Template talk:Taxonomy

Edit Log

20:27, 26 February 2011 (UTC): Attempt to add support for {{Virusbox}}. Unsuccessful, reverted. Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)}

slash in category name

Hello. Your template uses Category:Immediate_children/, it should use instead Category:Immediate_children (without the "/" at the end). --Enric Naval (talk) 11:57, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Merge subtemplate talk pages

Would it be a good idea to merge and redirect all of this template's subtemplate talkpages to this one? There are a lot of pages which hardly get any posts and which are probably not monitored by other editors. It might be easier if this page was the central discussion place for all of the subtemplates. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:17, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

It would be a good idea to redirect all the talk pages of taxonomy "support" templates that aren't meant to be used by editors to one place; where exactly that should be is another question. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:31, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Question

Taxonomy
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Clade:	Dinosauria
Clade:	Saurischia
Clade:	Theropoda
Clade:	†Carnosauria (?)
Superfamily:	†Allosauroidea (?)

Does anyone know if there is any form to include a question mark in a parent taxon? Super Ψ Dro 10:32, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Do you mean for automated taxoboxes? If so, yes. For example, although it's not actually used, Template:Taxonomy/Allosauroidea/?/? ensures that an automated taxobox which sets the taxon to "Allosauroidea/?/?" will show "?" for both the taxon and its parent. Where do you want to use the question mark?

{{Automatic taxobox|taxon=Allosauroidea/?/?}} →

Peter coxhead (talk) 11:18, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

For Borchgrevinkium, which at the moment is only a redirection to Xiphosura. I am planning to expand it but I had this doubt. It belongs doubtfully to Prosomapoda, so I wanted to put the question mark to this clade. Is there any way to hide the parentheses? Super Ψ Dro 13:17, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

If you construct a manual taxobox, you can format it as you like, but the "(?)" is the inherited standard for automated taxoboxes, and in my view should be respected.

To do what you want with an automated taxobox, you would first construct a taxonomy template at Template:Taxonomy/Prosomapoda/? with the default content (you may need to select "Click here to reset"). Then you would create Template:Taxonomy/Borchgrevinkium with |parent=Prosomapoda/?. After which use {{Automatic taxobox}} in the article. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:44, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

So I have to copy everything in Template:Taxonomy/Prosomapoda to Template:Taxonomy/Prosomapoda/?? There's also the alternative of using a normal taxobox, but I think there is no way for "clade" to appear instead of "unranked taxon". Super Ψ Dro 19:58, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

No, if you let the system fill out the taxonomy template (by selecting "Click here to reset") it just uses |same_as= to get the details from Template:Taxonomy/Prosomapoda. Yes, you are right that you can't use "clade" in a normal taxobox, because there's no way for it to know the ordering of the parent taxa unless they have some rank indication, by "unranked_ordo", etc. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:09, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, I just created the template based on Allosauroidea's. Thank you very much for your help! Super Ψ Dro 21:25, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikilinks from taxonomy templates

Although the vast majority are correct, a few taxonomy templates link to articles which are not taxa. For example, {{Taxonomy/Alabama}} links to Alabama, but Alabama (moth) might be more appropriate. Some just need (genus) added; some should be redlinks. There's a list of 123 cases here but it may include some false positives. Does an expert fancy fixing them? If not then I'll have a go myself. Thanks, Certes (talk) 00:08, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I fixed {{Taxonomy/Alabama}}, good catch. It was probably not noticed because it wasn't being used.

In general, your query seems looks at only a small fraction of possible indicators of the article being about a tsxon. For example, {{Taxonomy/Bemmeridae}} is on your list, but Bemmeridae is clearly stated to be a family in the article and is in a category that says it's a family. There seem to be many false positives.

A more useful first step would be to look at links in taxonomy templates that go to articles that don't have a taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:16, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Peter coxhead. I'm limiting to articles with no Taxobox or similar template. You're right about Bemmeridae. Its taxobox didn't register because it was broken last night when I ran the query, but the article was fixed a few hours ago. I fixed a few other articles which also had broken taxoboxes, and reran the query. Alabama, Bemmeridae and those I fixed no longer appear. Certes (talk) 20:38, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I've started correcting them (see User:Peter coxhead/Work page#Work for those I haven't yet looked at).

There are some interesting cases, e.g. Template:Taxonomy/Botrychiaceae is ok in principle, but Botrychiaceae is no longer accepted, so the article doesn't have a taxobox. It seems best to mark the taxonomy template for deletion. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

The genus taxonomy templates are mostly straightforward – it's mostly a matter of finding the disambiguating term from a higher level article. Others take more time to investigate! Peter coxhead (talk) 10:22, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. I'm happy to do any bulk editing myself, e.g. if you want to leave me a list of those which just require (genus) appending. However, as you suggest, some of them require expert attention to get right. I have absolutely no problem with the query continuing to return rows, as long as they're known false positives that a biologist has looked at. Certes (talk) 11:13, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I've excluded articles in a few more categories, such as those containing the word "family". We're now down to 22 suspicious links. I've transcluded the first paragraph of the relevant articles in a sandbox to make it clearer whether they are relevant. I think Odontomachini and Prolochus are false positives. Perhaps those articles could usefully have more categories but, again, that's a job for a taxonomist. Certes (talk) 14:31, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've fixed the obvious remaining cases, leaving just seven in my sandbox with brief analysis and suggestions. If you can kindly deal with these then I think that's the job done. Thanks again for all the help. Certes (talk) 19:55, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

@Certes: actually a few of the ones you looked at aren't quite fixed. It's clearly better if the link in the taxonomy template is set to a redirect to the correct article rather than to the wrong article. However, to work completely correctly, and in particular to bold the target taxon name in the taxobox, the link in the taxonomy template must be set to the exact title of the relevant article. Thus Template:Taxonomy/Pastor must have the link set to Rosy starling, not Pastor (bird). If you look at Rosy starling now, you'll see that "Pastor" is in bold in the taxobox, but it wasn't when the link was the redirect. I didn't explain this above, sorry – it's hidden in the "mostly" in my comment "it's mostly a matter of finding the disambiguating term". I have your original list at User:Peter coxhead/Work page#Work and I'll quickly check through it. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:47, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Some, like Template:Taxonomy/Picola, are wrong (WoRMS says Picola is a synonym). In this case, we blank the template and put it into Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates which get nominated for deletion from time to time. Peter coxhead (talk) 05:56, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I've put comments in green at User:Certes/sandbox2. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:54, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: Thanks for fixing things. Perhaps I should have left it to an expert! At least this is useful training for me, as Template:Taxonomy/* come up regularly at Templates with disambiguation links (example).

While you're here, was this edit correct or is there a better way to deal with genera in quotation marks? (Are these nomina dubia?) Certes (talk) 08:34, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I'll look at this one in a bit; still sorting out some other cases, particularly where the problem is not with the link in the taxonomy template, but with the article, which was less accurate or up-to-date. Thus for example, {{Taxonomy/Myrsinoideae}} was fine, but the article at Myrsinaceae needed to be moved to Myrsinoideae rather than the redirect being the other way round.

This has been a very useful exercise; many thanks for highlighting these taxonomy templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:59, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Incidentally, if you come across any causing issues in future that ultimately go to Veterovata, we are very unlikely to ever have any separate articles on the sub-groups, so the taxonomy template can properly link to Egg fossil#Classification. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:08, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the only offenders are {{Taxonomy/Ornithoid-ratite}} and {{Taxonomy/Ornithoid-prismatic}}. Certes (talk) 10:03, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

On the point about appending (wasp) etc. rather than (genus), 356 animal templates link to X (genus). Most such articles exist and describe animal genera. (I did a rough check for plants with clashing names and found none.) 35 are redlinks, 55 are redirects to good targets like Appias (butterfly); lists available if useful. We also have a few odd cases:

• {{Taxonomy/Cooloola (genus)}} – unused; {{Taxonomy/Cooloola}} exists and seems correct
• {{Taxonomy/Danae (beetle)}} – in use; {{Taxonomy/Danae}} describes a plant
• {{Taxonomy/Dictyoptera (genus)}} – in use; {{Taxonomy/Dictyoptera}} describes its superorder
• {{Taxonomy/Maja (genus)}} – unused; {{Taxonomy/Maja}} exists and seems correct
• {{Taxonomy/Oculina (genus)}} – unused; {{Taxonomy/Oculina}} exists and seems correct
• {{Taxonomy/Platynota (moth)}} – unused but useful; {{Taxonomy/Platynota}} describes a lizard group; Platynota blanchardi seem correct but use manual taxobox
• {{Taxonomy/Popa (genus)}} – in use; {{Taxonomy/Popa}} absent; Popa is a dab with one taxon
• {{Taxonomy/Protome (genus)}} – in use; {{Taxonomy/Protome}} absent; Protome is a Greek sculpture
• {{Taxonomy/Ranoidea (genus)}} – widely used; {{Taxonomy/Ranoidea}} describes its superfamily
• {{Taxonomy/Sepia (Sepia)}} – unused; {{Taxonomy/Sepia}} exists and seems correct
• {{Taxonomy/Trogon (genus)}} – in use; {{Taxonomy/Trogon}} is similar and widely used; Trogon is its family
• {{Taxonomy/Yoda (genus)}} – in use, redirects to a species; {{Taxonomy/Yoda}} absent; Yoda an unrelated topic describes

Hope that helps, Certes (talk) 11:51, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: I've repeated this exercise on the current templates and fixed about a dozen where the intended target was obvious. The following also look suspicious and may need expert attention; please can you check them?

• {{Taxonomy/Aegagropila}} – Aegagropila redirects to a related article
• {{Taxonomy/Batanga}} – unused; dab Batanga has no taxa
• {{Taxonomy/Fagasa}} – unused; dab Fagasa has no taxa
• {{Taxonomy/Molpadia}} – Molpadia is not about the taxon; Molpadia musculus exists
• {{Taxonomy/Myxomycetes}} – probably broad enough that someone has decided this is correct
• {{Taxonomy/Negibacteria}} – probably broad enough that someone has decided this is correct
• {{Taxonomy/Spio}} – Spio is not about the taxon; Spio aequalis exists

Thanks, Certes (talk) 01:25, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

All checked and fixed as per my judgement. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Barnacles

I am planning to update barnacle articles (class Thecostraca / Maxillopoda) to agree with WoRMS and this 2021 paper. It's a major (and needed) revision to the class, and will require quite a few changes to the templates in this class. Is that OK? Bob Webster (talk) 19:59, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Sure; it's based on reliable sources. Do add the ref[s] to the taxonomy templates when you revise them. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:58, 22 August 2021 (UTC)

Thanks! Bob Webster (talk) 00:40, 23 August 2021 (UTC)

Unranked vs Clade

Why do we have a distinction between unranked and clade, the distinction makes no sense. if something is a clade without a rank, it is unranked by definition. most things listed as unranked seem to be clades. Benboy250 (talk) 15:21, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

I brought this up recently at Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system/Archive 4#unusual ranks in taxonomy templates (see my last comment in that thread). It would be better to discuss this there as that page has more watchers. Plantdrew (talk) 15:41, 28 September 2021 (UTC)

Question mark format

Hello, does anyone else agree that the question mark parameter looks quite ugly when displayed? I've used these parameters at Unionopterus and the "(?)" are shown in a line apart from the clade they accompany. Why don't we use academic standards and make the question mark show at the left of the clade's name? With extinct clades, it should show between the extinction symbol and the clade. That this infobox uses unorthodox "(?)" is what has always made me hesitant to use this parameter instead of simply using Template:Taxonomy and doing it manually. Or, at the very least, I think we should add a " " to avoid the question mark from collapsing into a separate line. Super Ψ Dro 10:07, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

@Super Dromaeosaurus: so you just want a nonbreaking space? You don’t like the parentheses? --awkwafaba (📥) 16:16, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

The question mark format has been like that from the start of automated taxoboxes, as far as I can tell, so I think it would need a well supported RfC to change. Are there sources that say how to format uncertain classifications?

I do agree that there should be a non-breaking space before the "(?)". This can be achieved by a relatively simple change to Template:Taxonomy (which is what actually displays each taxon row in a taxobox). It already changes ". " to ". " to ensure that abbreviated genus names are on the same line as the following species name/epithet. I've made the change in the sandbox version, and can update the live version if there are no objections (but as it's used on roughly 1% of all pages according to the template's documentation page, it's not a change to make lightly). Peter coxhead (talk) 17:11, 23 January 2022 (UTC)

Peter coxhead, nobody has expressed any complaint to this in a few weeks. I think the change can be applied. Super Ψ Dro 18:57, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Super Dromaeosaurus:  Done. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Thank you! Super Ψ Dro 21:43, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Too soon! It doesn't do what we wanted and I expected at Unionopterus. I'll investigate tomorrow. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:45, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Alright, ping me when you find out what's wrong. Super Ψ Dro 21:55, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Ah, I now think it needs a simple change to Module:Autotaxobox because the " (?)" is generated there rather than being present in the taxonomy template, but I need to make some more tests. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:03, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

@Super Dromaeosaurus: sorry, been busy in real life. Compare the live and sandbox versions of the Unionopterus taxoboxes at Template:Taxobox/core/testcases#Automatic_taxobox. So I know how to do it, but I prefer to make changes to the heavily used Module:Autotaxobox in the morning UK time which is nighttime in the US, so the servers tend to be less loaded. Now live; see Unionopterus. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:25, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks. Super Ψ Dro 14:15, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

How to make "above levels are same page too" black link

The Black in the link saying "above levels are same page too"

It exists in Revtraviricetes, but not in Semotivirus

is it because;

• in Template:Taxonomy/Artverviricota,

Link:

Revtraviricetes|Artverviricota(links to Revtraviricetes)

• and in Template:Taxonomy/Pararnavirae,

Link:

Revtraviricetes|Pararnavirae(links to Revtraviricetes)

but

• in Template:Taxonomy/Belpaoviridae,

Link:

Belpaoviridae

???

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 07:05, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

yes it was :)

now others may know Webclouddat (talk) 07:07, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

best theory:

anything that directly links to this page is linked black

fix:

anything that directly or indirectly links to this page is linked black (may be to ineffecient or impossible Webclouddat (talk) 07:09, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

It is conventional to bypass the redirect in these templates, as you did with this edit. I've never been convinced that this is the best thing to do, because it would be useful for the template to pick up any future new article on Belpaoviridae, but it does avoid the problem of unwanted self-links described here. Certes (talk) 10:18, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Yes, and the only fix is for the template to: take redirects into account. so if you link to Belpaoviridae it should try to redirect to Semotivirus; unlessofcourse: you are in the Semotivirus page

But, if later there is a belpaoviridae page, then it can have no redirects.

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 19:02, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The current logic is built into MediaWiki: within Semotivirus, the wikitext [[Semotivirus]] produces unlinked bold text because the target matches the page title, but the wikitext [[Belpaoviridae]] produces a blue link because the target differs (even though a redirect exists). Module:Autotaxobox#L-520 simply puts square brackets round whatever it's given, without having to check whether the target matches the page name. For example,putting {{Virusbox|taxon = Semotivirus}} into Special:ExpandTemplates with context title Semotivirus produces ...|Family:|[[Semotivirus|''Belpaoviridae'']] |Genus:|<b>''Semotivirus''</b>..., with the family being a normal wikilink. Certes (talk) 19:38, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

It's possible to test whether a page title corresponds to a redirect, but this is defined as an "expensive" action and increments the expensive function count. This would cause a problem with a very deep taxonomic hierarchy, and in general it's not a good idea to use expensive actions unnecessarily because of the load placed on the servers. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:06, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

That's all true. On the other hand, we're told Don't worry about performance. Each page is allowed up to 500 expensive actions, and for efficiency we could work upwards (stopping when we reach a taxon that doesn't redirect to the current page) so we'd only need one or two checks in practice. It's unclear what to do on balance, but doing nothing is certainly easiest and safest. Certes (talk) 21:01, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

I dont think it would cause any problems with "a very deep taxonomic hierarchy",

Instead for looking for 'pages that redirect to what this page directs to' for each template

you could look just make the "|link: " tag look for a redirect in the Template code (assuming there are no redirect chains in wikipedia)

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 21:22, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

other methods are to

keep it so only direct links are linked black, then once a page that it links to (Belpaoviridae) has its own page, you could

1. send notification to a admin; or

2. send notification to all watchers; or

3. sent notification to all editors;or

4. make a bot, that once Belpaoviridae has its own page, changes "Semotivirus|Belpaoviridae(links to Semotivirus)" to "Belpaoviridae"

(also what certes said)

EDITED

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 21:09, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

An alternative is to add a new optional parameter to Virusbox and its animal/plant/other friends, allowing editors to specify the page they'd have liked to link to. (This usually matches the displayed text but not always; for example, it might have been "Belpaoviridae (virus)" if there had been an unrelated primary topic occupying the base name "Belpaoviridae".) I'm not sure what we do with the value: ignore it in the module and have a bot check it periodically? It's tempting to have the module check whether the desired title has become an article and add the page to a maintenance category if so, but that also calls the expensive function, so it's no more efficient than doing things properly. Certes (talk) 21:30, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, do you mean this?

• have two links, "Link-1" and "link-2"
• |link-1:Belpaoviridae
• |Link-2: Semotivirus|Belpaoviridae(links to Semotivirus)"
• Link-1 is the page for the Belapaoviridae, or Belapaoviridae(virus) if there are multiple
• Link-2 is the manual link we already do, and is direct links only
• Check link-1 first, but its either not a page, or is a redirect;
• If link-1 not work; send to link-2 (has to work)

is this what you mean??

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 21:39, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

The "having two links" bit is what I mean. However "check link-1 first" is the expensive function that we're keen to avoid, so the template (via the module) would need to use link-2 always, ignoring link-1. Link-1 would only be checked periodically by a hypothetical bot, querying a replicated copy of the database rather than troubling the main servers. However, this is more of an idea than a request or specification, and it may be better simply to do nothing. Certes (talk) 23:09, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

i think it would just be easier to make a bot that checks and fixes every template page that exists, but run it every year or something. Webclouddat (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

@Webclouddat: so to be clear, if the taxonomy template contains a piped link, like |link=Semotivirus|Belpaoviridae, the idea would be to run a bot periodically that would check whether the second value (here Belpaoviridae) now has its own page, and then change the taxonomy template.

However, I don't really see why this is necessary. If an editor creates a page at "Belpaoviridae", a page which will have a taxobox, they will see that in the taxobox the target taxon name (i.e. Belpaoviridae) is not emboldened, so they will see they need to fix the taxonomy template. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:47, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

I would say as a yearly cleanup Just-in-case, becuase not everyone even knows about templates or taxoboxes, and seeing that "nothing produces those boxes like things" they will be confused and leave it.

FINALLL: I think there should just be a yearly bot or clean-up-crew to clean everything up

i do not care if its implemented or not (:

>>> Webclouddat (talk) 01:04, 13 August 2023 (UTC)

Edit request 16 February 2024

Description of suggested change:

Diff:

−

ORIGINAL_TEXT

+

CHANGED_TEXT

ImperialePRINCIPESSA (talk) 00:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Lo scarabeo non è un ragno aggiornate..sono una tribù ma che axxata significa?tribù?mha non ho parole

ragni=tribù di scarabei? aggiornamento subito grazie mille ImperialePRINCIPESSA (talk) 01:04, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

To editor ImperialePRINCIPESSA: sorry, but as near as I can tell, you want to update something about spiders and beetles? It would help if you could translate to English, but in any case this is probably not the template that might need to be updated. We want to be very certain about this high risk template that is used on 385,000 pages. Thank you for your edits! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 02:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

All'editore ImperialePRINCIPESSA: scusa, ma per quanto ne so, vuoi aggiornare qualcosa su ragni e scarafaggi? Sarebbe d'aiuto se potessi tradurre in inglese, ma in ogni caso questo probabilmente non è il modello che potrebbe aver bisogno di essere aggiornato. Vogliamo essere molto sicuri di questo modello ad alto rischio utilizzato su 385.000 pagine. Grazie per le tue modifiche! P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 00:06, 17 February 2024 (UTC)