This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
automated taxobox system as a whole – not just one page. |
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Index,
1,
2,
3,
4,
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6Auto-archiving period: 41.5 days
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This talk page can be used to discuss issues with the automated taxobox system that are common to the entire system, not just one of its templates. Discussions of this nature prior to 2017 can be found at Template talk:Automatic taxobox
Those familiar with the system prior to mid-2016 are advised to read Notes for "old hands".
Any interest in adding automatic links to wikispecies, commons categories and galleries, and wikidata at the bottom of our taxboxes to improve integration with our sister projects? Compare hr:Dracaena aethiopica / en:Dracaena aethiopica. Coded in hr:Template:Taksokvir (note the four tracking categories). Ponor ( talk) 11:43, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Taxonbar appears to be overpopulated, uncurated, containing numerous links to, from a reader's perspective, low-quality sites (database dumps); on mobile devices this would be one half of the screen full of some links. On the other hand, I know that a link to the commons category/gallery will take me to moderately well-curated images of the species, which are made and heavily used by us. Since our articles don't have more than a picture of two, and many readers probably want to see more, I am still not convinced that adding a wikispecies link and one or two commons links would be a bad idea, as unobtrusive as we want it to be. While the taxobox is intended to summarize information on the taxon (meaning: classification), we already deviate from this by incorporating images, statuses, and range maps. Should this be discussed anywhere else? Can we BOLDly add it and wait for the avalanche? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ponor ( talk • contribs)
30 June update
Project | Auto | Manual | Total taxa | Percentage auto | # auto added since 30 December 2023 | # manual subtracted |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Algae | 2280 | 160 | 2440 | 93.4 | 117 | 67 |
Amphibians and Reptiles | 22711 | 199 | 22910 | 99.1 | 187 | 7 |
Animals | 11596 | 915 | 12511 | 92.7 | 429 | 243 |
Arthropods | 11355 | 2719 | 14074 | 80.7 | 581 | 348 |
Beetles | 26514 | 11994 | 38508 | 68.9 | 1783 | 1427 |
Birds | 14405 | 48 | 14453 | 99.7 | 47 | 14 |
Bivalves | 1696 | 28 | 1724 | 98.4 | 22 | 4 |
Cephalopods | 2020 | 558 | 2578 | 78.4 | 11 | 8 |
Dinosaurs | 1624 | 0 | 1624 | 100 | -19 | 0 |
Diptera | 15081 | 1565 | 16646 | 90.6 | 921 | 600 |
Extinction | 796 | 31 | 827 | 96.3 | NA | NA |
Fishes | 25302 | 960 | 26262 | 96.3 | 894 | 711 |
Fungi | 12194 | 3932 | 16126 | 75.6 | 1539 | 1239 |
Gastropods | 32419 | 2972 | 35391 | 91.6 | 4909 | 4252 |
Insects | 61302 | 18450 | 79752 | 76.9 | 3324 | 2269 |
Lepidoptera | 83659 | 14801 | 98460 | 85.0 | 9028 | 8965 |
Mammals | 8401 | 124 | 8525 | 98.5 | 100 | 20 |
Marine life | 8990 | 527 | 9517 | 94.4 | 267 | 145 |
Microbiology | 7675 | 5393 | 13068 | 58.7 | 704 | 637 |
Palaeontology | 15506 | 3198 | 18704 | 82.9 | 727 | 276 |
Plants | 81558 | 188 | 81746 | 99.8 | 1638 | 423 |
Primates | 983 | 0 | 983 | 100 | 4 | 0 |
Protista | 778 | 150 | 928 | 83.8 | 398 | -70 |
Rodents | 3161 | 25 | 3186 | 99.2 | 24 | 3 |
Sharks | 833 | 38 | 871 | 95.6 | 4 | 7 |
Spiders | 10110 | 0 | 10110 | 100 | 70 | 0 |
Tree of Life | 100 | 0 | 100 | 100 | 11 | 6 |
Turtles | 760 | 0 | 760 | 100 | 1 | 0 |
Viruses | 1736 | 55 | 1791 | 96.9 | 14 | 0 |
Total | 407991 | 57001 | 464992 | 87.7 | 24103 | 19707 |
Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:
Project | Auto | Manual | Total taxa | Percentage auto |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cats | 185 | 0 | 185 | 100 |
Cetaceans | 445 | 0 | 445 | 100 |
Dogs | 241 | 0 | 241 | 100 |
Equine | 109 | 0 | 109 | 100 |
Methods and caveats (copy-pasted from previous update)
|
---|
Method: For the most part I use Petscan to search for articles with a talk page banner for a particular Wikiproject and either {{ Taxobox}}, or any of {{ Automatic taxobox}}+{{ Speciesbox}}+({{ Infraspeciesbox}} and/or {{ Subspeciesbox}} (depending on whether botanical/zoological code is relevant)), and record the results. Example search for algae with automatic taxoboxes (search terms are in the Templates&Links tab in Petscan). For viruses, I search for {{ Virusbox}} rather than the other automatic taxobox templates. For plants, I sum the results for the Plants, Banksia, Carnivorous plants and Hypericaceae projects. "Total" is derived from the Template Transclusion Count tool ( https://templatecount.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=en&namespace=10&name=Speciesbox#bottom e.g. results for Speciesbox), and is not actually sum of the results for individual projects (some articles have talk page banners for multiple Wikiprojects, and would be counted twice if rows were summed). I started compiling these stats in April 2017, and have been updating roughly every six months since December 2017. I've kept my method consistent; perhaps I should have included all of the automatic taxobox templates (Hybridbox, Ichnobox, etc.), but I didn't do so at the beginning, and the other templates aren't used in very many articles. Caveat: The remaining manual taxoboxes in projects with a high percentage of automatic taxoboxes mostly have some kind of "problem". I have periodically reviewed all the manual taxobox articles in projects with less than 207 manual taxoboxes, and chose not to convert them to automatic taxoboxes at that time (however, it has been awhile since my last review, so there probably a few recently included articles I haven't reviewed). "Problems" may include:
|
I've added WikiProject Extinction to the table this time. WikiProject Protista continues to have tags added to existing articles, with a net increase in the number of tagged articles with a manual taxobox. WikiProject Dinosaurs recently merged a bunch of largely redundant articles for nodes in a cladogram, resulting in a net decrease in the number of articles tagged for that project. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:12, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't really know how else to title this. I'm one of the editors on a wiki which focuses on recording fictional species made for a large collaborative speculative evolution project, and at some point for much the same reason you all did, we came up with an automated taxonomy system to reduce the pain of updating taxonomy for hundreds, even thousands of species. However, ours works a bit different from Wikipedia's, storing all taxonomy data in a centralized place--a JSON file. As all the data is in one place, it also allowed us to also be able to easily reverse the direction and display, for instance, all descendant taxa as well.
Looking at how Wikipedia does taxonomy, I noticed that there are places where it would make sense to automatically generate a list of descendant taxa. Most notably, the subdivision section of the automatic taxobox, and perhaps various other lists of genera and species around the wiki. I can't imagine pages like the list of Asteraceae genera being anything short of a nightmare to update and maintain, assuming its reputation among botanists is earned, and I could see it being worse for decently large mid-level taxa that are in a state of flux due to several new studies being published.
I think that the current system Wikipedia is using might make generating lists of child taxa impractical, but on the other hand, I wonder if the changes needed to support it would actually be considered worthwhile to those involved in this wikiproject. I know that for the aforementioned wiki I'm part of, this also made it much easier to browse taxonomy in general because readers and editors alike could reliably access related and descendant taxa from anywhere. And while editing is moderated on our wiki so we haven't had need for this, I can't help but imagine it would make it a bit easier to spot and fix vandalism as well because it would be plainly visible from higher taxa (which one might be more likely to view in some cases). Any thoughts on the idea? Disgustedorite ( talk) 21:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
automated taxobox system as a whole – not just one page. |
|
Archives:
Index,
1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6Auto-archiving period: 41.5 days
![]() |
![]() | This project page does not require a rating on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||
|
This talk page can be used to discuss issues with the automated taxobox system that are common to the entire system, not just one of its templates. Discussions of this nature prior to 2017 can be found at Template talk:Automatic taxobox
Those familiar with the system prior to mid-2016 are advised to read Notes for "old hands".
Any interest in adding automatic links to wikispecies, commons categories and galleries, and wikidata at the bottom of our taxboxes to improve integration with our sister projects? Compare hr:Dracaena aethiopica / en:Dracaena aethiopica. Coded in hr:Template:Taksokvir (note the four tracking categories). Ponor ( talk) 11:43, 17 April 2024 (UTC)
Taxonbar appears to be overpopulated, uncurated, containing numerous links to, from a reader's perspective, low-quality sites (database dumps); on mobile devices this would be one half of the screen full of some links. On the other hand, I know that a link to the commons category/gallery will take me to moderately well-curated images of the species, which are made and heavily used by us. Since our articles don't have more than a picture of two, and many readers probably want to see more, I am still not convinced that adding a wikispecies link and one or two commons links would be a bad idea, as unobtrusive as we want it to be. While the taxobox is intended to summarize information on the taxon (meaning: classification), we already deviate from this by incorporating images, statuses, and range maps. Should this be discussed anywhere else? Can we BOLDly add it and wait for the avalanche? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ponor ( talk • contribs)
30 June update
Project | Auto | Manual | Total taxa | Percentage auto | # auto added since 30 December 2023 | # manual subtracted |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Algae | 2280 | 160 | 2440 | 93.4 | 117 | 67 |
Amphibians and Reptiles | 22711 | 199 | 22910 | 99.1 | 187 | 7 |
Animals | 11596 | 915 | 12511 | 92.7 | 429 | 243 |
Arthropods | 11355 | 2719 | 14074 | 80.7 | 581 | 348 |
Beetles | 26514 | 11994 | 38508 | 68.9 | 1783 | 1427 |
Birds | 14405 | 48 | 14453 | 99.7 | 47 | 14 |
Bivalves | 1696 | 28 | 1724 | 98.4 | 22 | 4 |
Cephalopods | 2020 | 558 | 2578 | 78.4 | 11 | 8 |
Dinosaurs | 1624 | 0 | 1624 | 100 | -19 | 0 |
Diptera | 15081 | 1565 | 16646 | 90.6 | 921 | 600 |
Extinction | 796 | 31 | 827 | 96.3 | NA | NA |
Fishes | 25302 | 960 | 26262 | 96.3 | 894 | 711 |
Fungi | 12194 | 3932 | 16126 | 75.6 | 1539 | 1239 |
Gastropods | 32419 | 2972 | 35391 | 91.6 | 4909 | 4252 |
Insects | 61302 | 18450 | 79752 | 76.9 | 3324 | 2269 |
Lepidoptera | 83659 | 14801 | 98460 | 85.0 | 9028 | 8965 |
Mammals | 8401 | 124 | 8525 | 98.5 | 100 | 20 |
Marine life | 8990 | 527 | 9517 | 94.4 | 267 | 145 |
Microbiology | 7675 | 5393 | 13068 | 58.7 | 704 | 637 |
Palaeontology | 15506 | 3198 | 18704 | 82.9 | 727 | 276 |
Plants | 81558 | 188 | 81746 | 99.8 | 1638 | 423 |
Primates | 983 | 0 | 983 | 100 | 4 | 0 |
Protista | 778 | 150 | 928 | 83.8 | 398 | -70 |
Rodents | 3161 | 25 | 3186 | 99.2 | 24 | 3 |
Sharks | 833 | 38 | 871 | 95.6 | 4 | 7 |
Spiders | 10110 | 0 | 10110 | 100 | 70 | 0 |
Tree of Life | 100 | 0 | 100 | 100 | 11 | 6 |
Turtles | 760 | 0 | 760 | 100 | 1 | 0 |
Viruses | 1736 | 55 | 1791 | 96.9 | 14 | 0 |
Total | 407991 | 57001 | 464992 | 87.7 | 24103 | 19707 |
Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:
Project | Auto | Manual | Total taxa | Percentage auto |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cats | 185 | 0 | 185 | 100 |
Cetaceans | 445 | 0 | 445 | 100 |
Dogs | 241 | 0 | 241 | 100 |
Equine | 109 | 0 | 109 | 100 |
Methods and caveats (copy-pasted from previous update)
|
---|
Method: For the most part I use Petscan to search for articles with a talk page banner for a particular Wikiproject and either {{ Taxobox}}, or any of {{ Automatic taxobox}}+{{ Speciesbox}}+({{ Infraspeciesbox}} and/or {{ Subspeciesbox}} (depending on whether botanical/zoological code is relevant)), and record the results. Example search for algae with automatic taxoboxes (search terms are in the Templates&Links tab in Petscan). For viruses, I search for {{ Virusbox}} rather than the other automatic taxobox templates. For plants, I sum the results for the Plants, Banksia, Carnivorous plants and Hypericaceae projects. "Total" is derived from the Template Transclusion Count tool ( https://templatecount.toolforge.org/index.php?lang=en&namespace=10&name=Speciesbox#bottom e.g. results for Speciesbox), and is not actually sum of the results for individual projects (some articles have talk page banners for multiple Wikiprojects, and would be counted twice if rows were summed). I started compiling these stats in April 2017, and have been updating roughly every six months since December 2017. I've kept my method consistent; perhaps I should have included all of the automatic taxobox templates (Hybridbox, Ichnobox, etc.), but I didn't do so at the beginning, and the other templates aren't used in very many articles. Caveat: The remaining manual taxoboxes in projects with a high percentage of automatic taxoboxes mostly have some kind of "problem". I have periodically reviewed all the manual taxobox articles in projects with less than 207 manual taxoboxes, and chose not to convert them to automatic taxoboxes at that time (however, it has been awhile since my last review, so there probably a few recently included articles I haven't reviewed). "Problems" may include:
|
I've added WikiProject Extinction to the table this time. WikiProject Protista continues to have tags added to existing articles, with a net increase in the number of tagged articles with a manual taxobox. WikiProject Dinosaurs recently merged a bunch of largely redundant articles for nodes in a cladogram, resulting in a net decrease in the number of articles tagged for that project. Plantdrew ( talk) 17:12, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
I don't really know how else to title this. I'm one of the editors on a wiki which focuses on recording fictional species made for a large collaborative speculative evolution project, and at some point for much the same reason you all did, we came up with an automated taxonomy system to reduce the pain of updating taxonomy for hundreds, even thousands of species. However, ours works a bit different from Wikipedia's, storing all taxonomy data in a centralized place--a JSON file. As all the data is in one place, it also allowed us to also be able to easily reverse the direction and display, for instance, all descendant taxa as well.
Looking at how Wikipedia does taxonomy, I noticed that there are places where it would make sense to automatically generate a list of descendant taxa. Most notably, the subdivision section of the automatic taxobox, and perhaps various other lists of genera and species around the wiki. I can't imagine pages like the list of Asteraceae genera being anything short of a nightmare to update and maintain, assuming its reputation among botanists is earned, and I could see it being worse for decently large mid-level taxa that are in a state of flux due to several new studies being published.
I think that the current system Wikipedia is using might make generating lists of child taxa impractical, but on the other hand, I wonder if the changes needed to support it would actually be considered worthwhile to those involved in this wikiproject. I know that for the aforementioned wiki I'm part of, this also made it much easier to browse taxonomy in general because readers and editors alike could reliably access related and descendant taxa from anywhere. And while editing is moderated on our wiki so we haven't had need for this, I can't help but imagine it would make it a bit easier to spot and fix vandalism as well because it would be plainly visible from higher taxa (which one might be more likely to view in some cases). Any thoughts on the idea? Disgustedorite ( talk) 21:24, 20 July 2024 (UTC)