diversity
Inasmuch as there have been some thoughtful responses on an apparent problem in the en.wikipedia community, all of you have missed an important subtlety to my point. (Maybe it's just because I did a poor job of explaining it.) My issue is not that we Wikipedians ought to be more civil to each other (although there are times when the appropriate response is, "Fuck you"), but that many Wikipedians fail to even take a moment to learn the basics about the person she/he is debating with -- which leads to faux pas almost as glaring as an established editor putting a warning template on Jimmy Wales' talk page. (Not that Wales hasn't made edits I've considered stupid, but I wouldn't tell him as much with a template.)
If Wikipedians would first take a quick look at another's user page, associated talk page, & edit history -- all of which could be done in a matter of a couple minutes -- then use that information in how she/he respond to that person, I believe it would be an important step forward. Not only would people come to address one another more intelligently, but they would more likely write persuasive messages. And if enough of them did so on a regular basis, we might reach the point where Noraft's crusade for civility would be worth pursuing.
I'm tempted to ban all or most message templates. They tend to be completely ineffective. New user templates tend to come off as impersonal, robotic, and unwelcoming. And templating the regulars? It's a disaster, for exactly the reasons you mentioned.
It's been a while since I've been on Wikipedia... but I can't remember the last time I saw a template on a user page that was nice.