Wikipedia talk:Automated taxobox system

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".

High use notices on taxonomy templates

Some taxonomy templates now have {{high-use}} added to them; for example Template:Taxonomy/Otophysi. However, I don't think that the warning message produced makes sense for a taxonomy template: a change can't be effectively tested in a sandbox, because it's the effect on multiple taxoboxes that matters, and it doesn't make sense to me to create a test page for a taxonomy template – how would you force the automated taxobox system to use the sandbox version in order to compare with the live version?

I've made an interim change at Module:High-use/sandbox, which means that if you put {{high-use/sandbox}} in Template:Taxonomy/Otophysi, the warning message becomes:

This template is used on approximately 9,900 pages and changes may have wide effects on taxoboxes. To avoid major disruption, changes should be made cautiously, preferably after discussion at the relevant Tree of Life project.

This may not be the best wording, but I think something like it is better than a warning that includes links to a sandbox and a test page.

Comments please. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:30, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I think that message is an improvement. Plantdrew (talk) 19:59, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

I agree, and the message does not change for other templates. Pending the outcome of this discussion, I will be glad to make the module sandbox go live. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. ^{put'er there} 01:23, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

A great idea. I have done a minor copy edit on the new message. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:07, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

@Jonesey95: thanks for the revisions. Please all feel free to suggest or make changes to the message. Peter coxhead (talk) 19:43, 26 May 2025 (UTC)

30 June 2025 use stats update

30 June 2025 update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percent auto	# auto added since 30 December 2024	# manual subtracted
Algae	2383	123	2506	95.1	63	29
Amphibians and Reptiles	23212	81	23293	99.7	236	26
Animals	12078	779	12857	93.9	230	51
Arthropods	13273	1342	14615	90.8	851	623
Beetles	33499	5931	39430	84.9	1567	900
Birds	14761	5	14766	99.97	117	2
Bivalves	1762	2	1764	99.9	30	2
Cephalopods	2126	527	2653	80.1	33	16
Dinosaurs	1661	0	1661	100	24	0
Diptera	15776	995	16771	94.1	463	355
Extinction	849	0	849	100	9	0
Fishes	26722	172	26894	99.4	343	12
Fungi	13529	3273	16802	80.5	876	540
Gastropods	34896	1455	36351	96.0	1855	1257
Insects	71168	9105	80273	88.7	3720	3771
Lepidoptera	92445	6215	98660	93.7	5731	5567
Mammals	8900	59	8959	99.3	250	3
Marine life	9512	452	9964	95.5	172	45
Microbiology	8753	4486	13239	66.1	830	698
Palaeontology	17957	2129	20086	89.4	1169	379
Plants	84158	106	84264	99.9	1431	10
Primates	996	0	996	100	10	0
Protista	924	174	1098	84.2	110	-29
Rodents	3276	1	3277	99.97	66	0
Sharks	908	1	909	99.9	13	0
Spiders	11165	0	11165	100	324	0
Tree of Life	107	0	107	100	-1	0
Turtles	813	0	813	100	20	0
Viruses	1764	34	1798	98.1	8	3
Total	444079	32133	476212	93.3	17861	11542

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percent auto
Cats	144	0	144	100
Cetaceans	470	0	470	100
Dogs	183	0	183	100
Equine	93	0	93	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 the 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 less than 200 manual taxoboxes mostly have some kind of "problem". I have reviewed most of the manual taxobox articles in projects with few remaining 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: Fossil taxa; fossil classifications may be derived from multiple sources and present classification on Wikipedia may include mutually incompatible hypotheses. Fossil taxa are often not linked from articles on their extant parent taxa. Synonymy; there is some obvious synonymy issue; e.g., a species is in a genus which redirects (as a synonym) to another genus; maybe the species article needs to be moved or maybe the genus should be reinstated Common names; articles with common name titles may not correspond to taxa, but still have manual taxoboxes. In some cases {{Paraphyletic group}} may be appropriate, in others the taxobox should be removed Parasite and pathogens; article on parasites and pathogens may be tagged for the WikiProject of the organisms they infect. Higher level taxonomy templates for the parasites may not yet exist, and the classification presented in manual taxoboxes may not be up to date.

Plantdrew (talk) 16:09, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Almost half of the WikiProjects (14 of 29) are now using automatic taxoboxes in 99% of their articles). Only one project (Microbiology) is below 80%. The transclusion count tool I use for the Total row also picks up pages outside of article space; non-article pages with manual taxoboxes now account for a pretty significan chunk of the remaining taxoboxes (searching article space for Taxobox yields 29,622 articles, vs. the 32,133 pages picked up via the transclusion count)

I have some notes about numbers of remaining manual taxoboxes broken down for different groups of animal at User:Plantdrew/Animal automatic taxobox progress. Highlighting a few areas where there are a significant number of remaining taxoboxes in WikiProject with a relatively low number of manual taxoboxes overall:

• 217 articles are tagged for WikiProject Marine life+WikiProject Palaeontology (and almost all of them are also tagged for WikiProject Animals); that is almost half the total number of manual taxoboxes for Marine life. These articles are mostly echinoderms (especially crinoids) and brachiopods with a handful of forams.
• Under Category:Conodonts, there are 110 manual taxoboxes; these articles are tagged with Animals+Palaeontology
• Under Category:Acari, there are 529 manual taxoboxes; these articles are tagged with Arthropods
• Under Category:Trilobites, there are 436 manual taxoboxes; these are tagged with Arthropods+Palaeontology

Plantdrew (talk) 16:35, 30 June 2025 (UTC)

Cephalopods rank low, especially compare to Gastropods. Somewhere there is a recent discussion about merging Mulluscs projects. I'll try and find and link it tomorrow.  —  Jts1882 | talk  19:03, 1 July 2025 (UTC)

The discussion is Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Gastropods#Merging_Wikiprojects. There's been a lot of work put into automatic taxoboxes for gastropods recently (cephalopods had a higher percentages of automatic taxoboxes than gastropods up until December 2023). Almost all of the cephalopods with manual taxoboxes are fossils and are also tagged for WikiProject Palaeontology (thus accounting for about 25% of the remaining manual taxoboxes for palaeontology).

I think I went through all the cephalopods around 2021 (I have in my notes that I'd gone through them alphabetically from A-L, but I think I went through the rest of them without updating my notes). My process was to implement automatic taxoboxes when Wikipedia was both internally consistent and in agreement with Fossilworks and/or IRMNG (internally consistent meaning that the article listed as the parent of a lower taxon mentioned that lower taxon as a child).

Wikipedia is definitely missing mentions of many included lower taxa (per Fossilwork/IRMNG) in articles for cephalopod higher taxa, but adding mentions of lower taxa wasn't part of my workflow at the time. Other editors have done some work on cephalopod automatic taxoboxes since me, and I'm not sure how stringent they were about ensuring that child taxa were mentioned at parent taxa. Plantdrew (talk) 20:34, 1 July 2025 (UTC)