Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2017 February 13

February 13 edit

Template:At Last the 1948 Show edit

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was relisted on 2017 February 21. Primefac (talk) 19:20, 21 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

Taxonomy templates in Category:Unnecessary taxonomy templates for species edit

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the template below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).

The result of the discussion was delete. Primefac (talk) 19:15, 21 February 2017 (UTC) All 1,000+ templates in this category should be deleted. They are both unused and unnecessary.[reply]

  • They are all unused; I have checked and blanked everyone. No problem has resulted (I check the relevant error-tracking categories most days, and nothing has appeared). No-one has objected to any of the blankings.
  • They are unnecessary, so will not be used in future. They all simply state that the parent taxon for species X y has |parent=X. However, the species name X y necessitates that the parent taxon is the genus X; there's no need for a taxonomy template that says this. If the article about X y (where there is one) uses an automated taxobox, it should use {{Speciesbox}} rather than {{Automatic taxobox}}, and it will then obtain taxonomic information from the genus taxonomy template.
So why were there so many species taxonomy templates that simply say that the species' parent is the genus?
  • Many were created by Taxobot 2 in 2011/12. This bot no longer operates, and the task it performs is unlikely to ever be approved again. See as one example Template:Taxonomy/Pseudoceros cruentus.
  • In the earliest days of the automated taxobox system, {{Speciesbox}} had not been written, and for a year or two it was necessary to have taxonomy templates for species. So templates like Template:Taxonomy/Idiophyseter merriami were created in 2010. It took time for editors using automated taxoboxes in articles to learn to use the system properly; thus I created Template:Taxonomy/Phormium colensoi in 2011 when it wasn't actually necessary.
  • I suppose a few still get created by editors who don't know they aren't necessary now, although I haven't found any recent ones.

I'm happy to explain in more depth if required. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:25, 13 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the template's talk page or in a deletion review).