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Ghost transclusions

This is surely an issue with the code...if someone gets a chance, please have a look at the code and see if you can figure out why Florideae, Coelomys, and Toothed whale all transclude deleted taxonomy templates with the same name. This is a highly unanticipated predicament, and it's showing up in some database reports. I learned of this from Plastikspork this evening. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 05:25, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

I think that may be because of the "|{{#ifeq:{{Taxonomy/{{PAGENAME}} }}|[[:Template:Taxonomy/{{PAGENAME}}]]" line in Template:Taxobox/taxon; MediaWiki counts that as a transclusion I believe. I don't think this should be considered a problem. Ucucha 12:35, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Can this sort of thing be flagged? Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:22, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
In what way? Incidentally, the examples Plastikspork gave are not the only ones: Template:Taxonomy/Amphibian is also "transcluded" on Amphibian. Ucucha 18:37, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Flagged so that they don't show up in the bad tranclusions backlog that is. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 19:51, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
I can't think of a way to do that. Ucucha 20:10, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
If you replace {{Taxonomy/{{PAGENAME}} }} with {{#ifexist:Template:Taxonomy/{{PAGENAME}}|{{Taxonomy/{{PAGENAME}} }} }}, then the problem should go away. Would this work? This is much easier than creating an exceptions list. However, if this shouldn't happen at all, then we would want to track these. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 20:20, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Checking the template code, it appears as though there was some thought that "ifexist" might be too expensive. I can't see why this would be the case, and would be a bug in the backend software if a different parserfunction hack would be cheaper than using the specialized one. I put what should be an equivalent version in Template:Taxobox/taxon/sandbox if someone wants to check it out. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 20:29, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Looking at the parser reports for User:Ucucha/sandbox (transcluding Taxobox/taxon) and User:Ucucha/sandbox2 (transcluding Taxobox/taxon/sandbox), it seems that some measures go down in your version and others go up, so it's not clear which method is better performance-wise. Ucucha 20:44, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
Yes, they look very similar. The only clear difference is that my version has "1/500" expensive parsefunctions. I don't see this as having a large impact on performance, will keep these pages from having an inviting "redlink" at the bottom of the article in edit mode, and will keep these out of the database report. So, in my opinion, it's worth trying. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:08, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

Mucoromycotina

The taxobox for Mucoromycotina says the listed subgroups are classes, but they are actually orders. The page gives no information about classes. I cannot determine how to fix the automatic taxobox. --EncycloPetey (talk) 20:40, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

I've manually added them here. But yeah, that was weird and should be looked into. I'd wager the previous error on | display children = 1 was a result of the lack of intervening ranks between the subphylum and the orders. Something's wrong with the code.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 20:51, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Oh... and just noticed. Autotaxobox defines it as a Division, but text identifies it as a subphylum/subdivision... which is which?-- Obsidi♠nSoul 20:58, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Mycologists use "division" or "phylum" and "subdivision" or "subphylum". In this case, it's a subwhatever, as indicated by the ending "-mycotina". A division/phylum will end in "-mycota". --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:08, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Fixed. Here and here.-- Obsidi♠nSoul 21:04, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Thanks very much. --EncycloPetey (talk) 21:08, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
You're welcome. But yeah, that | display children error should be investigated (*looks at coders* :P)-- Obsidi♠nSoul 21:14, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
Looks like the "child" taxa had Mucoromycotina defined as a parent. If they aren't direct children of Mucoromycotina, then their parent should be set to the name of the relevant class. If no class applies, then you can use |subdivision ranks=Orders to tell the taxobox what word to display there. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 22:11, 29 June 2011 (UTC)

This template has to be warmed up?

What is the purpose of the hidden text after the 'This template has to be "warmed up" before it can be used, for some reason' comment? What was the issue that lead to the addition of this part? Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:12, 25 June 2011 (UTC)

That's a PHP timing issue in which a critical part of the code finished executing before all the necessary calculations were complete, so a dummy warm-up call was necessary in order to have the calculations completed in time for them to be used. I've just never gotten around to seeing if it can be removed without negative side effects. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 13:57, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
Do you mind if we try changing this from {{Taxobox/taxon}} to {{Taxobox/taxon|{{{taxon|}}}|{{{1|}}} }} or try removing it? The reason is related to the thread above. The code that is generating the "ghost transclusions" would then most likely never by triggered, since a non-empty value in either "taxon" or "1" would cause that template to never reach that section of the code. As far as I can tell, this is the only place where that template is called with no inputs. Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 21:28, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
It sounds logical to me. Kudos for figuring out the cause of the problem and potentially a fix for it, too! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 03:30, 27 June 2011 (UTC)
Okay, I went ahead and made the smaller of the two suggested changes (just modified it, rather than deleting it). I still think we might be able to remove it. But this did completely fix the ghost transclusion problem. Hopefully nothing broke (my initial checks didn't reveal anything). Thanks! Plastikspork ―Œ(talk) 01:03, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
It passes the Tyrannosaurus test, so I went ahead and completed it per your suggestion. Thanks for questioning it! And glad to hear those ghost transclusions could be solved so easily! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 03:59, 30 June 2011 (UTC)

Automatic synonyms?

Would it be possible to automate the synonym section of the box? I'm thinking that rather than make a synonym into a template redirect, maybe there could be some code on that page that says what taxon it's a synonym of and its author, and have it appear in the senior synonym's taxobox. MMartyniuk (talk) 14:13, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

I think that would be a bad idea. Homotypic (=nomenclatural) synonyms are objective, but heterotypic (=taxonomic) synonyms are quite subjective. One scientist may consider two species to be synonymous, while another considers them both to be good species. While it might be possible to automate the former group, treating them separately from the latter is likely to cause confusion and will result in unbalanced synonymies, and possibly original research. Wikipedia is not meant to be a taxonomic database, and we probably shouldn't be including full synonymies, especially not in the taxobox. Our purpose is to include alternative scientific names which a reader may come across elsewhere. I have real worries, given that printed versions of Wikipedia articles are produced, that nomenclatural changes could be made accidentally. Restricting our coverage of synonyms to that required to understand the subject is a good way of limiting that risk, and is also in accordance with Wikipedia's other policies.
I have wandered somewhat from the question, though. It might be possible, but I think it's a much worse idea than it may appear at first sight. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:17, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
I don't see why differing classifications would be any more of a problem with automatic synonyms than they are with the existing automatic taxobox system. Ucucha 20:20, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Another thought: why the hell would you want to do this? The point of automating the taxoboxes was that the classification of the higher taxa is repeated between articles, and consistency between articles is desirable. The synonyms of a taxon will only ever appear on the page for that taxon, since they don't apply anywhere else. Removing that information to another obscure page adds complexity to the editor without providing any benefit to either reader or editor. I dare say we should be categorising synonym redirects better than currently occurs, but using that mechanism to display synonyms on the page of the accepted name is unfeasible. (Sometimes, for instance, the same name is published by different authors referring to different taxa, so Randomus randomus Smith, 1805 and Randomus randomus Jones, 1808 may be synonyms of different taxa. Attempting to convey that through information entered at Randomus randomus will be fraught with difficulty and bring no benefit.) Every way I look at this, it seems a bad idea. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:40, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I think that differing classifications are a problem in the automatic taxobox system, in that they reduce its value. I agree with Stemonitis that one of its purposes is to produce a desirable consistency between articles, but another is to enable classifications to be changed more easily if the consensus of reliable sources changes. Suppose that two different hierarchies have been erected for a taxon X, by using the "/variant-name" approach. So suppose taxon A has the parent X (via Template:Taxonomy/X) which has the parent Y, and taxon B has the parent X/V1 (via Template:Taxonomy/X/V1) which has the parent Z, i.e. the taxon X appears in two different branches, both of which are sourced. (There are good reasons to do this: one is that quite different classifications are used for extant and extinct plants. Paleobotanists almost always place divisions much higher up the hierarchy than do traditional classifications of extant plants. So a Devonian lycophyte like Zosterophyllum appears in a hierarchy which goes to Division Tracheophyta, whereas an extant lycophyte like Isoetes appears under Division Lycopodiophyta.)
However, this comes at a price. Suppose that the consensus on the position of X settles down, perhaps with neither Y nor Z being the parent. How do you fix this? You can change Template:Taxonomy/X to the new parent and all the children change automatically, but for all the other cases you have to go to every one of the child taxa of X/V1 and change their parent to X rather than X/V1. Worse still, you have to be sure you've found all the occurrences of Template:Taxonomy/X/something.
As for automatic synonyms, as Stemonitis says, they should only appear once, so what is the point of automating them? (There would, in principle, be a point in generating all taxonomic hierarchies and synonyms from a single database (a) IF there were a single reliable consensus database, which there isn't, and (b) IF Wikipedia had a planned structure, which it doesn't.) Peter coxhead (talk) 21:45, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Amen. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 01:14, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
PC, what do you mean by planned structure? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:49, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
Suppose a team of editors got together to write an online biological encyclopedia which had taxoboxes. Then they could agree in advance on what articles would be needed (or at least what principles would determine what articles would be needed) and what classification would be used and then create a database which embodied that classification. Then all the taxoboxes could be generated from the database. Updating the taxoboxes would be done by updating the database. As a computer scientist, this model appeals to me greatly. There are many obvious reasons why we can't do this on Wikipedia, not least that Wikipedia policies don't give us the authority to make such decisions; as per WP:SECONDARY we're really supposed to be using secondary or tertiary sources, not even primary sources, let alone making our own decisions. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:48, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

Replacement of existing manual taxoboxes

Hi All, Recently, I stumbled upon automatic taxoboxes, and I was immediately excited by the concept. I read through the various pages about how to convert existing taxoboxes over, and then proceeded to do a few dozen (the family Phalangeridae, the family Caviidae, etc - see the full list on http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Special:Contributions/Ben_morphett). Then, I discovered that it was not really OK to do that yet! For example, this page says:

Please note: WikiProject Palaeontology is the only WikiProject to have approved the replacement of already-existing manual taxoboxes with automated ones, and has only provided explicit approval for short or rarely-edited pages.

Eek! So I've stopped coverting them over (fair enough). Clearly, if and when there is a consensus that they should be converted over, I'd be happy to take part. But what do I do about the modifications I have already made? In particular, should I revert them? I hope not, and I'd tend to think not, because they represent an improvement to the wikipedia, made in good faith. But what is the consensus on these edits? Ben morphett (talk) 23:19, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

If an editor objects to a specific change, then either that editor or you can revert. Otherwise, my advice is to do nothing, provided that the taxonomy displayed by each automatic taxobox/speciesbox template is the same as the manual one there before.
If you want to convert a set of taxoboxes, the best thing to do is to go to the relevant project's talk page and propose doing it and see what the reaction is. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:06, 30 July 2011 (UTC)
Cool. (And yes, the animals' place in the taxonomic tree was always unchanged.) Ben morphett (talk) 11:25, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Import/export of all Taxonomy/ templates (continued)

See the previously linked Bugzilla report: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9890 It's been marked as of today as resolved! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 01:53, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

Bob, From what I can see, the status shows NEW. Where do you see it marked as resolved? — Ganeshk (talk) 02:02, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
My mistake-- one of its dependencies has been resolved. I need to get a new prescription or something... Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:55, 25 August 2011 (UTC)

clade vs. unranked - how to list unranked clades

Some people prefer using 'rank=clade', some prefer 'rank=unranked'. They mean the same thing, but are used inconsistently, giving us a mess like:
http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:Taxonomy/Lobatus_gigas
(7 unranked clades listed as "(unranked)" and 5 listed as "clade").

We should standardize on one or the other and have both parameters output the same value. I vote for "clade" as it seems more straightforward than "(unranked)". Kaldari (talk) 22:12, 23 August 2011 (UTC)

If you mean that it would not be possible to use "(unranked)" because it would automatically be changed to "clade" on output, then I strongly oppose. "Clade" and "unranked" do not mean the same thing. Some taxa currently being used at the top of the taxonomic hierarchy may or may not be clades (e.g. bikonts are almost certainly not, and unikonts in Cavalier-Smith's original circumscription don't appear to be either); in the current state of our knowledge of the phylogeny of eukaryotes, "unranked" for such groups is neutral; "clade" is not.
I would agree that where it is pretty certain that a rankless group is a clade, this should be used in preference to "(unranked)". Peter coxhead (talk) 23:36, 23 August 2011 (UTC)
Quite. Just to make things worse, some versions of the Sauropsida (living reptiles) are clades, while other are not (e.g. Benton's definition). Some groups are group that used to have a certain rank but now have them stripped, without necessarily being clades, e.g. "fishes". Clearly, we need both "unranked" and "clade". It would perhaps be an idea to ad a section to the taxobox documentation, something along the lines of: There's no formal rank for my group, do I use "unranked" or "clade?Petter Bøckman (talk) 06:49, 24 August 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for clearing that up. I think it is vital that this be documented, since the previous convention was to use "(unranked)" for any unranked taxon including clades. If we want people to change this habit, it needs to be explained. Kaldari (talk) 19:28, 25 August 2011 (UTC)
I've edited the documentation a bit. I hope I haven't mangled it. Kaldari (talk) 17:18, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

Localization difficulties

Hi, I didn't thoroughly study template guts, but it's easier to ask here. Is it possible to localize it to other languages without essential amount of work? It will be nice if there is any info about it in FAQ, cause this is an awesome template and it will be needed not only in en wiki. --Habilis⊕ 16:38, 26 August 2011 (UTC)

See the link in the title of the topic above for more information; we've discussed it within the past few months and are waiting on MediaWiki to develop code that supports interwiki templating. In the meantime, you'll have a lot of translation to do. You might consider asking User:Bjankuloski06en for help since he implemented it at mk: and regularly adds taxonomy templates to that wiki. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:40, 26 August 2011 (UTC)
Hello, fellow editors. I simply translated all that there is to translate in the template and its subtemplates (like "Species", "Genus" "unranked", descriptive text etc.) and yes, there are help pages that describe it use, but I had no time for that. In short, copy the template and its subtemplates, translate the translatable parts (strongly recommend not to translate the code, for fear of difficulties) and use <noinclude></noinclude> to insert interwiki in it. There is one important thing, however: that the aforementioned 'nowiki' must begin right after the last character of the code - no spaces or new lines. Here is an example ("Reptiles") of that and how it should be done: Macedonian and English. Insofar as I can see, there are some other minor issues about the look, but I assume they need to be sorted at the original first. Hope I was of help. Cheers --B. Jankuloski (talk) 02:09, 27 August 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your answers, Bob and Jankuloski. Well, I guess it's better to wait for interwiki templating on MediaWiki. Current templates in ru wiki are quite nice, so no need to hurry and do a double job.--Habilis⊕ 15:34, 27 August 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Habilis (talk • contribs)
I'd like to add that for any who bother to translate, it would make sense to use the Latin rank names instead of the native language ones, using the native language only for the display within the rendered taxobox. This simplifies bits of code that reply upon character counting. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:16, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

Handling references

There's been some discussion at User talk:Bob the Wikipedian#Automatic taxobox about handling references in taxoboxes, specifically in the automatic taxobox system. My concern is this: when a taxon is added to the automatic taxobox system, via a "Template:Taxonomy/..." template, at least three pieces of information are needed. These are (1) the authority for the taxon name, (2) a reference which supports the name/authority combination, (3) a reference which supports the assignment of the taxon to its parent.

This information can be placed in the taxobox, as I've attempted, for example, at Adoketophyton. (1) and (2) are handled by | authority = C.S.Li & D.Edwards (1992)<ref>...</ref>. (3) is more difficult; here I've put | parent_authority = <ref>...</ref>, but I don't think that the resulting output makes it clear that the reference is meant to support the placement of Adoketophyton within the Lycophytina.

There is another place where the references can be placed, namely at |references= in Template:Taxonomy/Adoketophyton. However, these references aren't displayed in the taxobox, nor is it clear exactly what they are for.

My initial proposal is that the automatic taxobox system should be changed to behave like this:

  1. A parameter |taxon_ref= should be added to {{Automatic taxobox}}. This would be used for a reference which supports the name/authority combination, which would then be displayed in the taxobox after the taxon name.
  2. Precisely the same parameter, namely |taxon_ref=, should be added to the "Template:Taxonomy/...". If, and only if, |taxon_ref= is omitted from {{Automatic taxobox}}, the value of this parameter would be displayed in the taxobox after the taxon name.

(My maximal proposal is that there should also be |auth= and |placement_ref= in both places, but I'd like to test whether there is support for my more limited proposal first.) Peter coxhead (talk) 19:33, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Not to change the subject, but did you see my last response over there? I've put together a quick prototype botanist template per request which stemmed from the discussion you referenced. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 22:11, 10 September 2011 (UTC)

Request for help

Could somebody look at the taxobox on this page: http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Phacellophora_camtschatica. I updated the new family, but I can't get it to show correctly. Why? Thanks Sushilover2000 (talk) 15:00, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

You used the English name for the taxonomic rank family instead of the Latin name familia. I've fixed it and it now shows up correctly in the taxobox. The instructions at the top of the template page does actually specify this, although I was also unaware of it until now, as I've always used the latinized names anyway as it was required on manual taxoboxes.
See Taxonomic rank#Main ranks for the latinized names of ranks. -- Obsidi♠n Soul 15:36, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks! I had copied that from somewhere...not sure how I changed it. Sushilover2000 (talk) 15:46, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

It might help to remember it, LOL. As the template it was from may also be nonfunctional.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 16:16, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

A taxobox failure mode

Certain taxoboxes are trying to transclude a non-existent template, here: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Cite_tolweb

The cause is not immediately obvious, and I'm not familiar with the way the taxoboxes work, so I'm pointing this out here in case somebody knows how to fix it. —Paul A (talk) 03:27, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

I think this should fix that problem. Ucucha (talk) 03:31, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

It seems to have done. Thanks. —Paul A (talk) 09:08, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Really horrible to update

Have to switch some taxa back to old format. The new format is hardly usable for anything sedis mutabilis. It makes taxobox work only "easier" if you are a veteran user; novice users will find the old format in which everything is clearly documented definitely harder.

Whether code that is deliberately obfuscated is advised or should even be permitted on Wikipedia, considering that recruitment of new steady editors is by now the project's most pressing problem, is something very much worth arguing. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 12:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Can I ask which taxa you were updating? It's really quite easy. :/ Merely 'relinking' the parent of the highest taxon's template, and voila, all children taxa get updated automatically. As for new editors, they can of course use manual taxoboxes. Changing the taxonomy of something even with manual taxoboxes, already requires a certain grasp of Wikipedia template coding anyway, not to mention that higher taxa shouldn't really be tinkered with without discussion.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 12:58, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
I agree on the point that it needs to be much, much easier to reflect uncertainty. Creating complicated pathways for incertae sedis categories doesn't really solve the problem. What we need is something like the extinct=true field (which automatically generates a little cross before the name whenever it appears) like uncertain=true (to generate a little question mark). This would be a good first step, IMO, and if possible, having an uncertain child taxon appear under multiple parents.
For example, Eoraptor has notably been recently found by different studies to belong under either Theropoda or Sauropodomorpha. It would be great if it could appear under both, and barring that at least appear with a question mark under the one which currently is supported by the majority of recent papers, and have its parent taxon display with a question mark on its own page. MMartyniuk (talk) 15:26, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd like to clarify that there was no deliberate obfuscation; it's obfuscated by its own nature. I agree that several of the templates involved have rather cryptic names, but keep in mind they were named as they were being designed, so we really were fairly well in the dark when building it. Having said that, however, we might be able to do some renaming of templates, though this will need to be done slowly and carefully so as not to break the taxoboxes.
On the note of special cases-- I agree completely. The manners in which those cases were addressed, while effective, are so confusing that I always have to look for a similar situation Martin put together back when he was testing it out. On top of that, the "skip" templates are rather sloppy to navigate through (what if I want to see the real parent taxon of Reptiliomorpha?). These present a challenge for anyone who wishes to try programming the templates further. Once I get a few things off my list of things to do, I might have a go at it. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:00, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
I'd love to hear what you have planned for the skip templates. Thanks, ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:15, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
Ideally, something similar to what Matt suggested above. I've not thought about the logic yet for this, or whether that solution will work; there are several things to take into consideration. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 06:37, 17 September 2011 (UTC)
"Merely 'relinking' the parent of the highest taxon's template, and voila, all children taxa get updated automatically." - no, that is easy. What I mean is taxa whose placement changes significantly, necessitating a reworking of 50% of the taxobox code. Eoraptor is another example; it simply doesn't fit. Basically everything whose taxonomy is not largely stable. Dysmorodrepanis (talk) 18:00, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Is the taxobox at Eoraptor ok right now? I'm not sure I understand what the problem is. Or is it just that setting up Template:Taxonomy/Incertae_sedis/Saurischia is far from obvious? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:08, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
The latter, of course. The taxobox looks fine. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:22, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
Ok. Well, for now, anyone can post a note here asking for help, at least. I think there are enough of us who know how to set up skip templates ready and enthusiastically willing to do it watching this page. Certainly not optimal; if anyone has better ideas, please discuss them here! Marty's uncertain=true idea has potential. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:38, 23 September 2011 (UTC)
I was referring to "skip = ", not "uncertain = ". I'm not sure the latter is technically feasible. But anyway, I do believe these are rare enough cases that they are not top priority. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 22:13, 24 September 2011 (UTC)

Problem with disambiguation

For Dracaena, the link goes to the disambiguation page, Dracaena. If I change it to Dracaena (plant) the link works but displays as Dracaena (plant). How do I fix this? --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:35, 6 November 2011 (UTC)

fixed it for you. It's mentioned here: Template:Automatic taxobox/doc/new#Creating the taxonomy template, with an example for penguin. It's easier to do after the initial filling in, just add PAGENAME|NAMETODISPLAY to the |link= field. No brackets or anything else, just a vertical bar between the actual page name and the name to be displayed on the taxobox.-- Obsidi♠n Soul 23:58, 6 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks --Michael Goodyear (talk) 15:04, 8 November 2011 (UTC)

User warning templates

We've got a set of user warning templates now for countering vandalism. WP:TAXFORCE members keep an eye on the Taxobot's public watchlist, and now anyone who spots an reverts malformed edits to the taxonomy templates may select from four levels of user warnings:


Welcome to Wikipedia and thank you for your contributions. While we appreciate your attempts to help keep scientific classifications on Wikipedia thorough and up-to-date, one of your recent edits doesn't fit the format required for the taxonomy templates to function properly, and it has been reverted or removed. Please have a look at the automatic taxobox documentation where you can find answers to frequently-asked questions as well as guidelines for tweaking the taxonomy templates. If you need further assistance, consider asking for assistance. If you wish to make test edits, please do them in the sandbox. Thank you.


One of your recent edits does not match the format required in order for the taxonomy system on Wikipedia to function properly and effectively. Before making any further edits to the taxonomy templates, it is advised that you review the automatic taxobox documentation, and if you need assistance, you can try asking at the automatic taxobox talk page. Thank you.


Please stop making disruptive edits to the taxonomy templates. Continuing to disrupt the taxonomy templates may lead to your account being blocked. Thank you.


This is your last warning. The next time you disrupt Wikipedia, you may be blocked from editing without further notice.


Of course, use common sense when escalating in user warning levels here. We all know the code doesn't come naturally for most folks! Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 18:48, 11 November 2011 (UTC)

Update not working?

When I click the "Update" link in the template page to refresh the list of displayed child taxa lately nothing seems to happen. This is causing newly added taxa to not appear in the display_children fields (see for example Megalosauridae). MMartyniuk (talk) 11:28, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

New taxa require a null edit before they show up in a children update. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 03:13, 1 November 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, this still doesn't seem to be working. When removing or reclassifying a child taxon, I can't seem to force the template to reflect this subtraction. For example Archaeopterygidae has been moved to Aves but still shows up under Deinonychosauria. MMartyniuk (talk) 15:08, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
I've noticed this as well in recent weeks. Unfortunately, I think Martin is the only one who knows how that feature works and how to troubleshoot and fix it-- it seems to use his toolserv account. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 16:50, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
The bot responsible for the updates had been disabled due to a bug in the WikiMedia software. I believe that the bug has since been fixed, so I've re-enabled the bot. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 12:56, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Showing children

Hello. The automatic showing of subdivision needs some formatting. Either bullets or identation. For example the automatic taxobox in the article Microsporidia is not showing correctly. Can you fix this please? --kupirijo (talk) 20:31, 21 December 2011 (UTC)

I can't fathom this. It displays perfectly at Special:ExpandTemplates. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 11:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Looks like it's emitting incorrect HTML even there, though; there's a li without a ul around it. Possibly HTML Tidy tries to fix it in mainspace and instead garbles it. Ucucha (talk) 11:20, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
A proper solution would be to make the template emit more sensible HTML. I can't fathom where in this stack of templates the list is created, but possibly putting a ul around Template:Nested taxon list would help. Ucucha (talk) 11:27, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Ah ha! I haven't met HTMLtidy before. That looks to have fixed it – thanks! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC)

Acer nipponicum and sub genus ranks

I just created the templates for Acer nipponicum ranging up from species to series to section to genus, however for some reason the Autobox is just showing species series and genus. Does the box support species-series-section-genus ranking? --Kevmin § 21:52, 13 December 2011 (UTC)

By default it only shows the "major ranks", because this has been policy in most WikiProjects. You can display more by adding |display_parents = N to the automatic taxobox. I've done this at Acer nipponicum for demonstration purposes only. My view is that taxoboxes are long enough already; I think that we should only show "minor ranks" if there is a consensus that there is a very good reason to do so. E.g. APG III merged so many families together into the Asparagaceae that after discussion at WT:PLANTS it was agreed to show the subfamilies (which are the old families). Peter coxhead (talk) 22:27, 13 December 2011 (UTC)
In practice, the subgeneric rankings are so closely allied that you don't usually speak of one section or series without mentioning the subgenus. For that reason, I think it's important to display the entire subgeneric classification on a species article. You wouldn't want to only display the immediate parent in the case of Acer nipponicum, you want to display all of them. If, however, this was an article on a subspecies or variety, then we should only show the major ranks. Rkitko (talk) 01:45, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
I'm not sure whether your point is (1) that if, say, the series is shown, then you should show all the subdivisions above up to genus, which seems reasonable to me, or (2) that species articles should regularly show subdivisions of the genus, which doesn't seem reasonable to me. In the case like Acer where there are a lot of species, I can see the point of going down say one level to subgenus, but in my view taxoboxes are complex enough as they are. The position of a species in terms of section/series can be discussed in the article. This was what I thought we had agreed in WP:Plants. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:12, 14 December 2011 (UTC)
Not to contradict, but the section shows up on my end. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 16:53, 16 December 2011 (UTC) Oops, misinformed post. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 16:54, 16 December 2011 (UTC)
Fixed with this edit. A bigger problem, however, is that the subspecies parameter is automatically italicized, but variety, subvariety, form, and subform are not. This is an inconsistent approach that I think leads to awkward italicization markup in the template:taxonomy/taxon, e.g. at Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis, the auto italics for that parameter leads to less than intuitive italics wiki markup at Template:Taxonomy/Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis: |link=Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis|U. minor'' subsp. ''sarniensis. I would think most people would expect |link=Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis|''U. minor'' subsp. ''sarniensis''. Peter coxhead suggested that because zoological subspecies do not use a linking word, we should try to automate the exclusion of terms like subsp., var., subvar., f. and subf. with another template so that no one would ever need italics in |link=, just no break spaces and abbreviations where necessary. Peter also raised the point of excluding × from being italicized, though on my browser in the default font, × looks the same as ×. If that's not always true, then we have to fix that as well. Rkitko (talk) 15:35, 22 December 2011 (UTC)
On the minor issue of italicizing ×, on my system (I think it's to do with system fonts, not a browser issue), they do look different, so × should not be italicized.
On the general issue, I have been trying to write a template to do the italicization correctly. However, I ran into a problem, namely that you need to split a string like "Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis" into words. {{First word}} and {{Remove first word}} can be used to produce "Ulmus" and "minor subsp. sarniensis", but the output of {{Remove first word}} doesn't contain true spaces, so can't be input again to {{First word}}. Thus {{First word|{{Remove first word|Ulmus minor subsp. sarniensis}}}} doesn't produce "minor" as would be expected but "minor". Peter coxhead (talk) 00:02, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Would it be more intuitive to surround the word that requires non-italicization in 's: i.e. Ulmus minor ''subsp.'' sarniensis''? To my mind this is analagous to pressing Ctrl-I to toggle italics whilst typing. Might be simpler and more streamlined than complex coding? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 11:08, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
Well, of course this is what you have to do at present and it works fine. It's just that in the spirit of automation (you're the expert on that!) it would have been nice to be able to fix any that were missed. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:06, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
The only solutions I could see would involve either lots of expensive text parsing, or the use of an additional parameter. In my mind we'd be best off avoiding the additional complication, but perhaps I'm missing a simple solution. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:14, 24 December 2011 (UTC)
I suspect you're right that there is no simple solution; text parsing using the template language simply doesn't work well enough. What's needed is a version of #titleparts: that works with space as separator instead of /. Unless there's some equivalent I don't know about, then forget automation, and make sure the documentation is clear. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:19, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Monotypic taxa

I keep running into this problem. Is there a way to bold and display the authors of higher taxa aside from the species? In a normal taxobox for example, I do the following, assuming that family and genus are both monotypic:

Family: †Jabberwockidae Son, 1860
Genus: †Bandersnatchus Banker, 1870
Species: †B. snarcus
Binomial: Bandersnatchus snarcus Baker, 1874

In autotaxobox, I'm forced to settle for the following (assuming the page was created at Bandersnatchus).

Family: †Jabberwockidae
Genus: †Bandersnatchus
Binomial: Bandersnatchus snarcus Baker, 1874

No authors, no bolding, and recursive links.

Perhaps a field like |monotypic=true or something (with added features for monotypy of more than just two levels) that automatically bolds the parents and shows authorities? -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 10:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

As shown in the documentation, you should be able to do this by using hte parameter "parent_authority ="--Kevmin § 13:09, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Nope. Only adds authors to one parent. No bolding either, just recursive links.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
You need to use "grandparent_authority =", "greatgrandparent_authority =", etc. to get the authorities back up the tree. But I'm not sure why you want to do this; can you explain?
Bolding back up the tree isn't possible (at present), and I think wouldn't be desirable. Again, why would you want to do it? Peter coxhead (talk) 14:20, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Monotypy. Their articles would all be merged, so there would be no place to place the authorities but in the same articles. Bolding is AFAIK, standard for merged articles on monotypic taxa. It identifies that the article is about all of the bolded taxa. It's also preferable to recursive links. In a real article, Jabberwockidae would seem like a link to another article, but once I click it, it will redirect me to the same page (which is explicitly not okay per WP:OVERLINK).-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 15:38, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I see; my misunderstanding – it's not the bolding so much as the cyclic links which is the problem. I would suggest that you don't use the automatic taxobox system in such cases. (There's less advantage in automation in the case of monotypic taxa anyway, because no other article is going to share the lowest levels of the hierarchy.) It would, I'm sure, be possible to "fix" the templates to deal with this special case, but I'm not sure that it would be worthwhile – I think the system is already over-complex to maintain easily and monotypic taxa are a minority. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Yep. I've used a normal taxobox in such cases. As for the advantage thing. They're bottom rung mostly, yes, but they'd still be affected if ever their higher ranks get moved, which is the main utility of autotaxoboxes really (e.g. monotypic genera being automatically relinked to a different order if their family got moved, etc.) Given that WP:PALEO is the only wikiproject that recommends autotaxoboxes, this would be a good thing to accomodate, imo. A vast amount of fossil taxa are monotypic. :3 Anyway, thanks for the grandparent thing, didn't know about that. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 16:41, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Solved  Actually this is fixable, I've now realized. See Blandfordia and how "Blandfordiaceae" appears in the taxobox, now that I've edited it.
The solution for a family, say Xaceae, which has only one genus, X, is to ensure that at Template:Taxonomy/Xaceae the link is | link = X|Xaceae (given that the species article is under the genus name).
If the article is titled "X" then all the Template:Taxonomy/<taxon> pages above it that actually end up at X (as there is no article with the title "<taxon>" because of monotypy) should be changed to have | link = X|<taxon>. The Wikimedia software then automatically replaces self-links by bold.
So in the specific example, if the only article is at "Bandersnatchus snarcus":
  • Template:Taxonomy/Jabberwockidae has | link = Bandersnatchus snarcus|Jabberwockidae
  • Template:Taxonomy/Bandersnatchus has | link = Bandersnatchus snarcus|Bandersnatchus
Then the article "Bandersnatchus snarcus" can use {{Speciesbox}}, and all will work. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:37, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
Oooooh. It worked! Awesome, tyvm! :D -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 18:33, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
One problem is that there's no documentation page (that I know of anyway) which tells you in some detail how to create the "Template:Taxonomy/<taxon>" pages which are what make {{Automatic taxobox}}, {{Speciesbox}}, etc. work. If there were, I could add the solution above to it... Peter coxhead (talk) 23:55, 18 February 2012 (UTC)
This is the page for "I'd like to do something a little more complicated" listed in the template's documentation: {{Automatic_taxobox/doc/advanced}} Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 00:41, 19 February 2012 (UTC)
Really, Bob? It doesn't look like it. I think there needs to be one documentation page on how to create "Template:Taxonomy/<taxon>" pages, clearly signposted from {{Automatic_taxobox/doc}}, covering both the simple cases (at the top of the page) and the more complex ones (at the bottom). The underlying problem is that since there are many "Template:Taxonomy/<taxon>" pages, there can't be a single "/doc" page for them. (I'd draft the documentation myself, but I want to finish what I'm trying to do at Cactus.) Peter coxhead (talk) 08:46, 19 February 2012 (UTC)

Redundancy

FYI
 – Pointer to a relevant discussion elsewhere.

The structure of this and related templates is the subject of discussion at Template talk:Taxobox#Redundancy. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒〈°⌊°〉 Contribs. 00:35, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

We need help in Catalan Wikipedia

We are trying to implement this system of automatic templates but we have two problems. The first one is colour templates don't work in Archaea and virus articles (see ca:Halobacteri and ca:Virus de la ràbia). I see you don't use these templates in the English versions in these two cases. Is it the reason they don't work fine? The other problem we have is with child templates. They always generate error and we don't know why (see ca:Plantilla:Taxonomy/Trachymedusae). Can somebody help us to find what is wrong? Thanks. 88.19.143.203 (talk) 12:46, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

Child problems have been finally solved. We still have problems with virus and Archaea. :( 88.19.143.203 (talk) 16:50, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Problems solved. Template {{Is reg‎}} was working incorrectly. I suppose you'll have the same problems here if you do articles about viruses ans Archea with Automatic taxobox template. 88.19.143.203 (talk) 17:26, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

One question

If I create a template about a genus setting |parent_authority= I suppose it will indicate the authority of the familia. But if someone add a subfamilia in the middle wouldn't the authority parameter indicate a false authority? 88.27.95.63 (talk) 10:45, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct; well-spotted! The "ancestor"_authority parameters work up the taxonomic hierarchy as it is present in the various "Template:Taxonomy/..." templates, and if this changes, then the authority shown in the taxobox will be wrong. (This is regardless of whether any of the parents are displayed or not; e.g. grandparent_authority refers to the taxon defined in the "Taxonomy/..." template which is two up from the taxon specified in the Automatic taxobox template, even if neither the taxon which is one up nor the taxon which is two up is displayed.)
This is a very good reason never not to use these parameters (parent_authority, grandparent_authority, etc.). Normally you would be able to show these authorities in the relevant article and taxobox. However, this means that if, for example, the genus is the only one in the family, so there is only one article and only one taxobox, the two authorities can't both be shown in any taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:37, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I've now revised Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/new to warn of this issue. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:12, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
I suppose these parameters should only be used in monophyletic situations like in Symbion taxobox. 88.27.89.84 (talk) 19:28, 2 March 2012 (UTC)
Yes, that's my reasoning too. My original statement (which used "never") is too strong, and the warning I've put in the documentation doesn't say this. It's reasonable to assume that in a monotypical case (I don't think you mean "monophyletic") like Symbion that there won't be a new interposed subfamily, etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:52, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Adding taxa

I'm a total novice at working with automatic taxoboxes. Mammaliamorpha redirects to Mammaliaformes, so Mammaliamorpha—the more inclusive clade—ought to appear in the "Scientific classification" box for Mammaliaformes as an unranked clade just above "Mammaliaformes". How do I get it there?

Also, "Subgroups" ought to include †Triconodonta, †Multituberculata, Monotremata, and Trechnotheria. How can I add these?

Thanks, Peter M. Brown (talk) 18:05, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Make sure you've read Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/intro and understand the general principles of the system.
Adding Mammaliamorpha Go to Mammaliaformes. Click on the red pencil icon in the taxobox. This will show you the complete taxonomic hierarchy. If your change is correct (I don't know either way), then you need the parent of Mammaliaformes to be Mammaliamorpha and its parent to be Chiniquodontoidea. I think the best way to do this is first to create Template:Taxonomy/Mammaliamorpha. The edit box should be partially filled in; if it's empty, go up to the second line of the documentation and use the "click here to reset" link. Based on what you've said above, the fields should be filled in like this:
|rank=clade
|link=Mammaliaformes|Mammaliamorpha
|parent=Chiniquodontoidea
The link needs to over-ride the default because it goes to Mammaliaformes, not Mammaliamorpha.
Then you can edit Template:Taxonomy/Mammaliaformes, changing the parent to Mammaliamorpha. You sometimes need a dummy edit (i.e. save page, edit doing nothing, save page) to update the hierarchy shown, but now it should be what you want.
However, by default, ancestor nodes which are clades don't show in automatic taxoboxes unless the |display_parents= parameter is set to some suitably high number in the {{Automatic taxobox}} template.
Subgroups The automatic taxobox system doesn't seem to have been used for the four groups you mention. So you need to create "Template:Taxonomy/..." pages for each of them, setting the parent to Mammaliaformes.
I hope this helps. The system seems scarey at first, but mostly it's easier than it seems (at least that's my experience). Peter coxhead (talk) 19:39, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Problem

I have seen this template used on a couple pages with some problems. Hominina and Homo are not displaying infraorder Simiiformes or parvorder Catarrhini which should be after order Primate and before superfamily Hominoidea. Even worse, Homo also doesn't display Hominoidea and skips right to family Hominidae.

Is there an off configuration in how this is used to cause these ommissions? I don't know how to fix it, so to get them to display properly all I can think is to replace automatic with just Template:Taxobox. Y12J (talk) 01:26, 15 March 2012 (UTC)

Which 'ancestral' taxa are shown in an automatic taxobox is decided by three factors:
  • Whether the taxon is one of the "principal ranks" (genus, family, order, etc.) or some other rank (subfamily, infraorder, etc.). By default, only principal ranks are shown. So if you look at Template:Taxonomy/Homo you'll see the note "Always displayed: Yes (major rank)".
  • This can be over-ridden in the "Template:Taxonomy/..." for a given taxon. If you look at Template:Taxonomy/Hominoidea you'll see the note "Always displayed: no." If you are absolutely sure that every single automatic taxobox which could possibly show Hominoidea should do so, then you can edit this template and add |always_display=true.
  • A particular automatic taxobox in one article can be persuaded to show more 'ancestral' taxa by adding |display_parents= with some suitably chosen number; you will have to experiment a bit to see what this should be. "10" seemed to work well when I experimented at Homo.
However, I would urge caution. Taxoboxes are sufficiently long and complex already; there's no need to show every intermediate rank in every taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:45, 15 March 2012 (UTC)
Why would we want Catarrhini/etc on Homo's taxobox? ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 04:06, 16 March 2012 (UTC)
Why indeed. Perhaps because, unfortunately in my view, many other taxoboxes display an inordinate number of ranks/clades. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:04, 16 March 2012 (UTC)

WP:HRT

At what threshold do we consider a taxonomy template an HRT? I propose we define an HRT threshold for this project, such as 1,000 transclusions. Upon 1,000 transclusions, the HRT would need indefinite protection from new and unregistered users. This is already in practice for many of the largest taxa, such as Animalia. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 15:18, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Teleostomi

Please see Template talk:Taxonomy/Teleostomi#Skipping Eugnathostomata where we are discussing how to handle the display of Eugnathostomata in the automatic taxobox. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 01:30, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Dealing with rank order

I've already posted this query in Template talk:Taxonomy/Mammalia, but I guess this was the appropriate place to put it.

I've now edited Template:Taxonomy/Mammalia, my first time editing a taxonomy template. How careful is it necessary to be about rank order? There are huge inconsistencies between Wikipedia articles, reflecting huge inconsistencies in the literature. Now I have Class Mammalia subordinate to Branch Synapsida, which in turn is subordinate to Superclass Tetrapoda. Is that OK? I'm not even sure where a branch falls in the rank hierarchy, but I suspect that it is not intermediate between a class and a superclass. I could create a Synapsida template with the group ranked as a clade; should I? Peter M. Brown (talk) 23:28, 21 April 2012 (UTC)

As long as you can provide sources, you're good. We're not allowed to submit original research to Wikipedia, so you'll need some evidence from literature that shows this. As for whether it's technically okay, absolutely. Taxonomy hasn't got as cut-and-dry a rank order as you'd like to think it does. Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 02:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that "Branch" is a formal rank of any kind; I would call it a "clade" within Wikipedia. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:26, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
A branch is a type of clade (see [1]). IMO it's better to list the clade type rather than having twenty nested taxa labelled simply "clade". At least being specific gives additional information than the general term "clade". MMartyniuk (talk) 13:33, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
What clades are branches? The link that MMartyniuk provides defines a branch, not as a type of clade, but as an internode, perhaps including descendant nodes and internodes. Peter M. Brown (talk) 15:36, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
If you read the definition and the two next entries of the glossary ("branch-based clade" and "branch-based definition") it should be clear that a branch and a node isn't necessarily the same thing. A branch can be a clade ( I suppose that's how it's most often employed), but from the definition it seems it can even be used in a paraphyletic sense. I'd say stick to "clade" when clade is what you mean to say. Petter Bøckman (talk) 20:10, 22 April 2012 (UTC)
Woooha, hold your horses Gents! I just discovered Dinoguy2 changing the ranking from Classis (Bentons view) to clade. The result is that all the primitive synapsids (the pelycosaurs as well as the Therapsida now anchor directly in Chordata. This looks very strange. While I'm no fan of Benton's idiosyncratic classification, Synopsida needs a rank, and his class rank is far better than the unranked "clade" we have now. As long as we have a taxobox system with ranks in it, we should use the rank system where it is published. A skip template to reroute Mammalia outside Synopsida is already in place. Petter Bøckman (talk) 13:11, 3 May 2012 (UTC)

Basque wikipedia has thousands of templates

Hello! We have been automatically creating automatic taxoboxes using for this different databases so now we have all the taxonomy of mammals and Aves done, and all bees despite not using them. We also have a bot that can import this to another Wikipedia, so if you see convenient, we can make some way of importing them here. -Theklan (talk) 22:58, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Impressive work! I wonder how reliable, up-to-date, and consistent your database sources are. Is it possible to import the taxonomy where it's missing, without overwriting what human editors have entered here? Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 19:56, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Missing:authority reference

Pretty fundamental oversight. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 09:47, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I assume you mean a separate parameter, called say authority_ref. I don't think anything would be gained by this as compared to simply putting a reference after the authority, as in say Trimezia martinicensis (and hundreds of other articles).
(There is a synonyms_ref, but this is needed because it puts the reference indicator after the word "Synonyms", which you can't do manually. See e.g. Ornithogalum candicans.) Peter coxhead (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
Thanks. I remember now. Same thing occured before. It's just not intuitive to me, so I've amended the documentation to explain. Regards, SunCreator (talk) 20:08, 22 May 2012 (UTC)
The documentation is a problem. Firstly, it was never really finished off – there are pages which don't have anything useful on them (Bob the Wikipedian did a great job at the start but seems to have moved on to other things). Secondly, it falls into the "too long didn't read" category (as a computer scientist I never read the documentation properly until there's a bug!). Peter coxhead (talk) 07:02, 23 May 2012 (UTC)

Expansion depth

This template appears to be causing several (don't know how many) articles to exceed the expansion depth limit. Falconimorphae, for instance, is basically just an automatic taxobox, and already exceeds the limit. Looking through the first page of the cleanup category, Aizoaceae also crops up, presumably because of {{automatic taxobox}}, and so do Anatidae, Anchiceratops and Anchisaurus. Actually, now I look, there are loads. Any solutions? --Stemonitis (talk) 07:54, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

See Template_talk:Speciesbox#expansion_depth. It seems that the template has not changed – if it worked before, it still does. A new version of the MediaWiki software produces an error report not previously generated. To the extent that the template still works, it's a false error report. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:56, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

What has changed is that the error is now reported more obviously. It the template is broken now, it was broken before. It may be that the only symptom of the error (so far) is the invocation of a cleanup category, but the error itself is older, and as more and more minor ranks are included in the automatic taxobox's taxonomic hierarchy, it may be that more and more pages will exceed the expansion depth limit (or are all pages using an automatic taxobox in the category already?). I don't think we can discount this problem quite so easily. It may be easy to ignore this apparently asymptomatic problem, but it must be indicative of something more serious. One of the other templates affected by the recent change, {{infobox coord}} is being made more efficient in response to the change. It seems unlikely that the new tracking category will be removed from the MediaWiki software, so I believe it's up to us to make sure our templates don't exceed its tolerances. Using Special:ExpandTemplates on a page using any kind of taxobox shows up a lot of ways in which efficiency could be improved (vast amounts of whitespace, unused table rows, etc.), although without necessarily solving the direct problem. If the problem is in the template, so must the solution be. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:50, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I agree, of course, that the problem must be fixed. I've run into the expansion depth limit with the {{clade}} template; it simply stops outputting the cladogram – the cladogram at APG III system#Phylogeny was split because otherwise the last part didn't display. So the depth must be being exceeded in some calls which don't result in output, otherwise we would see missing information. It seems unlikely to be due to the depth of the taxonomic hierarchy – it's a tiny fraction of the depth of the maximum cladogram which can be output. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:08, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

I wonder if there's some bug in the new version of the MediaWiki software. User:Peter_coxhead/Test/Clade has a cladogram which has always failed to display (and actually generates a visible error message which doesn't always happened). User:Peter_coxhead/Test currently has a cladogram which is the correct size to display fully, which it does. However, both pages have the hidden category Category:Pages where expansion depth is exceeded added to them. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:39, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

To update this thread, I was wrong. It's possible for a page to be displayed correctly because the expansion depth limit is exceeded in expanding templates that would not produce any output. For example, just beyond the expansion depth limit there might be an if statement which should produce output if the test were true, but actually the test is false. The if statement isn't expanded because the expansion depth limit has been exceeded, but this doesn't change the output. This is definitely what was happening with my {{clade}} examples, and is presumably what is happening with the automatic taxobox templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 02:58, 30 May 2012 (UTC)

When you view a taxonomy template, a number of fancy things show up to help make sense of the template. One is the link to the parent taxon's wikipedia article. But this link is generated in a sloppy way. As far as I can tell it is simply the name of the parent taxon. However, in some cases the name of the parent taxon is not the name of the parent's article and is also not a redirect to that article. Consider Template:Taxonomy/Grampus griseus; the parent link there is a disambiguation page. This isn't a big deal, but since Grampus is a disambiguation page, this template is listed at toolserver.org/~jason/templates_with_dab_links.php as needing attention. The "real" solution here is for the template viewer (or whatever it is called) to load the parent template to find the real link to the article. This seems like way too much work, but maybe I'm wrong and someone can fix it without too much trouble—that would be great! Barring that, though, perhaps we should unlink the name of the parent taxon here. It has never seemed particularly useful to me; usually when I click on it it is a mistake—I really wanted the parent's taxonomy template, not the parent's Wikipedia article. And in these few cases it would at least not be just broken anymore. I'm not sure the best course of action here, if any. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 22:44, 29 May 2012 (UTC)

I think the solution is to unlink the parent, not to find the real link. The reason being that the automatic taxobox templates are already causing problems with expansion depth (see above) so that further expansions seem undesirable. Peter coxhead (talk) 02:52, 30 May 2012 (UTC)
Sounds good. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:02, 31 May 2012 (UTC)
Ok, I did it. Please feel free to revert: diff. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 06:34, 31 May 2012 (UTC)

Duplicate authority

Any idea why the greatgreatgrandparent authority on Ichthyornis is being displayed twice in the auto taxobox? MMartyniuk (talk) 13:54, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Hmmm. Looks like it may have already been addressed; is this still an issue on your end? Bob the WikipediaN (talk • contribs) 04:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Broken Template

The automatic taxobox on the article Placozoa was displaying garbage text, apparently caused by the 'display children' option, which I removed, someone might want to have a look as I have no idea how the whole thing works. See this revision Renaud Houdinet (talk) 19:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

That was caused by this bit of vandalism, now fixed. I'm not sure it makes sense to list the children of a monotypic taxon, anyway. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:03, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Phormium

I created a Phormium page. When I put in the authority all sorts of wikicode magic happened. Can someone complete the page for me? Ta. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 04:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Well, first of all, there should only be one article on this plant. What you have created in a content fork from New Zealand flax. That shouldn't happen. --EncycloPetey (talk) 05:32, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

There is a discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Plants#Phormium_.2F_New_Zealand_flax. -- Alan Liefting (talk - contribs) 20:39, 20 August 2012 (UTC)

Taxobox colour

Does anyone know why the colour doesn't show up in automatic taxoboxes? It's been like that for a day or so. Smokeybjb (talk) 17:42, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

I have left a note about this here, Template_talk:Speciesbox#Colors_messed_up_again. — Ganeshk (talk) 18:46, 1 September 2012 (UTC)

Expansion depth limit exceeded error

Pages using the automatic taxobox template family are regularly producing error messages as they exceed the allowed depth of expansion for templates. In almost all cases this does not mean that the displayed taxobox is in error; e.g. the expansion depth may be exceeded in evaluating part of an "if statement" that would yield "false" and so not change the display.

Often Sometimes it helps to give the name of the taxon in the template call (e.g. via |taxon=). Relying on picking this up from the name of the page is elegant but consumes a lot of resources as string-handling is expensive in the curent template language. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:24, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Adding the name of the taxon does not seem to help on Aegyptocetus. The expansion depth error still shows up in the preview mode. — Ganeshk (talk) 10:37, 10 September 2012 (UTC)
Yes, I shouldn't have written "Often it helps..."; changed to "Sometimes ..." A very large number of pages using the automatic taxobox templates cause expansion depth errors even if you spell out the taxon name. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:25, 10 September 2012 (UTC)

Fix Automatic_taxobox PAGENAME depth

The infobox-generator Template:Automatic_taxobox needs to be updated from the /sandbox version to avoid the error "Page exceeded the expansion depth" by defaulting the parameter {{{taxon}}} as "{{PAGENAME}}" to use fewer nested levels of subtemplates. The /sandbox changes were also tested with article "User:Wikid77/Cetacea/sandbox2" as a full test for over 40 taxons in the naming system for whales, to ensure clean operation, without showing extra infra-taxons in the infobox. A current edit-preview of Cetacea/sandbox2 will show the expansion-depth as "39/40" levels:

After the update, thousands of the 3,900 Automatic_taxobox articles, such as "Aizoon" or fungi genus "Acaulospora" will reformat without the expansion-depth error, and so fewer pages will be listed in the tracking maintenance category:

Within 24 hours after updating the template, that category should have less than 2,000 pages (current live count: 4 pages). Note that a few taxobox articles will still be listed in that category, due to other problems in related templates not yet fixed, such as Template:Ichnobox. So, consider this to be "Step 2" in fixing expansion-depth problems for Template:Taxobox/core, problems which have persisted for years in cluttering the category. Some virus articles might also need a 3rd fix for them. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

{{done}} — Ganeshk (talk) 00:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. This edit seems to have had a number of unwanted knock-on effects. The authorities have disappeared from articles using {{automatic taxobox}} (e.g. Ovoo (genus); not apparently those using {{speciesbox}}), and a number of unranked higher taxa have disappeared from taxoboxes using both templates: Agapanthus and its species, for instance, should have Angiosperms, Monocots, etc., displaying. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Fix Automatic_taxobox PAGENAME depth

The infobox-generator Template:Automatic_taxobox needs to be updated from the /sandbox version to avoid the error "Page exceeded the expansion depth" by defaulting the parameter {{{taxon}}} as "{{PAGENAME}}" to use fewer nested levels of subtemplates. The /sandbox changes were also tested with article "User:Wikid77/Cetacea/sandbox2" as a full test for over 40 taxons in the naming system for whales, to ensure clean operation, without showing extra infra-taxons in the infobox. A current edit-preview of Cetacea/sandbox2 will show the expansion-depth as "39/40" levels:

After the update, thousands of the 3,900 Automatic_taxobox articles, such as "Aizoon" or fungi genus "Acaulospora" will reformat without the expansion-depth error, and so fewer pages will be listed in the tracking maintenance category:

Within 24 hours after updating the template, that category should have less than 2,000 pages (current live count: 4 pages). Note that a few taxobox articles will still be listed in that category, due to other problems in related templates not yet fixed, such as Template:Ichnobox. So, consider this to be "Step 2" in fixing expansion-depth problems for Template:Taxobox/core, problems which have persisted for years in cluttering the category. Some virus articles might also need a 3rd fix for them. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

{{done}} — Ganeshk (talk) 00:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. This edit seems to have had a number of unwanted knock-on effects. The authorities have disappeared from articles using {{automatic taxobox}} (e.g. Ovoo (genus); not apparently those using {{speciesbox}}), and a number of unranked higher taxa have disappeared from taxoboxes using both templates: Agapanthus and its species, for instance, should have Angiosperms, Monocots, etc., displaying. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It looks like missing unranked higher taxa issue is related to the change to Template:Taxobox/taxonomy template. I have reverted the changes to both the templates. — Ganeshk (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I have added the Template:Automatic taxobox/Testing page to compare the taxobox before and after the change. More test scenarios will need to be added. — Ganeshk (talk) 12:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the altered output was not from {Automatic_taxobox}, but instead, both problems were the result of the new {Taxobox/taxonomy} subtemplates, which have now been fixed. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Fix Automatic_taxobox PAGENAME depth

The infobox-generator Template:Automatic_taxobox needs to be updated from the /sandbox version to avoid the error "Page exceeded the expansion depth" by defaulting the parameter {{{taxon}}} as "{{PAGENAME}}" to use fewer nested levels of subtemplates. The /sandbox changes were also tested with article "User:Wikid77/Cetacea/sandbox2" as a full test for over 40 taxons in the naming system for whales, to ensure clean operation, without showing extra infra-taxons in the infobox. A current edit-preview of Cetacea/sandbox2 will show the expansion-depth as "39/40" levels:

After the update, thousands of the 3,900 Automatic_taxobox articles, such as "Aizoon" or fungi genus "Acaulospora" will reformat without the expansion-depth error, and so fewer pages will be listed in the tracking maintenance category:

Within 24 hours after updating the template, that category should have less than 2,000 pages (current live count: 4 pages). Note that a few taxobox articles will still be listed in that category, due to other problems in related templates not yet fixed, such as Template:Ichnobox. So, consider this to be "Step 2" in fixing expansion-depth problems for Template:Taxobox/core, problems which have persisted for years in cluttering the category. Some virus articles might also need a 3rd fix for them. -Wikid77 (talk) 18:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)

{{done}} — Ganeshk (talk) 00:40, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Hmm. This edit seems to have had a number of unwanted knock-on effects. The authorities have disappeared from articles using {{automatic taxobox}} (e.g. Ovoo (genus); not apparently those using {{speciesbox}}), and a number of unranked higher taxa have disappeared from taxoboxes using both templates: Agapanthus and its species, for instance, should have Angiosperms, Monocots, etc., displaying. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:45, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
It looks like missing unranked higher taxa issue is related to the change to Template:Taxobox/taxonomy template. I have reverted the changes to both the templates. — Ganeshk (talk) 12:13, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
I have added the Template:Automatic taxobox/Testing page to compare the taxobox before and after the change. More test scenarios will need to be added. — Ganeshk (talk) 12:38, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
Yes, the altered output was not from {Automatic_taxobox}, but instead, both problems were the result of the new {Taxobox/taxonomy} subtemplates, which have now been fixed. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Template:Taxonomy/Protoglossidae

An internet search showed that the only genus associated with this family, Template:Taxonomy/Protoglossus, is part of the Harrimaniidae family. I'm requesting deletion of Template:Taxonomy/Protoglossidae. Since this is used by Template:Automatic taxobox I'm reluctant to put in WP:MfD-required headers, so I am doing the discussion here instead. I will edit this to add links to the MfD shortly. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 21:28, 6 October 2012 (UTC) Update: I put the MfD template inside of <noinclude></noinclude>. The official MfD is at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 October 6#Template:Taxonomy/Protoglossidae. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:38, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Removal of Template:Taxonomy/Saxipendiidae

According to http://www.marinespecies.org/aphia.php?p=taxdetails&id=178738 this is not the correct name of the order. The correct name is Harrimaniidae, which already exists in the Wikipedia automated taxonomy template structure. As with Protoglossidae above, I put the WP:MfD-required headers inside of <noinclude></noinclude> to avoid confusing the automatic templates. See Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2012 October 6#Template:Taxonomy/Saxipendiidae for the official MfD of Template:Taxonomy/Saxipendiidae. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 22:36, 6 October 2012 (UTC)

Toolserver udate_child_list tool down.

http://toolserver.org/~verisimilus/Bot/taxobot/update_child_list.php?page= appears down or it just takes so long that I give up on it. This prevents the "update" link in Template:Taxonomy/template name from working. I will put a note on Smith609 (talk · contribs)'s talk page pointing him here. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 03:35, 7 October 2012 (UTC)

Will take a look when I have the time. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:26, 8 October 2012 (UTC)

What to do when the parent/child relationship is disputed

The order of Testudines is disputed and research into this area suggests Chelonii could be the correct name. Prior to the automatic taxobox both would be added to the order field, but I'm not sure how to do with the Automatic taxobox. Any ideas or do all the templates have to be converted back to the manual style? Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 14:25, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

The logic of the automatic taxobox system is that it displays a tree. It's possible to have alternative trees (i.e. to have both "Taxonomy/Testudines" and "Taxonomy/Chelonii" templates with the same parent) but not to display them simultaneously. So editors of particular articles will have to choose one or the other or, as you say, resort to manually constructing a taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 00:26, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
Or just change the text that's displayed, using the |link= parameter. I've done this at Template:Taxonomy/Testudines to give an example. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 08:47, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Most excellent! Thank you. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 16:29, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Ah, I didn't realize that you were happy for this to appear on every taxobox displaying this order. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:17, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
Sorry I wasn't clearer. Yes, I'm happy for it to appear with both Testudines and Chelonii on every taxobox. Regards, Sun Creator(talk) 01:16, 21 October 2012 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox

I know nothing about automatic taxoboxes. There may be an error somewhere in the setting up of the automatic taxobox for Mussidae. When editing it gives a message "Page exceeded the expansion depth". Its beyond my competence to investigate this. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 10:53, 20 October 2012 (UTC)

This is well-known problem not confined to this taxon. The error message is usually partly false: the expansion depth limit is exceeded, but it doesn't (as far as I know) ever affect the output. Peter coxhead (talk) 13:05, 20 October 2012 (UTC)
See planned fix below. -Wikid77 18:46, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
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