Templates are pages that you can include on another page. They are usually used to insert boilerplate messages that need to be displayed on more than one page. Templates are quite versatile and can be used to accomplish many things. For example, some specialized uses for templates are:

• Displaying a different page each day (like the Tip of the day, Pic of the day, etc.)
• Infoboxes (e.g., Template:Infobox philosopher). To see Socrates in this infobox, click here.
• Displaying a random page (see this implemented at Wikipedia:Featured content).
• Navigation bars (e.g., Template:Portals browsebar).
• Navigation boxes (e.g., Template:Greek myth).
• WikiProject task boxes (e.g., Template:PhilosophyTasksBox).
• Page headers, like the header at the top of the Help Desk

To include a template on a page, enclose it in double curly brackets, leaving out the prefix "Template:", like this: {{In the news}}