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I just came across Template:Taxonomy/Saturniiformes which has rank set to "series" and is just below superfamily in rank. There are a few taxonomy templates for plant series (as a rank below subgenus/sectio), e.g. Template:Taxonomy/Banksia ser. Ochraceae. I know manual taxoboxes have |zoodivisio= and |zoosectio= to account for different placement of plant/animal division/section ranks in the taxonomic hierarchy. And there is a numeric value associated with the rank parameters recognized by manual taxoboxes that ensures they display the hierarchy in the right order. I guess the numeric value isn't used by automatic taxoboxes? The order in which ranks are displayed is determined solely by successive parent parameters?

Should there be a "zooseries" rank? Everything seems to be working OK with the plant/animal series templates I've linked above. I guess series isn't checked by Category:Taxonomy templates showing anomalous ranks since it seems like putting series below both superfamily and sectio would be anomalous one way or the other. Plantdrew (talk) 20:40, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Oops, realized everything is NOT quite working OK. Saturniiformes is italicized by the taxonomy template (which would be correct for the plant rank). Plantdrew (talk) 20:42, 31 January 2023 (UTC)

Series is used inconsistently and isn't checked by Module:Autotaxobox (it's commented out on line 821). It is italicised because of Template:Is italic taxon which italicises series, subseries, and section ranks.

A zooseries rank would make sense if there was a need and it was used consistently. Template:Taxonomy/Saturniiformes is used for families Saturniidae and Lemoniidae in Bombycoidea. However, no other series are used in Bombycoidea and the template was created in 2010 with no source. The parent source doesn't use series and Lemoniidae is no longer recognised. I think it can be deleted after changing Template:Taxonomy/Saturniidae. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:40, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I've changed the parent on Saturniidae, so Template:Taxonomy/Saturniiformes will be unnecessary when the change propagates. —  Jts1882 | talk  08:48, 1 February 2023 (UTC)

I've reviewed the taxonomy of Lepidoptera and cleared out all the old suprafamiliar taxa (except for a few with articles). The taxonomy template heirarchy follows van Nieukerken et al (2011)^[1] at family and above, except for a few new families (which are sourced) and a couple I'm still thinking about whether to move or find an alternative source.—  Jts1882 | talk  18:05, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

I recently created a manual taxobox, which is more-or-less ok, at Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae. There are more articles at this rank: see Category:Forma specialis taxa. The articles I've looked at use two main approaches to a taxobox:

• Alternaria alternata f.sp. cucurbitae uses a manual taxobox, but wrongly since "Alternaria alternata f.sp. cucurbitae" is a trinomial name, not a binomial name.
• Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. asparagi uses {{Subspeciesbox}}, which (a) is meant for ICZN names – {{Infraspeciesbox}} is used for ICNafp names (b) has "Subspecies: F. o. f.sp. pisi" which is clearly wrong.

My recollection is that we discussed adding the rank of form/forma to {{Infraspeciesbox}} and decided not to do so on the grounds that there would be few articles needing it and it would make the template yet more complicated. My preference, I think, is to accept that a forma specialis taxon should use a manual taxobox and revise {{Taxobox}} to accept "forma_specialis" in addition to form/forma so that it can display e.g. "Forma specialis: P. coronata f.sp. avenae".

What do others think? Peter coxhead (talk) 16:34, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

There are a handful of articles on bacteria with different infraspecific ranks. Some are in Category:Pathovars. Bacterial blight of cotton is a pathovar using {{Paraphyletic group}} with custom parameters for the rank. El Tor is a strain, and Escherichia coli NC101 is a serotype, both also using the paraphyletic group template. I think custom rank parameters may be the way to go, perhaps in {{Automatic taxobox}}, since that already has support for custom genus/species/binomials. May also be worth considering whether Wikipedia should even have articles for some of these "taxa". Plantdrew (talk) 19:15, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

Custom rank parameters are implemented in {{Paraphyletic group}} via Jts1882's Module:Biota infobox. It can be driven from a differently named template for clarity, but on reflection, this is the best way forward, since Jts1882 has already done almost all the work needed.

@Jts1882: the custom connecting terms appear in smaller font, which isn't the format we use.

Peter coxhead (talk) 21:48, 24 May 2023 (UTC)

I have now modified Module:Biota infobox so that it doesn't put connecting terms, like "var." or "f.sp." in smaller font. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:36, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I've created {{Infraspeciesbox special}} as a more obviously titled front-end to Module:Biota infobox for special infraspecific ranks. So far I've not found any problems. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:20, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I've now converted a few articles to use {{Infraspeciesbox special}}, which can be checked:

• Bacterial blight of cotton
• El Tor (should, I think, be at "Vibrio cholerae str. El Tor" or at least "Vibrio cholerae El Tor")
• Escherichia coli NC101
• Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. asparagi
• Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae ("f.sp." without a space seems more common)

I see two issues, which are illustrated by the last example, Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae:

• The extra/special rank line in the taxobox just has the epithet, but should be preceded by the abbreviated species name plus connecting term: compare the Variety and Forma specialis rows.
• The trinomial box should contain only the last (lowest) infraspecific rank – using all four makes it a "quadrinomial" (and is wrong under the ICNafp).

I won't attempt to alter the code for these issues; it needs input from Jts1882. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:48, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Replies and comments:

• I'm trying to remember why the |infraspecies_rank1= was left bare in the taxobox rather than including the abbreviate species name. For the strain in El Tor it seems reasonable. Should this be V. cholerae str. El Tor (i.e. the abbreviated trinomial name) or does it need different treatment?
• The trinomia/quadrinomial point is noted. I was unaware of the ICNafp convention.
• On using the small text for the connecting terms, I saw this somewhere and thought it a nice convention. It's similar to using small for authorities, in that is makes the different parts of the name clearer, even though its not a convention used much (or at all?) outside Wikipedia. I've no problem with the change, though.

I'll have a look at making the changes when I have time to properly check the results. That bit of code is tricky, not helped by my choice of parameter names, which in retrospect are a bit confusing. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:25, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I think the trinomial is now correct (no quadrinomial terms). —  Jts1882 | talk  15:25, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

I've made some changes to add abbreviated species names (i.e. G. s.) in infraspecies rows of the taxon hierarchy. Is this as wanted? —  Jts1882 | talk  16:16, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

Looks good to me. I noticed a couple parameters that aren't supported, |species_link= and |type_strain=, although I'm not certain they should be supported.

In the absence of |species_link=, bacterial blight of cotton links to a redirect in the species line (Xanthomonas axonopodis redirects to Citrus canker). In that case the solution is probably to create an article for Xanthomonas axonopodis; citrus canker is pv. citri, so there should be an article for the species that has pathovars infecting citrus, cotton and cassava. And I suspect in most cases where we have an article at the common name (of a disease), the title will refer a particular host, in which case there should probably be an article at the species title with subarticles for f.sp./pv. taxa that infect particular hosts. So |species_link= may not be needed at all.

Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris had a type strain in the manual taxobox which I've retained, but it doesn't display. Infraspecific ranks aren't governed by the rules of the prokaryote code, although it does have recommendations on how to use them. Given that they aren't subject to the rules of the code, I'm not sure that a designation of a type strain really applies, so |type_strain= may not be needed either. Plantdrew (talk) 16:40, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: looks good to me too – thanks for the changes.

@Plantdrew: I agree that we should always have a species article for things like f.sp./pv. taxa – and in many cases I suspect that it's better to deal with the subtaxa in that article, rather than creating separate ones. It's not something I interested in working on though – I only got involved because Puccinia coronata f. sp. avenae had been showing up for quite a while in the missing taxobox subcategory of Category:Taxobox cleanup which I monitor regularly, and it finally irritated me enough to try to fix it.

Peter coxhead (talk) 17:10, 25 May 2023 (UTC)

{{Infraspeciesbox special}} has "Trinomial name" linking to Infraspecific name (botany), which is a redirect to Infraspecific name; the redirect should be bypassed (although I don't see much value in having that as a link at all (especially since it's inconsistent; manual taxoboxes for ranks above species and {{Automatic taxobox}} don't have a link like this, it's only for species (as "binomial name") and infraspecies)).

Manual taxoboxes for plant infraspecies also link to Infraspecific name (botany); see e.g. Ulmus × hollandica var. insularum. Manual taxoboxes for animal infraspecies link to trinomen (which redirects to Trinomial nomenclature); see e.g. Onithochiton neglectus neglectus. I'm not sure how related that is to the link in {{Infraspeciesbox special}}; presumably the different links in plants vs. animals with manual taxoboxes is related to the logic that governs the taxobox color, but I just tested {{Infraspeciesbox special}} in an animal article and it linked to Infraspecific name (botany). {{Subspeciesbox}} and {{Infraspeciesbox}} both produce links to "trinomial nomenclature" (see e.g. Kamchatka brown bear and Paeonia daurica subsp. wittmanniana). Plantdrew (talk) 19:42, 26 May 2023 (UTC)

The manual taxoboxes set the link based on the kingdom (see {{taxobox/core}}, line 148), which links to trinomen for animals or to Infraspecific name (botany) for plants and fungi. As I didn't have access to the kingdom, I used the zoological link when using |auto=subspeciesbox and the botanical link when using |auto=infraspeciesbox. The new template {{infraspeciesbox special}} uses the latter. However, I now see that both {{subspeciesbox}} and {{infraspeciesbox}} link to Trinomial nomenclature, the deafult of the switch statement. Perhaps it would be best for all taxoboxes to use that link and remove the kingdom=specific links.

On the parameter comments above, |type_strain= should have been supported, but I hadn't allowed the parameter for the |auto=infraspeciesbox option. It now accepts the parameter with or without the underscore. I've added |species_link= and |species_extinct= and will add |subspecies_link= and |subspecies_extinct= when I find an example to test. As an aside, is parameter |species_link= needed, as there should be redirects for scientific names to common name page titles. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:45, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for these updates/fixes. I guess the only justification for |species_link= is that some of us that have different display colours set for redirects, tend to see a redirect in taxobox as a possible error, so it's tidier to have all the links blue. I accept it's a marginal case. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

Proposal to change parameter names.

Currently the parameters are:

• |infraspecies_rank1= – name of the taxon
• |infraspecies_rank1_name= – name of the rank
• |infraspecies_rank1_abbrev= – abbreviation for separator

I find that confusing as {{para|infraspecies_rank1} can be read as the name of the rank rather than the name of the taxon. So I propose a change to:

• |infraspecies1_name= – name of the taxon
• |infraspecies1_rank= – name of the rank
• |infraspecies1_abbrev= – abbreviation for separator

I can make the code changes leaving the older names, which can be removed later. Or can someone suggest better names? —  Jts1882 | talk  10:01, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I do agree that the existing parameter names aren't the best, and I prefer the proposed alternatives. It's also more consistent with other parameters to put the number on the first part of the parameter name as in |image_caption= and |image2_caption= or |status_system= and |status2_system= – although these examples suggest that the "1" parameters should have aliases without the "1" for full consistency. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:17, 27 May 2023 (UTC)

I Support the alternative parameter names. Plantdrew (talk) 02:24, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

When I hover over the scientific classification edit link in an automatic taxobox (the pencil icon), the mouseover text merely reads "e" instead of "edit". I don't know if this is intended (if so, it is somewhat confusing). If it isn't intended, could it please be fixed? The problem doesn't occur on {{speciesbox}} (where the mouseover text reads "edit"), but it is also present on {{oobox}}, as far as I can tell. Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 16:47, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

{{Automatic taxobox}} and {{speciesbox}} both set the mouseover text as a parameter, while {{subspeciesbox}} uses the default in {{Edit taxonomy}}, i.e. "Edit this classification". When discussing the change in the pencil icon, it was suggested we standardise and remove the custom options for the different taxobox templates. I think this is a good idea, using the default "Edit this classification", unless someone has a text suggestion. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:32, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

I've never understood why the mouseover text was a parameter; it goes way back to the creation of the automated taxobox system, so I've just left it when converting to Lua. I strongly agree that it should be removed and a standard text used: "Edit this classification" seems fine to me. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:23, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

I've edit {{Edit taxonomy}} to remove the option for mouseover text and always show "Edit this classification".

However, the |edit link= is still required as it acts as a flag to display the icon in {{taxobox/core}}. An alternative would be to use |parent= as the flag as that is the parameter used to flag the classification hierarchy table. Then the parameter can be removed from the taxobox templates (and the function in the module for automatic taxoboxes). —  Jts1882 | talk  09:13, 11 June 2023 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: What do you think about eliminateing the |edit link= parameter? —  Jts1882 | talk  15:38, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

@Jts1882: I'm always reluctant to touch {{taxobox/core}} if it can be avoided, but it's odd to have this parameter when it no longer has a real use, so I agree – eliminate it. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:20, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

I'm working on a project to remove uses of the infobox class and came across the following pages.

1. {{Automatic taxobox/editintro/preload}}
2. {{Automatic taxobox/editintro/preload/?}}
3. {{Automatic taxobox/editintro/preload/??}}
4. {{Automatic taxobox/editintro/preload/incertae sedis}}
5. {{Automatic taxobox/editintro/sameas}}
6. {{Automatic taxobox/floating intro}}

Can someone give me some insight into what the tables at right are being used for (in each, if necessary)? Izno (talk) 04:12, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

@Izno: when an editor creates a taxonomy template, the first five provide a 'skeleton' to be filled in, appropriate to the kind of taxonomy template. E.g. if you created "Template:Taxonomy/FAMILY/?" (where FAMILY is replaced by the name of a family) the second would be used. The last provides the general introduction you get when creating a taxonomy template. Try clicking on Template:Taxonomy/Nonsense.

Do the tables with explanatory examples need class="infobox biota"? Not that I can see; it's just the format chosen by Smith609 in 2011. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:35, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

(edit conflict)

They are all ancillary templates for the taxobox system and most illustrate part of the taxobox output so use the same classes as the taxobox tables. The use of the infobox class was introduced in 2006 with this edit and the important use is now in {{taxobox/core}}. If the goal is to remove the CSS to templatestyles, is there (or will there be) a generic {{infobox/styles.css}} or should we create a {{taxobox/styles.css}} that can be used in all the taxobox templates? —  Jts1882 | talk  06:45, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

There is already a Module:Infobox/styles.css, yes. It currently lacks the styles found in MediaWiki:Common.css. The objective however is not to call that directly, as doing so will be more work later down the road when I (or maybe some ambitious successor) attempt to change infoboxes to use HTML div rather than table (see also MediaWiki talk:Common.css/to do#Remnants of things). You can start thinking about that now if you want, but this template isn't the only one that would make that difficult right now, and I've been focusing on the easier cases (like the 4k uses in mainspace of the class directly and the non-infobox uses in the template/module spaces). Izno (talk) 18:10, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

most illustrate part of the taxobox output so use the same classes as the taxobox tables This is what I was trying to make sure I understood. Which of the 6 actually do that and which of the 6 are just "consistency with the others"/"pretty styling"? Izno (talk) 18:13, 15 June 2023 (UTC)

30 June 2023 update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto	# auto added since 30 December 2022	# manual subtracted
Algae	2105	278	2383	88.3	28	5
Amphibians and Reptiles	22170	219	22389	99.0	1189	12
Animals	10084	2058	12142	83.1	396	186
Arthropods	9908	3424	13332	74.3	859	189
Beetles	22341	15703	38044	58.7	1792	1799
Birds	14291	81	14372	99.4	96	3
Bivalves	1660	34	1694	98.0	16	-1
Cephalopods	1999	568	2567	77.9	30	2
Dinosaurs	1632	1	1633	99.9	14	3
Diptera	13385	2642	16027	83.5	712	185
Fishes	23998	1862	25860	92.8	1880	806
Fungi	9643	5684	15327	62.9	690	113
Gastropods	24442	9750	34192	71.5	1766	1603
Insects	52855	25318	78173	67.6	3428	2676
Lepidoptera	69755	28593	98348	70.9	3427	3459
Mammals	8206	153	8359	98.2	155	31
Marine life	7944	1320	9264	85.8	360	148
Microbiology	6244	6693	12937	48.3	484	434
Palaeontology	14090	3736	17826	79.0	387	60
Plants	78452	964	79416	98.8	2561	1006
Primates	980	0	980	100	-1	0
Protista	170	25	195	87.2	67	-4
Rodents	3120	29	3149	99.1	58	1
Sharks	818	49	867	94.3	14	1
Spiders	9698	0	9698	100	223	0
Tree of Life	82	11	93	88.2	3	0
Turtles	754	1	755	99.9	7	1
Viruses	1714	56	1770	96.8	6	2
Total	364568	93154	457722	79.6	18579	11535

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Bats	1597	0	1597	100
Cats	180	0	180	100
Cetaceans	433	0	433	100
Dogs	243	0	243	100
Equine	107	0	107	100

Parrosaurus is the only dinosaur with a manual taxobox, may end up being merged. Solitudo is only turtle now (and not linked from stated parent Testudinidae) but Hoan Kiem turtle had a manual taxobox last time around and IMHO shouldn't have a taxobox of any kind. I don't know what's going on with beetles and Lepidoptera; the total for beetles is down by 7 since last time, and down by 32 for Lepidoptera. Perhaps a bunch of articles on synonyms have been merged, or maybe I made a mistake in my last update. Primates has total articles down by 1. The -1 value for bivalve manual taxoboxes removed means that there is one more article with a manual taxobox than last time. For protists -4 is due to more articles being tagged for the project (many relevant articles are still untagged).

Progress the last 6 months was slower than it has ever been since I started tracking "# manual subtracted" (in June 2021), and is likely slower than it has been since I began these reports in 2017. I had been responsible for a large number of manual subtractions due to my efforts to implement automatic taxoboxes for plants, but plants are almost done now so my contributions have dwindled (although I still am making some efforts to implement automatic taxoboxes in various groups of organisms). Progress on fish had been stalled for awhile but picked back up in the last 6 months.

I have some detailed notes breaking remaining plant manual taxoboxes down by family at User:Plantdrew/Plant automatic taxobox progress. Less detailed notes at User:Plantdrew/Animal automatic taxobox progress that break animals down by phylum, and insects and fishes by order. Plantdrew (talk) 19:53, 30 June 2023 (UTC)

Presently, the only guidance I can find regarding the format for a list of synonyms is here, and as a practicing taxonomist, I find the given example runs exactly counter to the convention in all scientific catalogues of names. That is, in catalogues (print catalogues, not databases), synonyms are always given in chronological order, never alphabetical. The example given puts the two names in alphabetical order, rather than chronological. That approach is confusing, to be honest, and not nearly as useful as a chronological listing. This is increasingly important as the list of names gets longer. It is also especially important when one or more of the names in the list of synonyms is OLDER than the name in use for the taxon; this situation in taxonomy is rare, and it is especially noteworthy, but it is only readily visible when the list is chronological. I would like to suggest that Wikipedia should expressly adopt a policy to follow chronological order for lists of synonyms, as there does not presently appear to be any formal policy at all, and in the absence of an existing policy, perhaps establishing one will not be controversial. If necessary, I can raise this topic over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life, but this seems like the correct place to start the discussion, at least. Dyanega (talk) 18:09, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• I too prefer the advantages of the chronological listing of synonyms, and would support changing the format in the example listing, and stating there explicitly that this is the desired format. Esculenta (talk) 18:59, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Esculenta:, I haven't paid much attention to how Species Fungorum arranges synonyms. I see there's one view with them alphabetical and another with them chronological (and with homotypic synonyms grouped together). Is the chronological order a recent feature? Is the alphabetical order something that will be maintained or discontinued? Are the chronological views (GSD) available for all species? I'm confused why the record for Anaptychia ciliaris has a link (only) to the alphabetical list and the record for Aspergillus glaucus has a link (only) to the chronological/GSD list (although lists in both arrangements exist for both species and can be found by pasting the appropriate ID into the appropriate URL for a particular arrangement). Plantdrew (talk) 19:56, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• I don't really know the details, but it looks like in cases where Species Fungorum get their synonymy data from external Global Species Databases, they get ordered chronologically, with each entry linked. If the synonymy data comes from Index Fungorum, it's in alphabetical order and not linked. I hadn't even noticed before that both arrangements could be had with different URLs, so thanks for pointing that out (I will definitely be linking to the "better" synonymy list from now on). Esculenta (talk) 21:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• Dyanega This is best raised at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of Life where the most amount of eyes will see it and will encompass the ICNafp editors as well, rather then possibly missing them.--Kevmin § 19:17, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
• The example isn't alphabetical OR chronological. I think this would be better to discuss at TOL (while the page is watched by ICNafp editors, I'm not sure that the proposal was made with ICNafp editors in mind; the arrangement of a chronological list would appear un-intuitive if dates are omitted, and synonym lists in plant articles rarely include dates). Plantdrew (talk) 19:40, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

I hadn't realized that botanists omitted the years from synonym lists. That would certainly change the recommended policy based on Kingdom. So, your recommendation is to start a thread on WT:TOL, then? Dyanega (talk) 20:50, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Yes, this should be at TOL for visibility needs.--Kevmin § 22:00, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

@Dyanega:, botanists do include years in the types of publications I think you're referring to (revisions, monographs, etc.) and do order synonyms chronologically in those publications. Lists of synonyms in Wikipedia articles on plants don't typically include years (and are generally sourced from databases that arrange synonyms alphabetically, and which may not include years (or any publication details) in the view of the synonyms of a particular accepted species (the database may have year/publication details if you click through to the record for a particular synonym). Sorting lists of plant synonyms chronologically would entail significant effort in adding years to the lists before the list could even be re-sorted. For animals, the years would already be present as part of the standard zoological authority citation. Plantdrew (talk) 22:39, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

• The synonym section in the taxobox often isn't used for a formal list of synonyms, at least for higher taxa. Often or possibly most of the time it's just some of the more common ones. Would this policy encourage putting complete synonym lists in the taxobox? While I prefer chronological order as it provides information on the history, a lot of the commonly used sources are databases that use alphabetical order. —  Jts1882 | talk  06:37, 17 October 2023 (UTC)

New thread has been started, Thanks. Dyanega (talk) 23:49, 16 October 2023 (UTC)

Is there a way to delete taxonomy templates that are no longer in use? The fungal family Arthopyreniaceae is now considered to be a synonym of Trypetheliaceae, so we no longer need its associated taxonomy template. MeegsC (talk) 21:06, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

Blank the code and add the template to Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates. Plantdrew (talk) 21:10, 21 October 2023 (UTC)

In this edit of Arbutus andrachne, |display_parents= had the value as Arbutoideae. The taxobox displays subfamily Arbutoideae, which is 2 parents up from the species. I experimented a little, and it appears that any (?) non-numeric value for |display_parents= results in displaying 2 parents (I tried alphabetic and non-alphanumeric characters). It's not a big deal, but it is strange behavior. Plantdrew (talk) 03:23, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

Looks like the expression (#expr) on line 46 of {{speciesbox}} returns an error when there is not a number and that is passed to the module as value of |display_taxa= instead of the default zero. The tonumber() at line 111 of Module:Autotaxobox returns nil rather than the expected/default zero and that sets displayN to 2 instead of 1, which is the intended default for {{speciesbox}}, whereas in Module:Automated_taxobox |display_taxa= defaults 1, which sets displayN to 2. The fix needs to be in {{speciesbox}} and the expression error. Those parse functions are horrible to deal with. —  Jts1882 | talk  09:04, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

I recently came across the Wikipedia article for clades, and a lot of Wikipedia articles for the Tree of life are missing this more modern take on taxonomy. I think it should probably be part of a template, but I'm not sure how it should be laid out. It would be great if an editor with more knowledge or official authority on this topic could comment on this. Galactiger (talk) 11:56, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. The taxonomy templates accept "clade" as a rank, which is used extensively. See, e.g., the classification at Template: Taxonomy/Dinosauria. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:07, 27 December 2023 (UTC)

I've attempted to create a taxonomic template for this genus but for some reason it doesn't seem to be generating correctly. Could someone more knowledgable than me suggest ways in which I can rectify this? Thanks in advance for the assistance. Ambrosia10 (talk) 21:37, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

@Ambrosia10, I just think you had the breaks wrong. Fixed now. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:50, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your help! Much appreciated. Ambrosia10 (talk) 22:07, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I'm trying to make a taxonomy template for my first article Bubodens, but when I try to create it I get a permission error with "Due to the high impact of editing taxonomy templates, it has been decided to disallow new users to edit them...." How can I get this taxonomy template made for my page? Mojoceratops66 (talk) 08:17, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@Mojoceratops66: I saw your draft was accepted and created the speciesbox. You can always use the old manual {{taxobox}} system, and someone (like me) will come along and make the automated version. Or ping me and I'll be happy to do it. - UtherSRG (talk) 12:32, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

Thank you!! Mojoceratops66 (talk) 16:21, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

@Mojoceratops66: You can also ping me. Actually, if you just leave an article with a non-functioning automated taxobox (I understand why editors are reluctant to do this), the article will appear in one or more of the subcategories of Category:Taxobox cleanup, which a number of us monitor regularly, and the taxobox will get fixed. After you've been editing a while you will be able to create taxonomy templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:40, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

30 December update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto	# auto added since 30 June 2023	# manual subtracted
Algae	2163	227	2390	90.5	58	51
Amphibians and Reptiles	22524	206	22730	99.1	354	13
Animals	11167	1158	12325	90.6	1083	900
Arthropods	10774	3067	13841	77.8	866	357
Beetles	24731	13421	38152	64.8	2390	2282
Birds	14358	62	14420	99.6	67	19
Bivalves	1674	32	1706	98.1	14	2
Cephalopods	2009	566	2575	78.0	10	2
Dinosaurs	1643	0	1643	100	11	1
Diptera	14160	2165	16325	86.7	775	477
Fishes	24408	1671	26079	93.6	410	191
Fungi	10655	5171	15826	67.3	1012	513
Gastropods	27510	7224	34734	79.2	3068	2526
Insects	57978	20719	78697	73.7	5123	4599
Lepidoptera	74631	23766	98397	75.8	4876	4827
Mammals	8301	144	8445	98.3	95	9
Marine life	8723	672	9395	92.8	779	648
Microbiology	6971	6030	13001	53.6	727	663
Palaeontology	14779	3474	18253	81.0	689	262
Plants	79920	611	80531	99.2	1468	353
Primates	979	0	979	100	-1	0
Protista	380	80	460	82.6	210	-55
Rodents	3137	28	3165	99.1	17	1
Sharks	829	45	874	94.9	11	4
Spiders	10040	0	10040	100	342	0
Tree of Life	89	6	95	93.7	7	5
Turtles	759	0	759	100	5	1
Viruses	1722	55	1777	96.9	8	1
Total	383888	76708	460596	83.3	19320	16446

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Cats	186	0	186	100
Cetaceans	439	0	439	100
Dogs	241	0	241	100
Equine	109	0	109	100

The template for the Bats taskforce was merged into the template for WikiProject Mammals since my last update. I can't track bats separately anymore, but they had been at 100% automatic taxoboxes for a couple years now. WikiProject Protista is slowly being added to more articles; there has been an increase in the number of tagged protist articles with manual taxoboxes. Primates has one less article than it did last time; perhaps a taxon has been lumped and an article merged.

All projects are now over 50% automatic taxoboxes and the majority are now over 90%.

I have some detailed notes breaking remaining plant manual taxoboxes down by family at User:Plantdrew/Plant automatic taxobox progress. Less detailed notes at User:Plantdrew/Animal automatic taxobox progress that break animals down by phylum, and insects and fishes by order. Plantdrew (talk) 03:10, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

Have you numbers on the number of new manual taxoboxes added, what percentage of all new taxoboxes they make, and the projects still using them? —  Jts1882 | talk  09:18, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882:, there isn't any easy way to get new manual taxoboxes by WikiProject. A PetScan search for articles with taxoboxes sorted by "not at all"/descending shows recently created articles. Of the most recent 20, 7 are moths, 3 fungi, 3 beetles, 2 arthropods, 2 eukaryote incertae sedis, 1 gastropod, 1 insect (Hymenoptera), and 1 (fossil) bird. Single editors (different ones) were responsible for 6 of the moths, 3 beetles, 2 fungi, 2 arthropods and 2 eukaryotes. 8 of the 20 are species and 12 are higher taxa.

82 articles with manual taxoboxes were created between 30 June 2023 and 30 December 2023. Assuming the difference between # auto added and # manual subtracted represents newly created articles (it mostly should), 2874 articles with automatic taxoboxes were created since June 2023. 82+2874=2956. 82 is 2.8% of 2956. Existing articles do occasionally get converted from automatic taxoboxes to manual by editors who want to update the classification without understanding how taxonomy templates work, but that number is negligible.

I guess the take away is that there are a small number of editors creating articles with manual taxoboxes, and they are mostly working in groups where uptake of automatic taxoboxes is relatively low. Groups with low uptake of automatic taxoboxes are going to be missing many taxonomy templates needed to create speciesboxes, but the articles being created with manual taxoboxes are mostly higher taxa, so having taxonomy templates in place probably isn't going to help very much (of the 8 species in the most recent 20, only 1 was in a genus that has an existing taxonomy template). Plantdrew (talk) 16:25, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

7214 articles were created with manual taxoboxes since 10 April 2017, which is when I started tracking stats on automatic taxoboxes. That was a little after automatic taxobox use really started to take off (but well before it was the norm; 13.2% of articles had an automatic taxobox at that point). So less than 10% of articles with manual taxoboxes were created after concerted efforts to use automatic taxoboxes began (obviously there are some articles that were created since 2017 with manual taxoboxes that have now been converted). Plantdrew (talk) 16:58, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

I guess a better date to pick would be 30 August 2018, when the RFC about preferring automatic taxoboxes closed. There are 3970 articles created with manual taxoboxes (and which still have them) since 30 August 2018. Plantdrew (talk) 21:16, 18 January 2024 (UTC)

Is there any precedent on taxoboxes for 'hypothetical' taxons? I guess they're all hypothetical at some level. YorkshireExpat (talk) 17:03, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

There is precedent; see e.g. Eocyte hypothesis and Articulata hypothesis (there's relevant discussion going on at Template_talk:Taxonbar#Further_discussion, with the newly created Wikidata item taxon hypothesis (Q124477390) stemming from that). I'm not sure that the precedent needs to be followed if something is really framed as a hypothesis (i.e., we might consider removing those taxoboxes).

It gets more complicated with Tactopoda and Antennopoda, which are framed as "proposed clades", but which represent mutually exclusive hypotheses regarding the relationship of tardigrades, arthropods and onychophorans.

Avifilopluma is another weird one. It was the last article tagged for WikiProject Dinosaurs to get an automatic taxobox. It is the clade of feathered animals, with feathers not being precisely defined, and it not being clear exactly which taxa would be included. Plantdrew (talk) 18:06, 13 February 2024 (UTC)

Ok, will leave alone for the moment. Thanks. YorkshireExpat (talk) 08:38, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

There are articles for Columbaves, Inopinaves and Aequorlitornithes (all from Prum et al, 2015), as well as Columbea and Passerea (from Jarvis et al 2014). Gruimorphae also has one, as do the more questionable Otidae and Gruae. While I think it is useful to have short articles clearly defining these proposals, perhaps the Neoaves article could be expanded discuss the alternative arrangements, which are currently shown in he cladograms. I think this new proposal certainly should be covered. —  Jts1882 | talk  10:37, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

Any interest in adding automatic links to wikispecies, commons categories and galleries, and wikidata at the bottom of our taxboxes to improve integration with our sister projects? Compare hr:Dracaena aethiopica / en:Dracaena aethiopica. Coded in hr:Template:Taksokvir (note the four tracking categories). Ponor (talk) 11:43, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

We use {{taxonbar}} to link to various taxon IDs, including wikidata, wikispecies, etc. All of the IDs are stored at Wikidata. We could consider adding commons and gallery to the taxonbar. @Tom.Reding and Jts1882: thoughts on this? - UtherSRG (talk) 12:21, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I was thinking of a more prominent place. {{Taxonbar}}, to me, is something that experienced editors might need, it's not very friendly to our readers. It's also not shown to >2/3 of them Ponor (talk) 12:41, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Instead of duplicating the effect in the taxobox, we can perhaps work to make the taxonbar available on mobile. - UtherSRG (talk) 14:46, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunate side-effects to that would include:

1. people complaining about WP:OVERLINKING
2. people removing {{Commons}}, {{Commons category}}, etc., due to the presence of a link in {{Taxonbar}}

I don't agree with this behavior, but it happens relatively often.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:09, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not against an unobtrusive addition at the bottom of the taxobox. However, as an infobox, the taxobox is supposed to summarize information on the taxon, so it is probably better for links to other resources to be elsewhere.

There was a previous discussion about including wikispecies and commons in the taxonbar or only using the templates {{Commons category}} and {{Wikispecies}} to avoid redundancy. In the end the status quo was kept (with Wikispecies in the taxonbar). I'm not adverse to adding the commons gallery or commons category.

The taxonbar doesn't appear on mobile because it uses Navbox, which is not allowed on mobile view for some reason (possibly because you can't collapse large navboxes or they are condised too large for downloading on phones). I believe there were some proposed changes aimed at making a mobile compliant navbox. @Tom.Reding: do you know anything on this? It would certainly be possible to make an alternative output for the taxonbar without using navbox, although this may go against decisions made elsewhere for such content (e.g. authority control). —  Jts1882 | talk  15:03, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

Mobile & style issues are sort of a black box to me. My impression is that there's a desire, and some work being done, to, at some point, make navboxes viewable on mobile, but I don't keep up with that at all. I don't know of another navbox-like utility (not that I've looked for one). If there were a flag or something in Lua that would designate a user's device as mobile or non-mobile, then an alternate method could be used (even something dumb like an un/ordered list, assuming consensus, etc., etc.).   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  15:22, 17 April 2024 (UTC)

There is no way of detecting the skin in Lua. It can only be done in JS or CSS. Without Wikimedia support, this means any solution must use CSS, which can be customised for different skins (including the mobile one, Minerva). I'm not sure how Navboxes are blocked in Mobile view, but I assume it's server side, as the HTML code for navbox is not on the page (although strangely their templatestyles is). An alternative output could mimick the navbox styles and hav different displays for mobile and desktop (or narrow and wide screen).

An alternative output from taxonbar shouldn't be too difficult. I did some experimenting in the module sandbox some time ago, using horizontal and vertical lists, with collapsible options. However, it would be good to find out what Wikimedia plans are for navboxes and mobile. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:39, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

---

Taxonbar appears to be overpopulated, uncurated, containing numerous links to, from a reader's perspective, low-quality sites (database dumps); on mobile devices this would be one half of the screen full of some links. On the other hand, I know that a link to the commons category/gallery will take me to moderately well-curated images of the species, which are made and heavily used by us. Since our articles don't have more than a picture of two, and many readers probably want to see more, I am still not convinced that adding a wikispecies link and one or two commons links would be a bad idea, as unobtrusive as we want it to be. While the taxobox is intended to summarize information on the taxon (meaning: classification), we already deviate from this by incorporating images, statuses, and range maps. Should this be discussed anywhere else? Can we BOLDly add it and wait for the avalanche? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ponor (talk • contribs)

Back in the old days, we did try putting those links in the taxobox. It got shot down. This is why Tom said what he did above. Those were the arguements against. - UtherSRG (talk) 13:04, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Taxonbar links are curated to some extent. We've decided not to include databases published by governments of non-English speaking countries. And there are many Wikidata properties for taxonomic databases that aren't included in taxonbars (where there has never been any discussion to include or exclude them).

I'm against including (potentially) 4 links to Wikispecies in desktop view. Currently links appear in the desktop sidebar, in the taxonbar, and via {{Wikispecies}} (if present). A link the in the taxobox would be a fourth. Sidebar and taxonbar links don't appear in mobile view. It would be good to enable links to Wikispecies and Commons in mobile in some way aside from {{Wikispecies}} and {{Commons}}. Plantdrew (talk) 19:51, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

I concur, PD.

Let's see if I can sum up. There's a desire for links to Wikispecies/CommonsCats/CommonsGal/Wikidata to be available to mobile users, if they exist. Taxonbar is where these are already present in desktop, but is suppressed in mobile, as is the sidebar where some of these links are present in desktop. Links to CC, CG and WS should be listed on WD, if they exist. So it seems that only a link to WD would suffice, though providing all four would ease the burden on the user to click through WD to get to the others.

This seems to be our list of current options, though they weren't all stated above:

1. Add these links as originally requested to the Taxobox system.
2. Add these links as originally requested to the Taxobox system, but have them appear only for mobile users; so CSS or JS changes
3. Tweak the CSS or JS (or ?) so that the Taxonbar appears on mobile
4. Tweak the CSS or JS (or ?) so that the Taxonbar appears on mobile, but in a limited form with just WS/CC/CG/WD, if available.

Option 1 is ruled out by history. It's a good ask, but I don't think it will ever see traction. All the rest, as far as I can figure, need someone who can tweak the CSS or JS so that the good magic happens. Do we need to poke elsewhere for CSS/JS/? support on this? - UtherSRG (talk) 00:38, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

Another option is to create a simple template that displays a box with the wikimedia links that only displays on mobile. If could be floated right below the taxobox or placed at the bottom of the page instead of the taxonbar. The taxobox or taxonbar templates could be used to place it automatically. It can be given a class so that it will only be shown in mobile (the CSS would be set using templatestyles). —  Jts1882 | talk  07:03, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

A summary of relevant differences between desktop and mobile views (mostly redundant with above discussion).

• Template {{taxonbar}} is only shown in desktop, so mobile views don't get information that is exclusive to taxonbar.
• In desktop, Wikispecies is shown in sidebar, taxonbar (if other identifiers) and in template {{Wikispecies}} or {{Wikispecies-inline}} (if present).
• In mobile, Wikispecies is only shown if template {{Wikispecies}} or {{Wikispecies-inline}} is on the page.
• In desktop, the Commons gallery or category is shown in the sidebar and in in template {{Commons}} or {{Commons-inline}} or {{Commons category}}
• In mobile, Commons gallery or category is only shown if template {{Commons}} or {{Commons-inline}} or {{Commons category}} is only page.
• Normally only one of the Commons gallery or category is linked. Both the sidebar and the commons templates show the gallery if it exists and the category if there is no gallery. Both can be linked if {{Commons category}} is also added.

In short, mobile users need the wikispecies and commons templates if they are to see wikimedia links. Some numbers:

• There are 314,455 pages with {{speciesbox}}. 25,328 have {{Wikispecies}}, 7,403 have {{Wikispecies-inline}}, 22,989 have {{Commons}}, 4,059 have {{Commons-inline}} and 16,686 have {{Commons category}} (with 28 of them having one of the other commons templates)
• There are 78,809 pages with {{automatic taxobox}}. 5,260 have {{Wikispecies}}, 4,371 have {{Wikispecies-inline}}, 1,955 have {{Commons}}, 1,732 have {{Commons-inline}} and 6,487 have {{Commons category}} (5 with both gallery and category links)
• There are 64,226 pages with {{taxobox}}. 3,415 have {{Wikispecies}}, 563 have {{Wikispecies-inline}}, 2,550 have {{Commons}}, 107 have {{Commons-inline}} and 1,611 have {{Commons category}} (2 with both gallery and category links)
• There are 461,962 pages with {{taxonbar}}. 34,305 have {{Wikispecies}}, 12,474 have {{Wikispecies-inline}}, 27,586 have {{Commons}}, 5,926 have {{Commons-inline}} and 25,121 have {{Commons category}} (39 with both gallery and category links)

In short, only about 10% of the pages on taxa have the wikimedia link templates. I thought it would be higher. A taxobox or taxonbar solution is easier than adding the wikimedia templates.—  Jts1882 | talk  09:04, 23 April 2024 (UTC)

30 June update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto	# auto added since 30 December 2023	# manual subtracted
Algae	2280	160	2440	93.4	117	67
Amphibians and Reptiles	22711	199	22910	99.1	187	7
Animals	11596	915	12511	92.7	429	243
Arthropods	11355	2719	14074	80.7	581	348
Beetles	26514	11994	38508	68.9	1783	1427
Birds	14405	48	14453	99.7	47	14
Bivalves	1696	28	1724	98.4	22	4
Cephalopods	2020	558	2578	78.4	11	8
Dinosaurs	1624	0	1624	100	-19	0
Diptera	15081	1565	16646	90.6	921	600
Extinction	796	31	827	96.3	NA	NA
Fishes	25302	960	26262	96.3	894	711
Fungi	12194	3932	16126	75.6	1539	1239
Gastropods	32419	2972	35391	91.6	4909	4252
Insects	61302	18450	79752	76.9	3324	2269
Lepidoptera	83659	14801	98460	85.0	9028	8965
Mammals	8401	124	8525	98.5	100	20
Marine life	8990	527	9517	94.4	267	145
Microbiology	7675	5393	13068	58.7	704	637
Palaeontology	15506	3198	18704	82.9	727	276
Plants	81558	188	81746	99.8	1638	423
Primates	983	0	983	100	4	0
Protista	778	150	928	83.8	398	-70
Rodents	3161	25	3186	99.2	24	3
Sharks	833	38	871	95.6	4	7
Spiders	10110	0	10110	100	70	0
Tree of Life	100	0	100	100	11	6
Turtles	760	0	760	100	1	0
Viruses	1736	55	1791	96.9	14	0
Total	407991	57001	464992	87.7	24103	19707

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Cats	185	0	185	100
Cetaceans	445	0	445	100
Dogs	241	0	241	100
Equine	109	0	109	100

I've added WikiProject Extinction to the table this time. WikiProject Protista continues to have tags added to existing articles, with a net increase in the number of tagged articles with a manual taxobox. WikiProject Dinosaurs recently merged a bunch of largely redundant articles for nodes in a cladogram, resulting in a net decrease in the number of articles tagged for that project. Plantdrew (talk) 17:12, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for doing these updates. Good to see progress. Did you include {{WikiProject Cacti}} in with the Plants totals? It doesn't look like that template automatically adds it to the parent WP like the other plants subprojects. awkwafaba (📥) 19:01, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

@Awkwafaba:, I did not include WikiProject Cacti in the totals. However, for the past several years, I've been running the "Taxon pages not tagged in WP ToL clade projects" query on your user page to ensure all taxobox articles are tagged for a project immediately before I start compiling an update of these numbers (and in general I run your query every couple of weeks, but haven't made it a priority to tag redirects). I did pick up several cacti articles and added WikiProject Plants tags before I started this update. None of the plant subprojects get picked up in a Petscan search for {{WikiProject Plants}}, so I have always done a separate search for Banksia/Carnivorous plants/Hypericaceae and added those results to the results for Plants when presenting these numbers (the other 3 subprojects aside from Cacti do contribute to the numbers reported in the assessment table for WikiProject Plants). Plantdrew (talk) 20:07, 1 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't really know how else to title this. I'm one of the editors on a wiki which focuses on recording fictional species made for a large collaborative speculative evolution project, and at some point for much the same reason you all did, we came up with an automated taxonomy system to reduce the pain of updating taxonomy for hundreds, even thousands of species. However, ours works a bit different from Wikipedia's, storing all taxonomy data in a centralized place--a JSON file. As all the data is in one place, it also allowed us to also be able to easily reverse the direction and display, for instance, all descendant taxa as well.

Looking at how Wikipedia does taxonomy, I noticed that there are places where it would make sense to automatically generate a list of descendant taxa. Most notably, the subdivision section of the automatic taxobox, and perhaps various other lists of genera and species around the wiki. I can't imagine pages like the list of Asteraceae genera being anything short of a nightmare to update and maintain, assuming its reputation among botanists is earned, and I could see it being worse for decently large mid-level taxa that are in a state of flux due to several new studies being published.

I think that the current system Wikipedia is using might make generating lists of child taxa impractical, but on the other hand, I wonder if the changes needed to support it would actually be considered worthwhile to those involved in this wikiproject. I know that for the aforementioned wiki I'm part of, this also made it much easier to browse taxonomy in general because readers and editors alike could reliably access related and descendant taxa from anywhere. And while editing is moderated on our wiki so we haven't had need for this, I can't help but imagine it would make it a bit easier to spot and fix vandalism as well because it would be plainly visible from higher taxa (which one might be more likely to view in some cases). Any thoughts on the idea? Disgustedorite (talk) 21:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

@Disgustedorite:, when automatic taxoboxes were first being developed (ca. 2011), there was an attempt to include automatic child taxa that was eventually abandoned. I don't know the details about why it didn't work.

There is a script (User:Jts1882/taxonomybrowser.js) that allows you to see the taxonomy in a tree view, with children.

However, not all articles are using automatic taxoboxes (~88% are using them, but that still leaves 50,000+ articles with manual taxoboxes). And Wikipedia doesn't have articles for every genus, let alone every species. Plantdrew (talk) 22:44, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

On our wiki we actually manually update some lower taxa on a species by species basis while the higher taxa are what is automated, since for a collaborative speculative evolution project with nearly 10 times as many species as there are dinosaurs and upwards of 200 more added every year, the frequency at which those are defined and updated can make dinosaur researchers jealous.

I just skimmed the source code of the taxonomy browser and...well, I suppose the processing impact doesn't matter that much when it's run on your own machine, lol. I will say using the search API and taking advantage of taxonomy being stored exclusively within the template namespace is pretty smart. Our strategy was to index child taxa and then search that index taxon by taxon, though having far fewer species than have been described in real life (and not actually having a page for every member of a genus of insects) gives us the advantage of not needing to actually maintain an index by hand (we have few enough taxa that it's economical to index it over again every time).

If I were to take a guess, I can see that Wikipedia has no extensions like Semantic MediaWiki (understandable given its current state), Cargo (I wouldn't use it either), or even DynamicPageList3 (performance hell), which leaves the search API and checking each and every result as basically the only option, which, even if it was possible in a module, I could imagine hitting memory limits fast. On our wiki, we're looking into making a sort of poor man's Semantic MediaWiki using an autonomous bot that records and indexes information about pages in various dedicated JSON files...but a bot-dependent system wouldn't fly here, right?

Although, Wikipedia does have CategoryTree, which I think is what our wiki attempted to use for taxonomy browsing...in 2007, when there were only a few hundred species. But in any case, using the various different parameters of its parser function, it might be possible to twist it into something like a poor man's DPL3 by having each taxonomy template page automatically be added to a category like "child taxon of Parentsnameidae" and then using several instances of the CategoryTree parser function (or just one that's been quite heavily altered by the lua script after it was generated, if that's possible) to display it. But that's also a lot of potential categories... Disgustedorite (talk) 00:33, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

While I agree it would be nice to have automatic child taxa, it really isn't practical for Wikipedia. Wikipedia has to be open for everyone to edit, which is why we have the template system over centralised JSON or Lua module methods, and NPOV means we have to be able to show alternative taxonomies over one agreed system.

The taxonomy browser was developed as a tool to manage the taxonomy templates. It picks up the parent-child relationship of templates, which most of the time is a taxonomic relationship but gets more confusing where there are alternative taxonomies. And any JS additions have to be opt-in. For a Wiki that could impose one taxonomy with a centralised JSON source, a JS addition to the taxobox would be possible.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:37, 21 July 2024 (UTC)

I've recently been updating things to the automated system, and today I dealt with Mawsonites. It's a genus defined by a fossil from hundreds of millions of years ago, and apparently there's not even a remote consensus about what it is (jellyfish? trace fossil? microbial colony? etc. etc. etc.). There was no {{taxonomy}} template for it, so I created Template:Taxonomy/Mawsonites, but ran into a couple things that I'm not sure I did correctly, and don't know how to "really" handle.

1. The existing {{taxobox}} listed it as in Animalia, then incertae sedis from there down to the genus itself. I put the existing "Animalia/incertae sedis" claim in the new taxonomy template. However, some of the theorized possibilities listed in the main article for the genus are not actually animals. Should its parent perhaps be set to {{Taxonomy/Incertae sedis/Life}} instead? I should note here that some of the theorized possibilities aren't even organisms, e.g. "mud volcano or other sedimentary structure", but the article reads like those theories are now thought to be very unlikely.

2. I wasn't sure what to do about the taxonomy template's "extinct" field. I guess at least the species is almost certainly extinct, since we apparently haven't kept finding these things, but the genus? Again, I'd guess extinct, but... what if it's just some jellyfish (I know that's not a genus, but that doesn't mean that its genus would necessarily be extinct)? Or even some weird mark left by a jellyfish? But as far as I can see from the documentation, "extinct" is just yes/no; I'm not sure if it's appropriate or even possible to instead set it to "probably" or "unknown" or whatever.

For what it's worth, I'm thinking "Incertae sedis/Life" and "extinct=yes", but instead of making it that way, I decided to just keep things as close as possible to the way they were in the pre-automated article, and raise my questions here. - Rwv37 (talk) 18:21, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

@Rwv37:, "Animalia/incertae sedis" seems appropriate. The Paleobiology Database lists the parent as Metazoa (i.e. Animalia) citing a 2004 paper. The 2004 paper actually discusses Mawsonites in the context of "medusoids". "Medusoids" does appear in quotation marks in the paper, suggesting that the authors are hedging their bets a bit; i.e., they are discussing fossils that have been classified as medusoids, but aren't definitively taking a position on whether the fossils mentioned are or are not actually medusoids. The source currently in the article for the statement "jellyfish (although this is considered unlikely)" actually says "not considered by Glaessner (1979) to be undoubtedly a jellyfish", which is not at all the same thing as "considered unlikely to be a jellyfish".

Based on what I've seen I think you could set the parent template to be Template:Taxonomy/Scyphozoa/? (questionably a jellyfish), but "Animalia/incertae sedis" works as well. The non-animal hypotheses for Mawsonites don't seem to be well supported.

For taxa known from fossils, you can pretty safely set "extinct=yes". If a genus is known from fossils as well as extant species a quick check on a search engine should turn up sources discussing the extant species. The absence of a † in a manual taxobox shouldn't be taken to indicate that extinct status is uncertain for a taxon that the article describes as being known from fossils. Plantdrew (talk) 21:10, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

Hello, please apply this fix to the module in production. Od1n (talk) 18:22, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

 Completed. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 20:19, 9 September 2024 (UTC)

I just updated Corcobara (a monotypic genus of moths) to use {{Automatic taxobox}} instead of {{Taxobox}}, and there's a bit that I'm not sure if I did right:

In the preexisting Taxobox, the authorities in the "Genus" and "Species" sections were both given as "Moore, 1882", but the one in the "Synonyms" section was given as "Moore, [1885]". I don't know what the square brackets mean there, so I went in search of information about it. I found something about having square brackets around the authority name, but nothing about having them around the date. So, I guessed that maybe it was just a stylistic choice by some previous Wikipedian, and removed them, leaving just "Moore, 1885".

Was this correct of me, or should it have the square brackets around the date? If the latter, what do they indicate? Thanks. - Rwv37 (talk) 00:06, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Square brackets around a date in a taxonomic authority citation, like "Moore, [1885]" typically indicates that the actual date of publication is different from the date printed on the publication itself. So "Moore, 1885" and "Moore, [1885]" convey different information. Not sure what the Wikipedia standard is for instances like these ... Esculenta (talk) 00:27, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@Rwv37: for monotypic genera, you should use {{Speciesbox}}, not {{Automatic taxobox}}. That aside, there is something funky going on with the dates for this moth.

The first source in the article (Hewitson & Moore) has a title page with a publication date of 1879, and on page 186 the genus Corcobara and the species C. angulipennis are being presented as newly described. Hewitson & Moore is a 3 part publication; the version linked from the Corocbara at archive.org gives the publication date as 1879-1888. 1882 appears on page 340 (apparently the title page for the last? part).

GBIF (and Lepindex) give "Moore, 1894" as the authority for the species angulipennis, and GBIF gives the authority for Corcobara as "Moore, 1882". So something is probably wrong there. Lepindex does have "Moore, [1885]" as the authority for Corcobara thwaitesi, while treating it as a junior synonym of C. angulipennis (which is obviously an error in some way at LepIndex).

I'm not at all sure where the 1882 (instead of 1879) date comes from, but I'm pretty sure the 1894 date can not be correct, and given the uncertainties around the date of one of Moore's publications I'm not surprised there may be uncertain about another one of them (the one where C. thwaitesi) was desribed). Plantdrew (talk) 01:18, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

@Esculenta, thanks, but: Which is which? That is, does [1885] mean "published in 1885", or "publication itself says 1885"? - Rwv37 (talk) 01:33, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

It means the work was actually published in 1885, but the date printed on the publication is different (often earlier). Esculenta (talk) 03:28, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

According to the archive.org version Parts II and III are dated Nov. 28, 1881 and Sept. 5, 1887 (see bottom of pages 89 and 199). Assuming those are manuscript dates, this is consistent with the titles pages dated 1882 and 1888 on pages 340 and 342. When Part II was actually published is another matter. What is the crucial date, when the work is printed or when it is distributed?  —  Jts1882 | talk  06:51, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

For ICNafp names, it's definitely the date it was distributed. For printed matter, the Code says "Art. 29.1. Publication is effected, under this Code, by distribution of printed matter (through sale, exchange, or gift) to the general public or at least to scientific institutions with generally accessible libraries." The printed date is often earlier, particularly for older works bound in multiple parts. Dyanega is better able to comment on ICZN names. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:53, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

What the ICZN says is not exactly what people typically do. You're supposed to give the date specified within a work in brackets, but the actual date outside of the brackets: "Examples. Ctenotus alacer Storr, 1970 ("1969"), or Ctenotus alacer Storr, 1970 ["1969"], or Ctenotus alacer Storr, 1970 (imprint 1969), or Ctenotus alacer Storr, 1970 (not 1969), was established in a work which, although published in 1970, carried an imprint date of 1969; Anomalopus truncatus (Peters, 1876 ["1877"]) was established in a different genus from Anomalopus in a work which, although published in 1876, carried an imprint date of 1877." If that were the example being followed, a name saying "Moore, [1885]" would imply that the publication says 1885, but there is reason to believe it is some other, unspecified year. I think that that's not what is happening here, so it has nothing to do with what the Code recommends. As for determining what the actual date is in the first place, the ICZN is a little complicated, but basically it's "the earliest day on which the work is demonstrated to be in existence as a published work", meaning multiple Code-compliant copies that have been distributed, similar to the ICNafp. Dyanega (talk) 14:37, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

So the UTC clade is a clade of algae but there’s no taxonomy? Atlas Þə Biologist (talk) 02:00, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. The UTC clade is a group within Chlorophyta comprising Ulvophyceae, Trebouxiophyceae and Chlorophyceae. The taxonomy is discussed in the various articles. Is there somewhere where it is mentioned without explanation?  —  Jts1882 | talk  06:49, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882: Atlas Þə Biologist may have been commenting before I created Template:Taxonomy/UTC clade, when the taxobox in the article didn't work. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:19, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Ah, that would make sense, although I'm puzzled by the timeline. I'm sure I checked the UTC clade article and find it hard to believe I missed the taxobox error.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:45, 27 September 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, my mistake; I didn't "create" the taxonomy template as I wrote above, I corrected the version that Atlas Þə Biologist had created that didn't work. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:08, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

In English Wikipedia they don’t do the taxonomy right.

1. There are 3 genera in the Pyrosomatidae (pyrosoma, pyrostremma and pyrosomella)
2. there is also 2 subfamily (Pyrosomatinae (animal) and Pyrostremmatinae)

so we need to fix the taxonomy. Atlas Þə Biologist (talk) 01:15, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

This is more usefully raised at the Pyrosome article, so I've posted at Talk:Pyrosome#Family is not monotypic. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:22, 29 September 2024 (UTC)

It looks like there are over 119,600 pages under the {{Taxonomy}} namespace now. Northern Moonlight 06:33, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

My count is 119,448 taxonomy templates, so the number in the category seems about right. No idea how to find the largest category.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:32, 16 October 2024 (UTC)

The Automated taxobox system has become one of the real strengths of WP - many thanks to those who set it up. Under the advantages and costs sections described here, vandalism appears to be one of the principal risks to the system. Is there any good reason to allow anonymous edititing of these templates and pages? Roy Bateman (talk) 05:37, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I agree that it would be better, but I think any request to protect ~120k templates would meet resistance. It undermines the encyclopaedia anyone can edit ethos. The most used templates do get protection and for others there would need to be evidence of repeated vandalism. We just have to hope they have watchers.

One thing we could try and encourage more is the addition of references to support any new or changed template. An unsourced IP edit then could be deleted as unsourced with no further scrutiny. But it's hard to advocate this when many named editors don't add references or change the reference when they change the template.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:57, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

I too agree that it would be better, but doubt that any request to protect in this way would succeed. Watchers is a difficult issue; I've given up watching taxonomy templates because I ended up with so many on my watchlist. Because I regularly check the error-tracking categories, I do see changes that create problems and try to fix them, but of course this is not a universal solution. Trying to get editors to add references is highly desirable, but doesn't seem very successful, as Jts1882 says. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:30, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

You can monitor changes to taxonomy templates at Special:RecentChangesLinked/Category:Taxonomy templates. It is not something I look at on any regular basis. Plantdrew (talk) 17:44, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: What about adding an edit warning to taxonomy templates without a reference? It would just show the warning in the editor, but would stop people saving the template. An alternative is a category, but I suspect it would be too big to be useful.  —  Jts1882 | talk  16:38, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

An edit warning seems a good idea to me. I had thought in the past about a category, but I agree that it would be too big to be useful: no-one would be likely to work through it. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

The other issue I often see is editors putting the authority in the |refs= field. YorkshireExpat (talk) 16:59, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to have become more of an issue recently. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:45, 9 November 2024 (UTC)

For warning about a missing refs parameter, how about adding something like this to Module:Autotaxobox

    local refs = frame.args['refs'] or ''
	local sameAsTaxon = frame.args['same_as'] or ''
	if refs == '' then 
		mw.addWarning('<span class="error">This taxonomy template is missing a source in the refs parameter.</span>') 
	end
	if sameAsTaxon ~= '' then

The text displayed needs further thought.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:09, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

For the record:

• There are 119,860 taxonomy templates
• With no source (~71,400):
  • 61,095 have the default message "<!--Shown on this page only; don't include <ref> tags -->"
  • 10,201 don't have a |refs= parameter
  • 95 templates with empty |ref=
• With reference:
  • 43858 definitely have something in the |refs= parameter (there maybe more if I get a better search)
  • 20,594 use a citation template
  • 15,258 have a raw URL
  • 352 have a wiki linked URL

 —  Jts1882 | talk  10:33, 11 November 2024 (UTC)

That is more references than I had expected. I do have intentions of going back and adding references to taxonomy template for plants that I had created without references (I'd like to see a consensus established to follow WFO instead of POWO before doing so (or a consensus that we are not going to abandon POWO anytime soon)). Plantdrew (talk) 20:53, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

FWIW, in my experience as a gnome, an error message without a tracking category doesn't help people understand the scope of the problem. It is generally OK for tracking categories to be large if the intent is to fix a problem over time. I have been involved with efforts to clear tracking categories from hundreds of thousands of pages; it is quite possible to make it happen. There is no deadline, after all. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:59, 12 November 2024 (UTC)

A tracking category does no harm. When I work on these templates I tend to work on a group of organisms so a generic category is no help and I rely on the search capabilities. However, a large category showing the extent of the issue may encourage others.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

@Jts1882 Could you work some regex magic to find the number incorrectly using an authority? YorkshireExpat (talk) 06:13, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

I found 748 results for a word followed by a comma and year, which I assume are zoological authorities. I don't see what search pattern can be used to get plant authorities with no date.  —  Jts1882 | talk  07:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I appreciate the issues. That's a good start thought. Thanks. YorkshireExpat (talk) 08:31, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

This search gets some plant authorities, but also some other stuff.  —  Jts1882 | talk  09:41, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Just out of interest, I fixed all those that used "L." as the reference (with or without a date), and a few others. (Among those found in the search above there are about 95 that have just spaces in the refs field, which actually aren't a problem.) A high proportion of those with authorities in the refs field seem to have been created by Roy Bateman, I'm sure in good faith. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:56, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

Hello Peter - yes indeed, but am relieved to note that the last one I did included a URL to the relevant Species File page, which I had handy: these seem to be preferred. I have long assumed that the authority with a date (which is a sort of ref. surely) was much better than putting nothing - as in nearly 70% of the templates according to the figures above! That cannot be satisfactory. From my perspective: there is an enormous number of useful genus (and higher taxon) pages yet to be created, but only so many hours in the week that I am prepared to work on them. Brgds. Roy Bateman (talk) 12:47, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

At present the preload text for the refs field has <!--Shown on this page only; don't include <ref> tags -->. I'm not sure if it would help, but this could be expanded, e.g. to something like <!--Full citation to support parent, ideally to a secondary source; shown on this page only; don't include <ref> tags -->. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:06, 13 November 2024 (UTC)

This would definitely be an improvement. Is the reference solely for the parent? The rank and extinct status should also be sourced, although the parent is most important for these templates. Perhaps "A full citation for the taxon, indicating its parent taxon, ...".  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:16, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Either of those wordings would be better. Parent is the most important part to cite, as it is most likely to vary between sources (either because e.g. a genus has been placed in different families, or sources differ in whether they present an infrafamilial classification). Extinct is generally unlikely to change, and rank is often self evident from standardized suffixes. 16:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC) Plantdrew (talk) 16:05, 14 November 2024 (UTC)

Like Plantdrew, I think that parent is the most important part to support. I'm concerned about the length of the text; too long and we run into "tldr". So I think I will try <!--full citation supporting parent, ideally to secondary source; shown on this page only; don't include <ref> tags -->.

Now done. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:28, 15 November 2024 (UTC)