduce {{place}}, for example.
What's worse is that Dan is now using the supposed lack of consensus (in truth, only he has opposed anything) as an excuse to force his edits on other users. Since I protested against it, there's no consensus for his edits either.
The difference to me is that "every edit" can either cover individual edits or mass bot-work. You are obviously a skilled bot user and have done a lot of useful stuff, but if you are going to do it in handfuls of 1,000 entries then consensus becomes more of a big deal. As I said in the first post of this thread) for those who only edit manually, it can seem as though things keep getting pointlessly longer and fiddlier. Remember when we could put "cooking" instead of "context|cooking|lang=en"? I still miss that!
Sure it's important to have semantic markup, as this will lead us towards entries that are meaningful in themselves, but I don't think it's something that we should have to type ourselves on every edit. If we can't have sensible defaults, maybe we need a better editing facility, or some remote robotic arms (i.e. type an entry in simple markup and then some electronic middleman-entity fills in the missing, but required, details).
I think there is a very real risk that we end up with such a ton of template spaghetti that it gets in the way of the everyday editor who just wants to be able to define a damn word. And I say this as someone who used to work as a coder and is fairly familiar with regular expressions and FSAs and such. There's a time and a place...
I'm not saying don't do it. Just when it's a mass event then I wish you'd check with the rest of us first. I am not taking sides and I think you are both valuable editors but I can see why Dan sometimes feels the need to get militant about reversions in the face of this. k i'll shut up now