Template talk:Automatic taxobox/Archive 12

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Fixes for authority and always_display

The changes which dropped the authority-text and ignored option "always_display=true" were not in {Automatic_taxobox}, but instead, were the result of the new {Taxobox/taxonomy}, and both issues have been fixed now. There is no need to keep reverting changes to other templates such as {Automatic_taxobox}, just note problems and move forward. -Wikid77 (talk) 14:19, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

I have updated the templates now. — Ganeshk (talk) 22:58, 2 November 2012 (UTC)

Display_children not working

Display_children doesn't seem to be working for any taxoboxes, and I've noticed it for a few days. Anyone know why this is? Smokeybjb (talk) 19:55, 11 November 2012 (UTC)

It works via code hosted externally at toolserver.org which doesn't seem to be running correctly at present. The tool belongs to User:Smith609 (I think): leave him a message. Personally I avoid relying on such tools if at all possible. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:51, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Use of always_display

I notice you are removing all instances of always_display i the auto taxobox templates for dinosaur taxa. We in WP:Dino use this parameter in order to force important and widely-used low-level taxa to display on the main genus pages. The auto taxobox does not automatically show tribes and subfamilies, which are often widely used among dinosaur taxonomists, and this impedes navigation between taxoboxes. Using the always_display parameter is a simpler method than fording display parents on every one of the often numerous included genera pages. Has the always_display parameter been officially deprecated? If not, what is it there for if not this use? MMartyniuk (talk) 12:35, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I have noticed it was also removed from tribe and subfamily templates for several extinct insect taxa that I created. I too would like to know why you are removing them.--Kevmin § 12:44, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The always_display parameter is for use when (very) important taxa fall at subsidiary ranks but should nonetheless be included in the taxoboxes of all daughter taxa. In general, subfamilies should be displayed in the taxobox of a genus, but should not be included in the taxobox of a species or subspecies, for instance. In such cases, the use of always_display is therefore inappropriate. It should not be used just to allow editors to cut corners in other taxoboxes, because it will have wider effects. Even minor taxa will already display in an automatic taxobox if they are close enough to the focal taxon; a genus article, for instance, will generally show the subfamily, without our having to specify either display_parents in its taxobox, or use always_display in the subfamily template. So, no, it isn't deprecated, but it was always intended to be used in only a very limited set of circumstances, and that hasn't changed. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:45, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

When Was that precedent decided and by whom?--Kevmin § 12:50, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

It was decided right at the beginning of the automatic taxobox's use. It is mentioned here and here (and possibly elsewhere). It is also, as far as I can see, the only sensible way it could be used. The principle of the taxobox has always been to include only the bare bones of the hierarchy leading to the focal taxon (WP:TX), and only to include the most important taxa – major ranks, adjacent minor ranks, and very occasional and exceptional minor ranks elsewhere. --Stemonitis (talk) 12:57, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Yet you are not assessing. You are arbitrarily removing the parameter without apparent assessment of where the taxon your removing it from is or is not important. The only page that makes the assertion that |display_parent is preferable shows it seems to have been an arbitrary decision by User:Smith609. At least in the case of the Dinosaur taxons it was decided by the WP:Dino members that the taxa where it was used were important and should have the always_display used.--Kevmin § 20:49, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

• Note: Preceding conversation copied from User talk:Stemonitis for clarity and keeping the discussions together.

I and others have relied heavily on the always_display parameter to cause important and widely-used taxa to appear in dinosaur taxoboxes which would otherwise not display them because they are not a "major" rank (e.g. Theropoda). A user has recently been systematically removing use of this parameter indiscriminately from all taxoboxs, so far only with the edit note that we *must* add a display_parants parameter to each and every sub-page instead (this would be highly impractical for an example like Theropoda which often has dozens of sub-clades between it and the genus page). What is the rationale for this? Thanks, MMartyniuk (talk) 12:40, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

My actions were hardly "indiscriminate". I removed the parameter from a small number of instances where it should never have been used. There are plenty more. Please see my talk page for a more detailed rationale. If it is thought important that Theropoda (for instance) must be included on every taxon below it, then yes, always_display should be used. (You will notice that I haven't touched {{Taxonomy/Theropoda}}.) It should not be used, however, simply to avoid coding other taxoboxes correctly. A suborder or tribe very rarely needs to be displayed on a species page, so should not be set to always display. --Stemonitis (talk) 13:06, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I too am confused by this effort. One of the significant benefits of using the automatic taxobox is the important capability to make a change for an given taxon without being forced to customize the individual pages for the lower taxa. Not only is that potentially a huge time-saver, but it also ensures consistent treatment across a desired group. How do you propose allowing an editor to indicate that "no, they really mean it"? Do we need an "override_justification" field, or perhaps a "dont_override_my_override" field? This circular reasoning begins becomes absurd quickly. Or, since you clearly have a set of criteria for determining when it is or is not appropriate to use the flag, then perhaps you should write-up those rules and include them in the documentation pages. Grollτech (talk) 13:27, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry; I can't follow your argument about overrides. There doesn't need to be any circular reasoning. That problem only arises if you're trying to control the appearance from both sides (bottom-up on the articles themselves, and top-down on the taxonomy templates of higher taxa). In most of the dinosaur cases that I've seen, the differences all derive from the use of {{speciesbox}} for monotypic genera. I would recommend always setting display_parents = 2 for monotypic genera using {{speciesbox}}, because otherwise it assumes that the (monotypic) genus is the direct parent, and doesn't display the next higher taxon. That solves almost all the problems. If there are too many articles to approach manually, it should be simple enough to put together a bot request to deal with them all at once. You would then be free to use always_display as it was intended, displaying minor taxa on the pages about their direct descendants, but without affecting any articles at lower taxonomic ranks. I could try to draft something for the documentation pages, if you think the existing wordings aren't clear enough. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:13, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

One of the major points to the development of the automatic taxobox was to at least some of the cases of needing to do just that. Adding the display_always parameter is much more elegant and simple then finding someone to program a to to add the display_parent to a large number of articles, for which the bot may or may not make the right edit.--20:55, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

The problem with |always_display= is that it does precisely that, always displays, and isn't sensitive to the level of the final taxon the taxobox is displaying. Hence if more than a very few key taxa are coded as |always_display= the result can be, as Stemonitis notes above, that too many levels appear in the taxobox, which is not meant to show the entire hierarchy, only just enough ranks to enable the reader to understand the taxonomic "location" of the subject of the article.

One issue with monospecific genera is using {{speciesbox}} when the title of the article is the genus but the final taxon displayed is the species, as at Nectocaris. The template wasn't really designed to be used in this way – at least that's my understanding. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:26, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

As noted above for |always_display= the majority of the use has been a subfamily levels and below, and mostly with respect to monotypic genera that are using the species box. I'm not sure when too many is reached to be honest. Its a very subjective point and taxon dependent.--Kevmin § 21:56, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

To answer this, and the reason I said indiscriminate above, is that in WP:Dinosaur we do not have species-level articles. All subtaxa within this project are at the genus level, though since many are monotypic, they use the speciesbox. I can't speak for other projects, but when Stemonitis changed the template for Template:Taxonomy/Mononykini with the edit note that this will change ALL subtaxa, he clearly did not know nor bother to check that ALL subtaxa are genera. So either this edit was indescriminate or -- more likely given his last edit summary -- uninformed. Furthermore, the assertion that subfamilies and tribes should display on genus articles but not species articles is totally arbitrary. What if we within the project decide we do want it on all subtext? As far as I know nobody working on these articles was consulted. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:12, 8 November 2012 (UTC)

Sorry to be blunt, but in wider issues, your project is not able to overrule a wider consensus (WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). There is a very well established consensus of very long standing that taxoboxes should be showing only a very limited set of taxa. This cannot simply be magicked away with a statement that "we do not have species-level articles". Firstly, because that's a very short term view: it is entirely possible that species-level articles will be written, and it would be absurd to expect an editor writing such an article to have to go back and fix all the other genus-level articles in the same family to avoid showing the excess taxonomic detail. Secondly, because even without descending to the rank of species, it is entirely possible to exceed the appropriate level of detail. If a genus is shown in an intrafamilial tribe, then it probably shouldn't also be showing the subfamily in the taxobox, and yet current practice would be to set both to always display. The taxonomy templates should not have to be changed in order to accommodate new articles; the whole reason they work at all is because they provide a fixed backbone on which to hang articles (changes in taxonomy aside). I recognise that it could be a fair amount of work to fix this error, but I think I have shown at least two ways in which it could be reduced to very little. One is by tweaking {{speciesbox}} to recognise monotypic genera (in the vast majority of cases, the genus parameter will match {{{PAGETITLE}}}, so this would be easy to code) and show the next level above, and the other is a bot request. Either of these would provide an enormous improvement over the current abuse of the system. Again, I apologise for my bluntness, but this needs to be understood. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:15, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I have made a request at Template talk:Speciesbox. Hopefully one of the experienced template programmers will be able to fix this problem pretty quickly. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:19, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

That is YOUR opinion on how it should work, a group of editors for a specific set of taxa have made the decision that they feel the taxa they are writing about are best served with the taxoboxes set differently and the taxa not being written about at lower then the genus level. The consensus for having a limited number of levels to a taxobox is from before the automatic taxoboxes and is not applicable in the same manner to the autmatic taxoboxes. The atb's are already limiting the taxonomic detail. DO not make changess and then try to grab the moral high ground over others when you are challenged. --Kevmin § 07:31, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

You are mistaken. The automatic taxoboxes should be giving exactly the same information as manual taxoboxes. The existing consensus applies to all taxoboxes, regardless of the technology behind them. Contrary to your assertions, I am not making changes; it is you who are trying to amend the longstanding consensus on taxobox usage. This is also not a moral issue, but a practical one. Setting taxa to always display will cause other taxoboxes to display inappropriate levels of detail, and the only way to fix that is to remove that flag (and make any additional changes required by that). I am trying to resolve this issue to everyone's satisfaction: the edit I proposed to {{speciesbox}} will allow all your taxoboxes to show up as you want them to, but without the need to over-invoke always_display. I really can't see that there's any need for you to be antagonistic towards that. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:50, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

@Kevmin: it would be highly undesirable for the content of manual and automated taxoboxes to be based on different guidance as to how each system should be used. The automated taxobox system is just an alternative way to display a taxobox; it shouldn't matter which an editor chooses to use. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

If I may jump in here, I don't see much of a problem with setting always_display for low-level taxa because the editors clearly intend for it to display in every for child taxon (in the case of a subfamily that would be all the genera, and presumably the species if we ever decide to create articles for them). Stemonitis says that using always_display poses a practical issue, but it really doesn't because the effects are contained. This isn't going to affect every taxobox, so why should you stop a group of editors from adopting their own standard for their own specific articles? Articles on prehistoric taxa are a special case in which important ranks are rarely orders and families, hence the need for paleo editors to adopt a practice different from that of editors who work with living taxa. Smokeybjb (talk) 20:18, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

The gastropod project had similar disagreement on this issue, see User_talk:Stemonitis/Archive38#Always_display. They had a local convention to display super family on all articles down to the species level. Also relevant is this discussion,Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gastropods/Archive_5#Is_Super_family_a_major_rank.3F. — Ganeshk (talk) 03:19, 10 November 2012 (UTC)

{{Speciesbox}} in genus articles

I'm confused about what editors want here. If all the species of a given genus (including the sole species in the case of monospecific genera) are treated in an article at the genus name, why is {{speciesbox}} used at all? It's meant for articles which are at the species name. Articles like Nectocaris seem to me simply wrong: the title of the article is the genus but the text opens with the species name in bold and the taxobox is for the species. The article is about the genus, as shown by its title. So it should start something like: "Nectocaris is a genus with one species, Nectocaris pteryx, of possible cephalopod affinity...", and the taxobox should be for the genus, produced by {{automatic taxobox}}, with the species shown at the very bottom, as normal for genera. Can someone please explain why {{speciesbox}} should ever be used in an article whose title is a genus name? Peter coxhead (talk) 10:46, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

I've been wondering about this, too. It makes more sense to me to use the standard automatic taxobox for monotypic genera and just use the type_species parameter. I've never liked the redundancy of having the species name and binomen in the taxobox, especially when the article is supposed to be about the genus. Smokeybjb (talk) 20:22, 9 November 2012 (UTC)

So is there consensus that monotypic genera should use {{automatic taxobox}} and not {{speciesbox}}? --Stemonitis (talk) 11:09, 14 November 2012 (UTC)

I don't think it's quite so simple. There isn't a consensus across different projects as to how articles about monospecific genera should be handled. Wikipedia:Plants#Plant article naming conventions is clear that such articles should be at the genus name, but Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life#Article titles allows the article to be at either the genus or the species name. So I think:

*If the title of the article is the monospecific genus, then the lead should be worded accordingly (i.e. not like Nectocaris) and {{speciesbox}} shouldn't be used.

*If the title of the article is the species (which means it's not a plant), then the lead should be worded accordingly and {{speciesbox}} can be used.

Peter coxhead (talk) 20:01, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I think you must be mistaken. WP:TOL states that "for a genus that contains a single species, the genus name should be used since it is included in the binomial nomenclature." This is (as it should be) the same across all kingdoms. I don't see a problem with articles like Nectocaris, since the same group of organisms is meant, even if they are not nomenclaturally equal, but there is no disparity between projects, as far as I can see. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:13, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Yes, you're quite right. I've been under this misapprehension for some time, so thanks for correcting me. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I'm guilty of using {{Speciesbox}}, but it's because monotypic genera don't really use the type_species parameter in manual taxoboxes. It's always a binomial_name parameter, AFAIK. And you don't have that in {{automatic taxobox}}. Plus, there are monotypic taxa that extend to suprageneric ranks, and denoting a type species is inappropriate in those instances. I would not, however, use {{Speciesbox}} for non-monotypic taxa of course. And I agree with Stemonitis on the last point, though my rationale has also more to do with genera being the shorter, easier-to-remember, and thus more familiar name to most people, heh.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 20:35, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

{{Automatic taxobox}} allows |subdivision_ranks=Species and |subdivision= as e.g. at Adoketophyton or almost any other article on an extinct plant genus, so there's no need to use {{speciesbox}}. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I conclude that there is a consensus not to use {{speciesbox}} as Stemonitis originally suggested. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:09, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

I would contend that there is no consensus, as the usage of the specific {{speciesbox}} template on monotypic genera has never been discussed, and i the template on monotypic genera articles I create.--Kevmin § 22:26, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

subdivision_ranks or display children in no way approximates even the binomial_name field. Notice that the example you gave, is not monotypic. Try browsing Category:Monotypic plant genera and Category:Monotypic animal genera. All of them use the binomial_name field. Unless {{Automatic taxobox}} can accomplish that as well, I will continue using {{Speciesbox}}.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 23:00, 17 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I admit I was being provocative as to consensus! But at least there were some more responses.

This goes back to the issue I began with. Why are articles at one title written as if they were at a different title? Articles like Bathykorus or almost all of those I looked at in Category:Monotypic animal genera (less so in Category:Monotypic plant genera) are written as if the title were the species name. The subject of the first sentence, which is in bold, is not the title of the article. If the article is written in this way, then using {{speciesbox}} makes sense – what's wrong is the article title. If the article is written correctly, like Bridgesia, then {{speciesbox}} is not appropriate.

It's not just my personal view that Bridgesia is in the correct style and Bathykorus is not. Wikipedia:BEGINNING#First_sentence says "If possible, the page title should be the subject of the first sentence". If the page title is the genus name, then it's certainly possible, and I see no reason why this advice should not be followed.

@Obsidian Soul – actually it's not true that all of the articles use |binominal_name= or other ways to produce the same effect. There's a difference between animal and plant articles; the latter are more likely to be written correctly (as I see it). The taxobox should surely relate to the title of the article. If the title is the species, then the taxobox should be about the species. If the title is the genus, then it doesn't matter whether it has one species or many: the taxobox should be about the genus. Taxoboxes should focus on the taxon which is the topic of the article, as shown by its title.

However the "wrong" way of constructing articles is now so widely established for animal articles (less so for plant articles, which is why I wrongly thought the advice on titles was different) that it's probably too late to change the style. In which case it needs to be explained carefully somewhere, noting the way in which the first sentence and the taxobox do not match the article title. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:18, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Peter, I agree that articles on monotypic genera need to be written carefully, in order to show that the genus and the species are the same real-world taxon; this is no different, really, to any other article title that a reader may reach through a redirect. I also agree that this isn't always done well, perhaps especially among the animals. Fortunately, I think this is just an issue of writing style, and doesn't directly affect the choice of taxobox template. So, given that such articles are about both the genus and the species (because they're the same thing outside the arcane world of nomenclature), the issue must be whether there are any good reasons not to use {{speciesbox}}, or any other template for that matter. --Stemonitis (talk) 11:16, 18 November 2012 (UTC)

Ok I'm now thoroughly confused, heh. Is the problem with the taxobox using a binomial_name parameter and/or using a {{Speciesbox}} to achieve this; or is it the way the lead is introduced in relation to the actual title? If it's the former, I really don't think any of the automatic taxoboxes should deviate from manual taxoboxes in this regard, so the binomial_name param should still be used, and that can really only be achieved with a {{Speciesbox}}. If it's the latter, I'm more amenable to setting down new guidelines, I guess, maybe even accommodate it in the templates so it's easier to make as in manual taxoboxes. We have very little instructions on how to write monotypic taxa. But on the other hand, it might be rule creep-y as well.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 00:35, 19 November 2012 (UTC)

This discussion is really beyond this talk page; it should perhaps be continued at the TOL talk page.

I think the two issues are connected. If the article title is the genus, then in my view:

• The article should start something like "GENUSNAME is a genus of ... with one species SPECIESNAME".
• The taxobox should target the article title, i.e. the genus, so should not use |binomial_name= if manual or {{Speciesbox}} if automated.

Peter coxhead (talk) 11:25, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

I disagree with both points. Firstly, taxoboxes are fluid, we don't have a strictly "genus-only" taxobox or a "species-only" taxobox, they depend on what the subject(s) of the article is/are. The false dichotomy is only a result of the fact that automatic taxoboxes come in different flavors by coding constraints rather than the one-size-fits-all of the manual {{taxobox}} template. There is no manual speciesbox equivalent, so why should {{speciesbox}} suddenly become a definitive pronouncement of what kind of taxoboxes are appropriate in which articles? It originated as an easier way of approximating the look of the manual taxoboxes used in species articles, nothing else.

Secondly, the title is really just a style issue in this case (specifically of the lead), none of which should affect the taxobox. As a test, if we move any of them to their full binomina or their common names, would we also need to change any of the contents of the article? No. We can move them back and forth all we want, but they would still be talking about the same thing. Removing the parameters we find in species articles because the title is at the genus would be like removing the taxobox in the humpback whale article, because the title is not a taxonomic rank at all. Taxoboxes are meant to convey a summary of the taxonomic details on the subject of the article. When the subject encompasses two or more ranks, the taxoboxes should reflect that, regardless of what name is chosen as the title.

Thirdly, the type_species param is obviously not the same thing as a binomial_name param. A type_species = Equus johnstoni Sclater, 1901 in the okapi article isn't equivalent to having binomial_name = Okapia johnstoni (Sclater, 1901) in it.

And lastly of course, is the mantra of not fixing what isn't broken. This started out as a discussion on the appropriate use of automatic taxoboxes, now it's threatening to spill over to manual taxoboxes and hundreds of preexisting articles to fit automatic taxobox usage (when it should be the other way around). That really is quite rule creep-y, imo. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 13:22, 22 November 2012 (UTC)

Actually I don't think that this particular issue has anything to do with templates, whether manual or automatic. The issue is only about how to construct articles about monospecific genera. I think that if the title of the article is the name of the genus then the article should reflect this, both in the opening sentence and in the target of the taxobox. Okapi is irrelevant to this issue because its title is the common name.

• The style of the opening sentence seems to vary randomly between starting with the genus name (e.g. Bridgesia) and starting with the species name (e.g Bathykorus).
• Almost no articles on monospecific genera target the taxobox at the genus, so I'm clearly in a very small minority here (perhaps of one!). However, I still don't see why a monospecific genus is treated any differently than a genus whose species are little known and not worth separate articles.

Anyway, this is something of a digression from choice of template. Clearly if you want to target the species then {{Speciesbox}} is the right member of the automatic taxobox family to use. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:18, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

But it does, if you're questioning why {{Speciesbox}} is used at all. {{Speciesbox}} is the only template that approximates the look of what manual taxoboxes have been doing in articles on monotypic genera long before automatic taxoboxes were coded. The name may be speciesbox, but that doesn't mean anything. It's a tool, and it's currently the only tool in the family of automatic taxoboxes that can do what the manual taxoboxes have been doing in the same situation.

I also think it's a very bad thing to treat articles on monotypic taxa differently based on where their titles are placed. As you said, almost no (I think there are none actually) article on monotypic genera are treated as if they are solely about genera. Because they aren't. Whether they are placed at the genus, the species, or the common name, they are unique class of taxon articles that should be treated in exactly the same way regardless of where they are placed - a multirank taxon article. It keeps things consistent, even if the lead or title may vary, readers will always be able to accurately tell that it's about a monotypic taxon and ascertain its taxonomic affinities at a glance. If you ignore the title, you'll actually realize that Bathykorus, Bridgesia, and okapi are all consistent with each other.-- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 20:55, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

I think Peter is trying to argue for consistency rather than a different interpretation of what these taxa actually are. You're right that the article may focus on the same concept - a monotypic genus and its type species - but the way in which we address that concept is inconsistent. Creating articles at the genus level for prehistoric taxa is well established, so beginning an article with "Blank blank is a species of (some extinct group)" makes little sense. Using a binomial_name parameter in taxoboxes is also inconsistent in an article named after the genus, even if it was the way things were done before automatic taxoboxes. Binomial names apply to species, not genera. Type species apply to genera, so I still prefer type_species and {{Automatic taxobox}} over binomial_name and {{Speciesbox}}. I understand that this might be a case of rule-creep, so it might be best to leave this up to editors' own preferences. Smokeybjb (talk) 23:03, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

But the species is also part of the subject, a major part of it, with the only contribution of the genus name being that it's there (granted that it may sometimes be established by another author different from the one who described the species). The generic description will be the species description, the range the species range, etc. There are no other articles where we can give it the taxobox with species params because the article will never be split.

And as already mentioned, type_species is not really equivalent to binomial_name. It's already monotypic, so it would be obvious that the single species would be the type. And having the species in its full valid combination is much more helpful than having it in its basionym/previous combination which means little to the majority of our readers. It's more liable to confuse them even. Not all monotypic taxa were established in their currently valid combinations.

I prefer to think of it as exactly the same situation as when you use a common name as the title in articles on monotypic genera. We have a wide range of options on its lead, because all other names are redirects. The title in those cases are merely the most common or the most familiar to the readers. Whatever the case, I think the taxoboxes for monotypic genera should remain as it is. A consistent hybrid of genus and species params, since again, it's about both, and we can't really create another article to give it the other treatment. It's different from how we treat articles on pure species or genera, of course, but that's because they are different.

I don't have any strong opinions on the lead structure though, other than it would be quite difficult to go over the hundreds of existing articles on monotypic genera and change them to have them mention the genus first. -- OBSIDIAN†SOUL 02:04, 24 November 2012 (UTC)

Mammals have Synapsida in their taxoboxes

This has been a problem since April, I think? I dropped the ball on watching this. In any case, I'd appreciate some advice on the best way to fix it, please weigh in at Template_talk:Taxonomy/Mammalia. (This also has to do with whether we use Mammaliaformes in Mammal's taxobox.) It's unfortunately a complex issue having to do with the bug in the AT system that causes multiple main taxonomies (eg 2 classes) to show up in taxoboxes. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:26, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Mammals are synapsids. What is the problem with showing them both? Peter Brown (talk) 17:07, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Both are ranked as a class; one class cannot be a subset of another class. --Stemonitis (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Is that a Wikipedia policy? It's certainly not universal in the literature. Benton's Vertebrate Palaeontology, p. 394, shows Class Mammalia as subordinate to Class Synapsida. Peter Brown (talk) 19:28, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

Expansion depth again

This morning, {{Taxonomy/Campylorhamphus}} appeared in Category:Taxoboxes with an invalid color. This transpired to be because the huge number of parent taxa meant that it was exceeding the maximum expansion depth, and so the colour-defining Taxonomy/Animalia wasn't being reached. Fortunately (?), the template in question is not in use, but it does show a potential weakness of the system. I can't see what changed this morning to prompt its appearance in the category, so it may be that others will pop up as the database updates, and they might be used in the article namespace. I don't have a solution to suggest, but it's something to keep an eye on. (I fixed this particular instance by simplifying the hierarchy by reparenting Funariidae straight to Tyrannides, which should be safe because no article is using any of those templates or their intermediates.) --Stemonitis (talk) 09:39, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

What was the point of this edit to Template:Taxonomy/Avialae/skip? Maybe we can undo that? Skipping more in that template should fix it, I think. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:36, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Something like that definitely needs to be done. I am surprised to see that species-level articles using that template, such as Baikal Teal or House Sparrow display the very distant and somewhat irrelevant taxa Theropoda and Dinosauria in their taxoboxes! No manual taxobox would do that, so it shouldn't be happening here. I don't know about the fossil taxa, but I would suggest that no extant bird species needs to show anything between Class Aves and Phylum Chordata. --Stemonitis (talk) 19:24, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

That is the rule we agreed on when starting out with the automated system, and it makes for neat and orderly taxoboxes. Petter Bøckman (talk) 19:37, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, I reverted the edit to the skip template. I spot-checked a few of my favorite bird articles, and (other than extraneous capitalization, of course :) ) they look ok. I left a note on Kwami's page to see if I'm breaking anything else by reverting it. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:10, 5 December 2012 (UTC)

I changed that to capture some of the intermediate clades. It did not cause any problems (no entries in the auto-generated error cat) once I finished fudging it.

Since AFAIK all our articles now agree with the dominant position that birds are dinosaurs, and that is a culturally salient clade (which seems to be what we're basing many of our choices for inclusion on), it would be exeedingly odd to skip having any clades between Aves and Chordata. I agree that minor or poorly established gradations should only appear when near the organism or clade the article covers, but we don't want to skip more distant major clades.

If including basic info that would be relevant to a schoolchild breaks the template, perhaps we need to rethink the template. Or perhaps we can manually edit the skip template to display the basics with fewer intermediat steps.

I mean, take a look at the infobox at bird. Despite all the hooplah over whether birds are dinosaurs, and the excitement that generates among young people (as well as its counter-intuitiveness among older people), the infobox only lists Animalia: Chordata: Avialae: Aves. That's pretty pathetic. IMO we should have Vertebrata, maybe Tetrapoda, definitely Dinosauria, maybe Therapoda as well. — kwami (talk) 00:29, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

If including basic info that would be relevant to a schoolchild breaks the template, perhaps we need to rethink the template.—Whoa there. The template is annoying to work with, but we can get it to show whatever we want in the taxobox. That is not the problem. It sounds to me like people above your note are saying they do not want Dinosauria or Theropoda in the taxobox for random birds like bald eagle, etc, but you think they ought to be there. I can see both sides of this debate. Can we decide this here? What do you think should be in bald eagle's taxobox, exactly? Should we take this conversation to WP:BIRDS? Then a separate question is exactly what should be in the taxobox at bird. Once we are agreed on these questions, I'll be more than happy to implement the decision. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 07:15, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

What I was saying, at least, is that automatic taxoboxes should not default to including information that is not (routinely) included in manual taxoboxes. For bird species, that means sticking to the major Linnaean ranks of family, order, class, phylum and kingdom. (Some infrafamilial ranks may be appropriate on occasion.) The debate about whether birds are or are not dinosaurs (or theropods) is interesting, but only in the context of all birds, not at the specific level of the Bald Eagle or the House Sparrow. Thus, the debate about what should be in the taxobox at bird is very separate. The automatic taxobox system must not be a means to introduce changes to taxobox practice through the back door; either something is agreed for all taxoboxes or not, and I would argue that in this case there is not (and should not be) consensus for including unranked clades far away from the species in question. --Stemonitis (talk) 08:13, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Stemonitis on both points. Firstly, what's displayed automatically in automatedd taxoboxes must follow the same guidance/rules as manual taxoboxes. Secondly, the taxobox isn't there to show the complete classification or phylogeny of the taxon in question, but to provide a succinct overview. Long taxoboxes which repeat information which is in the article are not just pointless – the space they take up distorts layout, often forcing images into the wrong position or causing them to sandwich text, contrary to MOS:IMAGES. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:45, 6 December 2012 (UTC)

Birds phylogenies traditionally only listed Aves because Aves was considered a primary clade of the vertebrates, which were thought to be basically fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Now we know better. Birds are now seen as a branch of the dinosaurs, and no longer the primary clade that the Linnaean ranks imply. I'm not arguing for a complete phylogeny, but listing only Aves skews the implied taxonomy away from modern consensus. — kwami (talk) 05:43, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

Not at all. Aves is the taxon at major rank, but there is no such thing as a "primary clade". Class Aves is still used in modern classifications, and the standard taxobox reflects that. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:41, 7 December 2012 (UTC)

I'm not suggesting we get rid of Aves. However, when Aves was established, it was set up alongside Reptilia, and currently it resides within part of what was once considered Reptilia. That is relevant to the classification. There's no reason to freeze the presentation at the 18th century. — kwami (talk) 07:31, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

And I'm saying that we're not in any sense "freezing the classification at the 18th century". Showing Class Aves (directly) under Phylum Chordata is bang up-to-date. We don't do that because of tradition, but because it's the correct modern classification. Other intervening clades are simply not relevant in species-level taxoboxes. --Stemonitis (talk) 09:09, 9 December 2012 (UTC)

It seems like there isn't much support for putting Theropoda/Dinosauria/etc in bird species' taxoboxes. How about the taxobox at bird; is it ok as-is with Aves->Avialae->Chordata? Maybe I should be asking this at talk:Bird. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:58, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I would certainly favour showing a few important clades between Avialae and Chordata, because here they are of direct relevance. The problem is to decide what these should be given the long list at Template:Taxonomy/Avialae. One advantage of the traditional rank-based approach is that it does pick out some key points in a hierarchy which a long list of equal-status clades doesn't. Maybe the automatic taxobox system needs some concept of a "major clade". Peter coxhead (talk) 19:03, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

Tetraceratops parent

Whether Tetraceratops is a therapsid is the subject of a long-running debate. There is little prospect of scientific consensus in the near future. I would like, therefore, to change the parent of Tetraceratops from "Therapsida" to "?Therapsida". Would the following steps be appropriate? I am very inexperienced in these matters.

• Create a redirect from ?Therasida to Therapsida.
• Create Template:Taxonomy/?Therapsida with the parameters identical to those in Template:Taxonomy/Therapsida.
• Change the parent in Template:Taxonomy/Tetraceratops to "?Therapsida"

Peter Brown (talk) 16:43, 8 December 2012 (UTC)

See Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/advanced under "Uncertain assignment" for how to do this. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:42, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

After some thrashing around, I seem somehow to have done what I wanted, but I could have used more guidance. The instructions guided me through the creation of Template:Taxonomy/Therapsida/? but left me on my own devices as to how then to change Template:Taxonomy/Tetraceratops. Peter Brown (talk) 20:30, 10 December 2012 (UTC)

I wrote Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc/intro because I found the whole set of templates very confusing. The give-away is the sentence at Template:Automatic_taxobox/doc: "Its documentation is under construction." The documentation has remained in this state since Smith609 wrote that in March 2011. I'm sure it would be helpful if you added to the documentation from your experience. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:57, 11 December 2012 (UTC)

Controversial paraphyly

Porifera is flagged in the Automatic Taxobox system as paraphyletic. According to Philippe et al. (2009) as well as Schierwater et al. (2009), however, this is not correct. How do we maintain neutrality in this situation? Peter Brown (talk) 00:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Maintaining neutrality is an issue which concerned me a lot when I first started to edit and create taxoboxes. There's no easy solution. You can try to show more than one system of classification in a taxobox, but it's ugly and soon becomes confusing. Taxoboxes should make it clear (a) that the classification shown may not be the only one which is supported by reliable sources (b) the source(s) of the classification shown. At present neither the manual nor the automatic taxobox system do either of these things. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I've found that a good rule of thumb is, where possible, to simply go with a 5-10 year consensus. I.e. run a literature search covering the last 5-10 years and find out what the consensus is. Unless there is a single study which points out clear flaws in the previous methodology or is obviously superior in some way to previous studies. MMartyniuk (talk) 11:56, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Yes, I agree that this is a good approach, where it works. In the specific case raised, Porifera, it doesn't. A quick skim of the results of a Google Scholar search on "Porifera phylogeny" from 2007 onwards suggests there's no consensus, producing papers either way, right up to 2012. See as just two examples this 2012 paper which supports monophyly and this 2012 paper which doesn't. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:29, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, paraphyly shouldn't be reported if it's not a consensus, so we shouldn't be flagging Porifera. I don't think that, in omitting the paraphyly flag, we'd be representing the taxon as monophyletic, thereby violating neutrality. There is a consensus (isn't there?) that Artiodactyla is paraphyletic, but the fact that the Camelid taxobox shows

Order:* Artiodactyla

rather than

Order*: "Artiodactyla"

is unobjectionable; there is much about camelids that is not reported in the article, and the fact that its order is paraphyletic is just one of them. Likewise, Crustacea is paraphyletic, but the Krill article needn't note the fact. If we can omit the flag on Artiodactyla and Crustacea, where the weight of opinion favors paraphyly, we certainly can on Porifera, where specialists are evenly divided. Peter Brown (talk) 19:01, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree. Peter coxhead (talk) 20:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Me too. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:17, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Agreed.--Curtis Clark (talk) 22:37, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

When the paraphyly (or similar taxonomic issues) is uncertain, I would say it is a case for the body text, not for the taxobox. The taxobox is there to give overview, not to cram all information into.Petter Bøckman (talk) 22:36, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Changes to the coding of this template

In late October and November 2012, quite major changes were made to the detailed lower-level template coding through which the automatic taxobox system works. These changes were made by User:Ganeshk and User:Wikid77 with the highly desirable purpose of reducing the expansion depth and thus stopping "expansion depth exceeded" errors appearing. In this respect, the changes appear to have been very successful and we owe them thanks.

However, I have discovered that in several places the functioning of the automatic taxobox system has been altered as a side-effect of this change.

• The names of some taxa (e.g. botanical sections) were not being italicized as they should be. I think I've fixed this.
• Although it wasn't documented, it was previously possible to use {{automatic taxobox|Acer}}, for example, instead of {{automatic taxobox|taxon=Acer}}. I don't think this was ever done, and I don't think it would be desirable anyway, but it now doesn't work.
• The way the page name is now picked up if |taxon= isn't specified is different and does not strip off bits like " (plant)" as it doesn't use {{PAGENAMEBASE}}. This needs to be fixed.
• As far as I can see, some very top level bits of the taxonomic hierarchy are now hard-coded (see Template:taxobox/taxonomy/ex3) whereas before they were all obtained from the "Taxonomy/TAXON" templates. If this is the case, I don't think it's right; the phylogeny involved is still very uncertain.

I've notified the two editors on their talk pages.

If you see any other behaviour which seems to have changed since October 2012, please report it here. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:35, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. If there's something going on like hardcoded templates to reduce expansion depth I'd love to see documentation; ie, how do I change the hardcoded hierarchy, etc. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, I'm not sure that I've got to grips with all the coding changes that were made (it's a pity it wasn't advertised here that major changes were being made, then we could have checked for problematic side-effects). As far as I can see, for the very top-level taxa Wikid77's Template:taxobox/taxonomy/ex3 replaces Martin's original Template:taxobox/taxonomy/3. But Martin's version picked up the taxa from the taxonomy templates, as is done for all the other taxa, whereas Wikid77's hard-codes them.

Neither Ganeshk nor Wikid77 seems to have consistently updated the documentation of the templates concerned; I've done a bit myself, but as I didn't write the code, I'm not always sure of the changes.

In particular, Template:Automatic_taxobox/map, which guides you through how the templates used in the system interact, is now wrong, e.g. Template:taxobox/taxonomy cell has effectively been replaced by Template:Taxobox/showtaxon. A correct version of this page is very important for anyone attempting to maintain the system. If I seem a bit irritated, I am. I've spent too much of today trying to get to grips with undocumented changes! Peter coxhead (talk) 17:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

We may need more test scenarios here, Template:Automatic taxobox/Testing. Will that help? — Ganeshk (talk) 23:22, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Well, it would certainly have helped to have known that the taxoboxes currently at Drosera subg. Ergaleium and Acer palaeorufinerve changed appearance as a result of the changes which were made. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:41, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Hard-coded hierarchy As per Wikid77's response on my talk page, at present this sequence is hard-coded: Eukaryota, Unikonta, Opisthokonta, Holozoa, Filozoa, Animalia, Eumetazoa, Bilateria, Nephrozoa, Deuterostomia, Chordata, Craniata. Any change to a "Taxonomy/TAXON" template for any of these taxa may not alter the content of an automatic taxobox. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:47, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Brief overview of templates involved I've updated Template:Automatic taxobox/map with a brief overview of how I understand the automatic taxobox system currently operates. I wish I'd understood this a couple of days ago! It comes with no guarantee of correctness. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

Case-sensitive auto-italicization trigger for Species field?

Check out Acer palaeorufinerve and the associated Template:Taxonomy/Acer palaeorufinerve. I couldn't find anything wrong with the taxobox setup. But the "Species:" line, which is normally automatically italicized by the template in that we don't have to add markup in the template:taxonomy/ bit, was formatted as "†A. palaeorufinerve" and not "†A. palaeorufinerve" as it should have been. The edit that solved the problem was this, simply changing rank=Species to rank=species.

Can we fix this so that whether the line is italicized or not in these fields is case insensitive at the rank of genus and below? So Genus, genus; Subgenus, subgenus; Sectio, sectio; Subsectio, subsectio; etc. I'd do it, but I have no idea where to slice and dice in these templates. Thanks! Rkitko ^(talk) 22:36, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and incidentally, it appears that neither "Sectio" nor "sectio" produces an italicized rank. It had once worked properly, so something must have changed to remove italicization from sections (this being the botanical sections; the zoological sections have their own parameter - zoo_sectio, I think, and shouldn't be italicized). That needs to be fixed regardless of the issue above. Rkitko ^(talk) 22:45, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think both are features of both the manual and the automatic taxoboxes, which ultimately pass through to Template:Taxobox/core, where you'll see that all the rank names are uncapitalized. Although it would be possible to change this (a) there would be a lot of changes (b) some cases are unclear – what about "unranked_species" or "species_authority"? should these allow capitalized "Species"? (c) there are already issues about the resources consumed by taxobox template expansion – do we really want to make the template more complex? The "solution", I think, is to document more clearly that all rank names must be lower case.

However, Template:Taxobox/core does appear to italicize the names of "sectio" ranks, but not "zoosectio" ranks, so maybe I'm wrong about where these issues arise. Can you give an example of where it doesn't work? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:53, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for your thoughts! I think the issue is in Template:Taxobox/italics, which leaves out any mention of sections, subsections, series, and subseries. It is also case sensitive. The solution should always be to make whatever the user is likely to do not break the taxobox and not require them to read more text such as, "this is quirky and you must use a sentence case rank in setting up the automatic taxobox in order for automatic italicization work for some ranks." Here we have a very experienced user setting up these templates at Template:Taxonomy/Acer palaeorufinerve who didn't think about the sentence case versus title case distinction and just used what came naturally in a rank field... rank = Species, duh! We should always make the template more robust to handle these kinds of situations, within reason.

The Template:Taxobox/core code - isn't that for determining whether the article title is italicized? I thought that was another function. The manual taxobox doesn't have this function since we take it upon ourselves to italicize the ranks when they need it.

Lowercase sectio is not italicized. Examples here:

On the article Acer palaeorufinerve, section Macrantha is not italicized. I edited Template:Taxonomy/Macrantha to change Sectio to sectio to no effect.

Levenhookia sect. Coleostylis and Template:Taxonomy/Levenhookia sect. Coleostylis. I set this one up in 2010 and I remember it working properly back then. I don't know what's changed between then and now. Rkitko ^(talk) 14:03, 16 December 2012 (UTC)

Ok, it's clear to me that I don't understand how the code works, so what I wrote above is wrong. We probably need User:Smith609 who created the system.

However, I still think that it's not obvious how to allow capitalization, given the existence of parameter names like "unranked_species" and "species_authority". Peter coxhead (talk) 10:00, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Fixed The problem was in Template:Taxobox/showtaxon, which is where the italicization of taxa retrieved from the "Template:Taxonomy/TAXON" hierarchy actually gets done. You may need to purge your browser cache or even do a dummy edit to see the correction take effect, but both examples above are now correctly italicized for me. (Incidentally, I could edit this template, and I shouldn't be able to as I'm not an admin – it should be protected like the other taxonomy templates.) Peter coxhead (talk) 10:55, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

By the way, the reason the italicization changed was because User:Wikid77 introduced this template on 27 October 2012, as part of changes to stop the automatic taxobox system regularly producing template resource exceeded errors. I think more additions are needed to the ranks which should be italicized. I've left a note on his talk page. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:02, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Thanks so much for your eagerness to look into this and for your work below on tracking down other important issues from that change back in October/November. Completely slipped by my notice. I also added subgenus, subsectio, series, and subseries to the list that should be italicized. I also thought "section" shouldn't be added since we don't use it - I think? - in either template and certainly no other rank has that kind of flexibility. We've always preferred "ordo" over "order" and there might be consequences to opening that can of worms, like less consistency and making it harder for bots to update templates if need be, whereas case insensitivity is easily coded for. The remainder of the parameters like subspecies, variety, forma, subvar, etc. require editor control given the quirks of certain situations. Come to think of it, we had had a discussion a long time ago about this regarding the manual taxobox and decided it was a bad idea, if I'm recalling consensus correctly, to do this even for genus and species given that you have things like +Laburnocytisus for a genus field to deal with (don't italicize the plus sign) and Helichrysum sp. nov. A for the species field - the current automatic taxobox would muck it up and you'd have to counter-intuitively put italic marks around "sp. nov. A" to de-auto-italicize it. At least that was the argument back then. Just a side note, though; let's focus on the major issues you noted below for now unless anything I said here stands out. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 03:35, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Note that the italicization in {{Taxobox/showtaxon}} is only for the entries generated automatically via the automatic taxobox system based on the rank names put into the "Taxonomy/TAXON" templates. So I would allow "section" as well as "sectio" in this context, which is not the same context as the rank names used as parameters in a manual taxobox.

The answer for some of the more complex cases, like those you note above, is not to use the automatic taxobox system, but to use a manual taxobox. Species, subspecies and varieties are handled automatically by {{Speciesbox}}, {{Subspeciesbox}} and {{Infraspeciesbox}}. I haven't (yet) investigated the interaction of recent changes with these templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:01, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

It's important to understand how the automated taxobox system works (which I've only just managed to do!):

• It's supplied with a "target taxon", the subject of the taxobox.
• It passes this target taxon to {{Taxobox/core}} which in turn uses other templates to search the "database" present in the "Template:Taxonomy/TAXON" pages; these templates output all the taxa in the classification hierarchy.
• For an automated taxobox, {{Taxobox/core}} only outputs the other information in the taxobox (temporal ranges, etc.). (For an manual taxobox, {{Taxobox/core}} outputs all the information.)

So for a manual taxobox, editors supply all (or almost all) the formatting information for taxa names. For an automated taxobox, all the formatting information is now added by Wikid77's new template {{Taxobox/showtaxon}}.

Fixing the problem with the italicization of "sect." requires some careful thought, in my view, since there is more than one way to do it. I'd really like to see possible solutions discussed here before being implemented. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:51, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Display format for botanical ranks

Actually, do we want botanical sections to be automatically italicised? By convention, they are generally shown as "Genusname sect. Sectionname", so automating the italics isn't going to be helpful. The same applies to subgenera under the IC[B]N (but not ICZN). --Stemonitis (talk) 09:09, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

On reflection, we definitely don't want automated italicisation for plant infrageneric taxa. Can this be removed immediately please? Infrageneric taxa under the IC[B]N require the genus name and rank beforehand. As a case in point, the aforementioned "Macrantha" must be called "Acer sect. Macrantha", to distinguish it from Papaver sect. Macrantha, Cypripedium sect. Macrantha, and possibly others. I have fixed that case (and all others in Acer), but the system is wrongly forcing the "sect." to be in italics. If the upshot of fixing that is that animal subgenera have to be manually italicised, then I think that is a reasonable solution. Fortunately, series don't occur in zoology, and the zoological "section" is dealt with independently of the botanical "section" in the taxobox code, so this will be the only rank affected. --Stemonitis (talk) 10:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I disagree completely with Stemonitis and reverted changes to Template:Taxonomy/Drosera sect. Stolonifera and Template:Taxonomy/Drosera subg. Ergaleium. I always pipe these links in articles I create using a manual taxobox. Yes, in-text it's important to use the correct formatting to distinguish among sections with the same name as Stemonitis mentions, but in a taxobox there's already an existing hierarchy and restating the genus with an abbreviated rank when it already says "Section:" or "Subgenus:" to the left in the taxobox seems quite redundant and unnecessary. That's why only the section or subgenus or series name need be supplied - piped in the taxonomy/TAXON template - and thus automatically italicized. Rkitko ^(talk) 13:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

Redundancy has nothing to do with it. It's a requirement of the Code, Article 21:

"The name of a subdivision of a genus is a combination of a generic name and a subdivisional epithet. A connecting term (subgenus, sectio, series, etc.) is used to denote the rank."

Leaving out the genus and combining term is straightforwardly wrong. Any manual taxobox which has piped such a name also needs to be fixed to be compliant with the code and standard practice. Note that this is closely equivalent to the argument about repeating the genus name in the species and binomial fields; there is simply no taxon called "Macrantha" (but there is an Acer sect. Macrantha), just as there is no species "negundo" (but there is an Acer negundo). --Stemonitis (talk) 13:59, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

First, Stemonitis, I don't think we've ever had a chance to disagree on something or at least my memory fails me at the moment, so this is a change! I'd also wonder if we could stop editing Template:Taxonomy/Drosera sect. Stolonifera and Template:Taxonomy/Drosera subg. Ergaleium in light of the WP:BRD cycle.

I agree with you that in prose, the section, subgenus, or series epithet should always be accompanied by the genus name and the connecting term - and often both are abbreviated if the genus name is unambiguous and had been mentioned before, e.g. D. sect. Stolonifera. Your argument that this is like "species = negundo" is compelling, but is it not the case that being part of a binomial that species is a special case? A section or subgenus epithet placed in a hierarchy as we display in a taxobox is another acceptable display to make it known that this epithet is a combination if the generic name and the connection term, all of which are included in the taxobox already:

• Genus: Drosera
• Subgenus: Ergaleium

There's one last point to make here that's just practical. If you repeat the genus (or abbreviate it) and include a connecting term and then have an unusually long epithet all on one line, the taxobox is forced abnormally wider and looks odd. An aesthetic point, but valid nonetheless. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 16:04, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

I have to agree with Rkitko. The taxobox, in the way it displays on a wikipage, already fulfills the requirements of the code. The box specifies the genus on the line directly above the section, then has the section, then has the species. At no point is the section divorced from the genus in such a way as to create ambiguity.--Kevmin § 00:29, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

{{Automatic taxobox
| taxon = Acer palaeorufinerve}}

Just as showing placement in the hierarchy is not considered sufficient for putting a specific epithet alone in the taxobox, so we should not include (botanical) infrageneric names without stating the genus and rank. There is no taxon Macrantha. You cannot write "Macrantha is a subgenus of ...". It follows that the (abbreviated) genus and connecting term must be included. The Code does not say that it's OK as long as the rank is made clear by some other means; it specifies exactly how the name is to be constructed, and we have no good reason to violate that. Yes, the binomen can be seen as a special case, but if you want to see it that way, then so is this. In the very rare cases where "A. sect" makes the line too long in the taxobox, then judicious use of "<br />" will solve that very simply. This is no different to the cases of long binomina or long specific epithets that we already deal with quite happily. None of your arguments sway me at all away from following the requirements of the IC[B]N, which is plainly not done under your proposals. --Stemonitis (talk) 07:22, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

There are two sets of reliable sources in relation to this issue.

• The first is the IC[B]N which, as Stemonitis notes, is quite clear that all names below the level of genus are constructed of two parts plus a connecting term. So there can be no doubt that the proper name of a botanical section is of the form Acer sect. Macrantha. (The zoological code has no concept of "connecting terms", so the situation is different.)
• The second is usage in scholarly works. No reliable botanical source that I am aware of ever writes The species negundo even when it is absolutely clear from the context that the genus Acer is meant. However, it's common to find expressions like Section Stolonifera or sect. Stolonifera in running text where the context is clear. If you do a Google Scholar search for phrases like "species in section" or "species in series" you will get lots of hits, including botanical as well as zoological papers (see e.g. this article or this article). So it's clear to me that actual usage in the text of scholarly works supports referring to taxa below the rank of genus without including the genus name where the context is clear.

So the question is, I think, slightly different. Must the taxobox contain the name which is clearly legislated by the IC[B]N or can it contain the shortened form which is found in the text of reliable sources? There are arguments either way, but I come down in favour of the name with the genus abbreviated, e.g. Section: A. sect. Stolonifera. This is precisely what happens with botanical infraspecific ranks: see Yucca gloriosa var. tristis. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:37, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

So how is this taxobox NOT redundant in the information it is displaying? It currently reads genus Acer section Acer section Macrantha species A. palaeorufinerve. The genus to which the section belongs is very implicitly Acer. This seems to me to fall well within the guidelines of the ICBN, and trying to say that the display is divorcing the section from the genus does not work. There should never be a point where a taxobox is displaying the section or series without displaying the genus.--Kevmin § 00:16, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

No, it doesn't read "genus Acer section Acer section Macrantha species A. palaeorufinerve". It reads:

• Genus: Acer [implying the genus is called "Acer" ✓]
• Section: Macrantha [implying the section is called "Macrantha" ✗]
• Species: A. palaeorufinerve [✓]

The critical point here is that the section is absolutely not called "Macrantha", and we must never imply that it is. It is called "Acer sect. Macrantha", "Acer section Macrantha", "A. sect. Macrantha" or "A. section Macrantha" (provided "A." is defined in context). Anything else is just sloppy. The Code does not allow mere implications of genus near the section epithet. You wouldn't read "Order Sapindales Family Sapindaceae" and think of it as one name, and there is no reason why you would do that at any other rank. This is admittedly a confusing point for anyone familiar with zoological nomenclature (although not the weirdest part of botanical nomenclature). The information may be in some sense redundant, but it's better that than being wrong, which is the only alternative. You are right that there "should never be a point where a taxobox is displaying the section or series without displaying the genus", but under your proposal, it is not displaying the name of a section or series, it's displaying something which is part of the name of a section or series, but is not the name of the taxon in question (although it could be the name of another taxon). --Stemonitis (talk) 09:20, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you are being a little strict with the Code; as Peter noted and as I've observed, scientists in practice don't seem to always follow Article 21.1 in writing about sections and subgenera. Of course when it comes to the taxonomic bits of authoring new taxa or listing them in a monograph they follow it in the form of G. subg. Subgenus, but when just writing about it in the body of their articles many will drop the genus when it is implied, leaving us with what the taxobox presents, a connecting term and the epithet (albeit with a colon in the middle in our case). I think it's clear, again, because of the hierarchy of the taxobox that we don't mean Macrantha for a few reasons: 1) it doesn't link there - it links to the proper section of the list of Acer species and 2) of course we mean Acer section Macrantha because "Section:" is to the left of the epithet as the field label and the genus is implied given the structure of the taxobox - no other genus is involved.

You seem to be suggesting, though you haven't said as much, that every time a subdivision of a genus is mentioned that it must be written in the appropriate form or we are violating the Code. Well the Code doesn't seem to agree in at least one instance that's not relevant here but illustrates that there's more flexibility than I think you're allowing:

21A.1. When it is desired to indicate the name of a subdivision of the genus to which a particular species belongs in connection with the generic name and specific epithet, the subdivisional epithet should be placed in parentheses between the two; when desirable, the subdivisional rank may also be indicated. Ex. 1. Astragalus (Cycloglottis) contortuplicatus; A. (Phaca) umbellatus; Loranthus (sect. Ischnanthus) gabonensis.

Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 13:55, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I still disagree. For one thing, that Recommendation is almost entirely ignored, as far as I can see. The point is that we simply don't need to be informal or inaccurate. We have every opportunity to present things accurately, and very little reason not to. The additional "A. sect." is not a terribly burdensome addition (as shown by the fact that it is already in place in a good many articles), but does allow us to be sure that we're getting things correct. I am strongly of the opinion that writing "Section: Macrantha" gives the false impression that there is a botanical section called just "Macrantha", and that that is a problem we can simply overcome. The argument about redundancy may be one to take up with the Nomenclature Section of the next IBC (Shenzhen, July 2017), but it's not something to worry us here. What is a reader to make of a confusing taxobox like the one here, which claims to be about the taxon "Ergaleium", and which also lists "Ergaleium" as one of its daughter taxa? Does the taxon contain itself? How is a lay person (our target audicene, remember) to know that they're different? This is a confusion that we can do without, by simply following the rules. Why do something implicitly when you can do it explicitly (and, in this case, correctly)? No, the more I think about it, the more I am convinced that taxoboxes such as that need to be fixed to contain the (abbreviated) genus and appropriate connecting term. At the moment, they are directly misleading.

Note also that your proposals represent a change from the established practice. All the examples listed in WP:FLORA quite correctly include the genus and connecting term, for instance. (I also note that you have edited many of those articles in the past, while I have not, so they're not reflecting my personal preference.) If nothing else, we can say that there is no consensus for such a change. On that basis at least, the connecting terms should be restored in any place where they have been actively removed, and should be added to those places where they have been wrongly omitted. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:37, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

At the moment I feel like I have no new arguments to add, but to respond, why is it any more clear with an abbreviation for subgenus and section - which our lay readers may not immediately figure out - placed closer to Ergaleium when the same rank is listed immediately to the left? It's already clear the taxon is at a different rank and given that it's a hierarchy that they are two different taxa. I would also note that your proposed outcome of this discussion is unacceptable. WP:FLORA is a naming guideline; it does not deal with article content. What you basically said here is "I'm right, you're wrong, and even though there's no consensus among the small group of people participating, your preference is overridden" which would be the same outcome as a consensus for your position. I don't see those as equivalent. Now, some of your points were compelling. Let me think about it and perhaps let's get some additional voices if we want to develop real consensus. I don't feel I have much more to add than the points I've already raised and really I don't think there's much more to say on such a simple issue. Cheers, Rkitko ^(talk) 15:56, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

If I may chime in here without directly addressing the issue, as Rkitko says, Article 21 is not as dogmatic as it has been said above to be; Note 1 also includes the clause "the rank-denoting term not being part of the name". At the risk of destabilizing a large number of pages, Recommendation 21A could be the basis of an argument for the taxobox saying "Subgenus: (Ergaleium)". Sminthopsis84 (talk) 16:37, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

That would just look odd; as far as I know the parenthesized form is only ever used when the subgenus is listed between the genus and species names.

I think I agree with Rkitko above that it is better to omit "Acer sect." or similar wording and just mention "sect. Macrantha". The fact that the botanical Code allows constructions like Aus (Bus) cus indicates to me that the rank label and genus name are not integral parts of the name, as they are for binomials. Furthermore, the scientific literature contains many examples where an infrageneric name is mentioned without the genus name (for example, doi:10.1046/j.1095-8339.2003.00191.x). It's true that the mere name "Macrantha" is ambiguous without context, but the same argument could be made against abbreviated names like O. palustris in the marsh rice rat (Oryzomys palustris)—context makes it clear that this is not referring to Ortalis palustris. Ucucha (talk) 17:16, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Rkitko, my point was that the articles chosen as exemplars of good practice all used the full name in their taxoboxes. That was therefore the de facto standard at the time that was put together. I disagree about "Ergaleium" [sic], too; the taxobox will be needlessly confusing to a large proportion of the readership, and would be a lot clearer if the true names of the taxa were used. Ucucha, if you interpret the Code to mean that "the rank label and genus name are not integral parts of the name", then you are entirely mistaken. The Code is gloriously unambiguous on this point. Yes, the literature contains many examples where part of the name is omitted; it also contains many instances of the word "gneus". That doesn't make it right, and it certainly doesn't make it something we should follow. I would also say that "Macrantha" isn't so much ambiguous as meaningless; there is no such taxon. --Stemonitis (talk) 17:33, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Let me add another argument. No-one has suggested good reasons to treat some kinds of botanical names which require a connecting part differently from others. So those who want to have "Section: Macrantha" should also be willing for a taxobox to have "Subspecies: curvifolia" or "Variety: rubra". Are you? I trust not. Then why should ranks between genus and species be treated differently? Peter coxhead (talk) 18:04, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Rkitko and am perfectly happy to see a taxobox with "Subspecies: curvifolia" or "Variety: rubra. To reiterate for Stemonitis: the genus epithet is part of the name, the rank-denoting term is not. As for subgenus Macrantha being meaningless, there is a slipperiness in the code such that infrageneric groups are expected to frequently become genera and retain the epithet when they do so, which leads to specifications about the forms that those names should take, and the recommendation that they not duplicate a genus name that is closely related. Thus Macrantha might be elevated to genus status, and if that were to occur in two genera, then the second one would have to find another name. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:06, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

The (proposed) genus Macrantha would be a different taxon to Acer subg. Macrantha (or at least a different name; the Code deals only with nomenclature, not with taxonomy). It is precisely to distinguish the subgenus from any potential genus Macrantha (which could be after all be a Papaver segregate, or a Cypripedium segregate) that we have to be careful when talking about the subgenus. You agree that the genus is part of the name; you should not therefore be content with "Section: Macrantha", because it is, by your own admission, not the complete name. There is no slipperiness in the Code (or at least not in this regard); the whole purpose of the Code is to promote fixity and prevent slipperiness. The fact that a genus may one day be erected that would be called Macrantha does not mean that we should refer to it as such before that change has been made, just as a species with the epithet macrantha would be called macranthus in a masculine genus, but we wouldn't call it that before it moved. Elevations to higher rank are interesting, and worthy of inclusion in the Code, but utterly irrelevant to this discussion. --Stemonitis (talk) 20:30, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Articles 21 and 24 of the Melbourne Code are absolutely clear that the name of a subdivision of a genus and of a subdivision of a species is, in each case, a combination of the name of the principal taxon and an epithet referring to the subdivision. The connecting term is not formally part of the name (this prevents homonyms not referring to the same type, e.g. Acer subg. Macrantha and Acer sect. Macrantha are only allowed if the latter is inside the former). Both articles say that "A connecting term is used to denote the rank".

So I don't really see that it can be disputed that (a) the name in these cases is a combination, not one part on its own (b) a connecting term is used in the name.

I've emphasized name because, as I and others have noted above, in running text it is a regular practice to refer to a "subdivision taxon" using only its rank and epithet, e.g. "section Macrantha". But this is not its name.

The right question is the one I posed before: must the taxobox use the name of the taxon or can it use an alternative unambiguous form of reference, as might be used in text?

I'm with Stemonitis; I prefer the taxobox to have the name. But I accept that there is a case for an alternative unambiguous form of reference, so long as there's no pretence that this is the name under the ICN. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:40, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Automatic italicization at different ranks

I have views on the disagreement between Rkitko and Stemonitis, but these aren't relevant to the coding issue. If an editor wants to show something like "Acer sect. Macrantha" (whether or not we eventually agree that this is required), then it must be formatted correctly.

The problem is in {{Taxobox/showtaxon}}. For the appropriate ranks, it always italicizes the link provided in the "Template:Taxonomy/TAXON" page, even when this is already formatted as in Template:Taxonomy/Acer sect. Macrantha. The outer italics it adds over-ride the formatting of the link. In this case, it outputs <i>[[List of Acer species|''Acer'' sect. ''Macrantha'']]</i>. It's not clear to me how best to fix this.

• {{Taxobox/showtaxon}} could detect that the link provided in the "Taxonomy/TAXON" template contains "|" and then not add its own italics when these would otherwise be needed. But then a provided link of the form "Junkia (plant)|Junkia" wouldn't get italicized, and all existing links of this form would have to be formatted. So this doesn't seem a good idea.
• {{Taxobox/showtaxon}} could detect that the part of the link provided after the "|" contains '' and then not add its own italics. This seems the best solution to me, but I'm not sure (a) whether it's possible to detect the occurrence of '' here (b) whether this solution would cause other problems.

I don't have time for more work on this today, so I leave it for others to think about. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:28, 18 December 2012 (UTC)

You mentioned above that Taxobox/showtaxon is unprotected, even though it's very widely used; I've rectified that now. I'd be happy to carry out any necessary changes. Ucucha (talk) 13:52, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've implemented and tested the second solution above – my version of Template:Taxobox/showtaxon is at User:Peter coxhead/Test/T3 and tests of my version showing the relevant line of the taxobox are at User:Peter coxhead/Test/T1. It italicizes botanical ranks from genus to species inclusive unless the link provided in the relevant "Taxonomy/TAXON" template already contains '', when it leaves the formatting of the link alone. Thus it works for the current versions of Template:Taxonomy/Acer sect. Macrantha, which has a marked up link so doesn't get any more italicization, and Template:Taxonomy/Drosera subg. Ergaleium, which doesn't have a marked up link so does get italicized.

I don't think this change will cause any further problems, so I invite an admin to replace the contents of Template:Taxobox/showtaxon with User:Peter coxhead/Test/T3. Then after any necessary cache purging, both Drosera subg. Ergaleium and Acer palaeorufinerve should have the correct italicization in their taxoboxes.

Changing the coding should not be taken to imply that one style or the other is correct. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:38, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

I've since realized that although this change will fix the italicization problem, it will cause other problems – it would almost certainly lead to more pages with taxoboxes exceeding the expansion depth limit and so causing errors to be flagged (and even if these errors don't break the output, they hide errors which do).

I now think that the "solution" is to stop automatically italicizing any botanical taxon name which uses a connecting form and require it to be italicized manually – at least until a better scripting language is available and the system can be re-written (Lua is apparently being considered). However I think we should live with the current position for a few days more while the programmers amongst us think about this problem. No "fix" which uses more complex template coding is going to be the right answer – carefully reducing the automation currently present in the system is, I think, the right approach for now. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

Change to handling of missing taxon parameter

When |taxon= is omitted, the automatic taxobox system picks up the name of the taxon from the article title (page name). Previously it would strip off any added disambiguation string, like " (genus)". However the code required to do this was a major cause of expansion depth overflow. I have fixed the dozen or so articles which had such an article title and did not use the taxon parameter, and the facility to strip off extra text has been removed. This took over 2,500 articles out of the exceeded depth category. So:

• |taxon= must now be present if the article title is not exactly the same as the part of the taxonomy template name after "Template:Taxonomy/".
• The facility to pick up the article title is still potentially costly, so I've put in the documentation that it's deprecated. I urge everyone creating automatic taxoboxes to make a habit of supplying |taxon=.

I've tried to update the documentation accordingly, but I may have missed some places where this topic appears.

I've asked User:Wikid77 to leave a note here if/when he makes any more optimizations, which are still needed to avoid all expansion depth errors. What he's done so far has been very effective. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:45, 20 December 2012 (UTC)

• Further analysis to streamline operation of {Automatic_taxobox}: The recent changes to the various taxobox templates, in October/November 2012, were the start of streamlining those templates to use less in processing time or depth. Now, {Automatic_taxobox} still runs nearly 1 second, as 5x times slower than {Taxobox} running 1/5 second, with 2x times the expansion depth, as 39 (of 41) levels, versus 21 levels of nested templates in {Taxobox}. That gives a 2-level window to allow further nesting (up to depth 41); however, future changes should be made with extreme caution due to the hideous complexity of analyzing the changes which were needed to squeeze the massive {Automatic_taxobox} to fit a mere 39 levels of complex processing. Please remember that wikimarkup is still a patch-work "toy language" compared to many mainstream computer languages, and some WP developers have purposely rejected attempts to accelerate the processing speed, such as for string-searches, or to increase the expansion depth, perhaps to covertly thwart any further sophistication in data processing. The wiki-politics of upgrading MediaWiki are a separate issue. Consequently, many templates have become obtuse contortions to try scraping functionality in a miserly restricted system, and we will need more computer scientists to sway the Wikimedia Foundation to improve the markup processing.
  Meanwhile, the Lua script modules have extreme speed, but they act as "compiled files" (edit/save/run, edit/save/run, etc.) of restricted data-type functions (with implicit type conversion), rather than live interpreted markup which gets tested simply by quick edit-preview of a template. For most users, the live edit-preview of template markup will seem like 1,000x times easier (or even more) than the tedious edit/save/run of Lua modules (even with debugging-print statements). However, we can write "helper templates" which #import the Lua-based processing, such as rapid string-searches (an amazing 180,000x times faster than markup-based). Ironically, the use of Lua script modules is likely to make other templates far more complex, by periodic diving into a zillion flavors of Lua-based helper templates, simply because the markup language was not logically extended to have a core set of string-handling, or numeric-formatting (true &minus sign) features. Considering all of these factors, I advise to seek some simple, "orthogonal" string-search helper templates, and keep the taxobox templates as mainly interactive markup-based, rather than place too much processing inside the cumbersome, compile-mode Lua modules which must import parameters through accessor functions which most users would find ultra-mondo-cryptic. In a sense, Wikipedia's templates are about to enter the era of the "Markup/Lua Scripting Wars" in the WikiTower of Babel, with babbling language syntax at every turn. Anyway, I agree that we should focus the taxobox templates on specific, major functionality, and avoid excessive automation. -Wikid77 (talk) 09:29, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Flagging taxa as obsolete, etc.

I would like to clean up Template:Taxonomy/Strepsirrhini per the standardized taxonomy that we're using for strepsirrhine primates now, but I don't know how to remove the infraorders Template:Taxonomy/Chiromyiformes and Template:Taxonomy/Lorisiformes. The aye-aye is now generally considered a member of the lemur clade, so it is included among the lemuroids (superfamily Lemuroidea), and for various reasons, it's better to place the superfamily Lorisoidea (lorisoids) under the infraorder Lemuriformes, thus eliminating infraorder Lorisiformes. Can those offending templates be deleted, or can a parameter get added so that they can be flagged as obsolete/irrelevant/etc.? Admittedly, I don't use the automatic taxobox yet, but until I can get the entries aligned with what I'm writing, I won't be able to make the transition. – Maky ^« talk » 17:06, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Would you do me a favor and be more explicit about how they should look? Both templates you seek to eliminate have children; for example what should Template:Taxonomy/Galagidae's parent be? Can you outline all this for me? Once we fix that we can delete them. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 17:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

If the taxonomy can match the "2 infraorders" list located at Strepsirrhini#Subordinal controversies, that would be ideal. If you need further clarification, please ask. Thanks. – Maky ^« talk » 17:52, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Ok, I created Template:Taxonomy/Lorisoidea and Template:Taxonomy/Lemuroidea; please let me know if this looks right. If everyone is agreeable we can delete the two you mention. ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 18:22, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Those two new templates look good, though family memberships need to be fixed. Also, another template that needs to be deleted (an old superfamily that is no longer relevant) is Template:Taxonomy/Cheirogaleoidea. Is it okay if I make the membership changes, or would you rather realign all the families? I've never done it before, but I think I can figure it out. – Maky ^« talk » 18:42, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Strictly speaking there's no need to delete the old templates: they can just be by-passed. Classifications come and go; they may be needed again! Peter coxhead (talk) 21:12, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

True, but either way, I still need help making the changes. I've created a few new templates for some lemur genera, but the "update" link under the subgroups doesn't appear to be working. Once that's fixed, I think I can make all the changes, including creating orphans out of the unused taxa. – Maky ^« talk » 21:14, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Don't worry about the "update" link; it depends on an external tool which is rather erratic in my experience. The key is to get the parent relationships right; this is all that is needed for most uses of the automatic taxobox templates. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:26, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

By the way, by default automatic taxoboxes only display the "principal" ranks, in line with manual taxoboxes (e.g. as at Lemur (genus)), so you won't see the intermediate ranks you are inserting into the classification hierarchy unless you force them to display, which tends to be controversial. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:34, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Good to know how that works. Admittedly, that might delay my adoption of this template. But for now, at least I can get things set up. Personally, I prefer to always show suborder with primates, and will show infraorder, superfamily, etc. down to the family or genus level. Oh well... things to think about. – Maky ^« talk » 21:45, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Well, just be aware that anything other than principal ranks is controversial; see #Use of always display above for example, and there are more in a similar vein in the archives. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

When you say "family memberships need to be fixed" do you mean like you did here? If not please let me know; and thanks for working on these!! HaugenErik (talk) 23:23, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, I think I have them all fixed for the lemurs, but it's hard to see since I can run the update in order to simply navigate the tree through the taxobox on the right. Are the "Immediate children" categories created by a bot, or do I have to create them manually? – Maky ^« talk » 23:30, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm sorry those are such a drag. I don't even know how they're updated. If you want immediate results you have to climb up the tree from the bottom or use my browser, which seems to be "working" today. HaugenErik (talk) 23:41, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

For some reason, your browser doesn't seem to show anything when I try to expand. Oh well... – Maky ^« talk » 23:49, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Did you try typing Strepsirrhini into the box and hitting enter? HaugenErik (talk) 23:51, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Then expand by clicking on the + sign? HaugenErik (talk) 23:53, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

That works better. It wasn't working for things like "Lorisoidea" or "Lemuriformes". Anyway, it looks like I have what needs to be done, except for some remaining work under Lorisoidea and Adapiformes (template creations)... in addition to the species. I still wonder how the categories are created and whether or not they're important. Maybe someone reading this will know. Thanks again! – Maky ^« talk » 00:07, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

What do you mean by "the categories"? You mean the "Immediate children/..." guys? HaugenErik (talk) 00:12, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Yes, that is what I'm referring to. – Maky ^« talk » 00:33, 4 January 2013 (UTC)