Editing Help:Transclusion (section)

==Drawbacks==
{{Shortcut|H:TRANSDRAWBACKS|}}
{{see|Wikipedia:Transclusion costs and benefits}}

Like many software technologies, transclusion comes with a number of drawbacks. The most obvious one being the cost in terms of increased machine resources needed; to mitigate this to some extent, [[Wikipedia:Template limits|template limits]] are imposed by the software to reduce the complexity of pages. Some further drawbacks are listed below.

*Transcluded text may have [[Wikipedia:Verifiability|no sources]] for statements that should be [[WP:BURDEN|sourced where they appear]],  have different [[WP:CITEVAR|established reference styles]],  contain [[Help:Cite errors/Cite error references no text|no-text cite errors]], or [[Help:Cite errors/Cite error references duplicate key|duplicate key errors]]. (To help mitigate these, see [[Help:Cite errors]])
*Excerpts break the link between article code and article output.
*Changes made to transcluded content often do not appear in watchlists, resulting in unseen changes on the target page. 
*Transcluded text may cause [[MOS:REFLINK|repeated links]] or have different [[MOS:ENGVAR|varieties of English]] and [[WP:DATERET|date formats]] than the target page. 
*Transclusions may not reflect [[Wikipedia:Protection policy|protection levels]], resulting in transcluded text perhaps having a different [[WP:PPLIST|level of protection]] than the target page. See [[WP:CASCADE|Cascading protection]]
*{{tl|excerpt}} and related templates may require using {{tag|noinclude|o}}, {{tag|includeonly|o}} and {{tag|onlyinclude|o}} markup at the transcluded page to have [[WP:SELECTIVETRANSCLUSION|selective content]]; that would require monitoring that the markup is sustained. 
*Excerpts cause editors to monitor transcluded pages for  "section heading"  changes to ensure transclusion continues to work. (To help mitigate this, see [[MOS:BROKENSECTIONLINKS]])
*Excerpts can result in content discussions [[WP:CROSS-POST|over multiple talk pages]] that may have different considerations or objectives for readers.