Thread:Project:Support desk/subst: and safesubst: ?

I'm trying to copy infobox templates from Wikipedia to a personal mediawiki, but I've hit a snag with the subst: and safesubst: functions that i simply cannot wrap my head around.

The page I am looking at is Wikipedia:Template:Br separated entries. I need this for formatting infobox tables, but when I copy it over to my mediawiki, all of the safesubst: tags get transcluded as Template:safesubst:. It is not a template, obviously. There's some reason for mediawiki reading it like this listed on Wikipedia's help page for subst and safesubst, but I just don't understand how it is supposed to work. I know that it's for transclusion-type scenarios where you want the transcluded info to be permanent instead of changing when the original transcluded material is edited, but when I look at the source code for Br separated entries, it looks as if the values following |safesubst: is blank? I just want to be able to tell what it was that was being substituted on this template so I can try to fix it on my mediawiki installment.

Can someone who understands substitution spell this out for me? The help page said something about having to replace safesubst: with just subst:, but none of the listed methods for doing so were working. I'm having a really hard time with this. Thanks in advance.