Template talk:Taxobox

Connected taxoboxes

In the article stub about Cytherellidae the taxobox says it belongs to the order Platycopida, which is correct. And the taxobox in the article stub about Punciidae says that too belongs to the order Platycopida, which is wrong. It belongs to the order Palaeocopida. But when I change the info in the taxobox to correct it, the taxobox describing Cytherellidae changes too, from Platycopida to Palaeocopida. And vice versa. The two taxoboxes are connected, so when you edit it in one of the mentioned articles, the same thing happens in the other. Is there a way to separate them? Hipporoo (talk) 00:28, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

@Hipporoo: Fixed. I'm not sure what you tried to changed or where, but you needed to change the taxonomy template for Punciidae. I changed the parent taxon in Template:Taxonomy/Punciidae to Puncioidea, which was already set up correctly as part of Palaeocopida. For more on the use of the automated taxobox system see WP:Automated taxobox system. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:15, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

Deprecated vs. discouraged, and should all empty discouraged parameters be removed?

There are many parameters listed as "deprecated" under Template:Taxobox#Template parameters, but they appear in the template code and in the documentation, albeit with heavily caveated use cases. They are:

• |image_width=
• |image_caption_align=
• |range_map_width=
• |alliance=
• |variety=
• |color_as=

plus their numerical counterparts, |image2_width=, etc.

It would be more accurate to change these to "discouraged", since the only parameter that's actually deprecated, from what I can tell, is |image_size=, since it has been removed from the immediate (i.e. non-nested) template code and from the documentation.

Related question: should all empty discouraged parameters be removed? I've been removing empty |image_width= (only) since at least 2020.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  14:36, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding: "deprecated" is one of three qualifiers for parameters allowed by TemplateData. The others are "required" and "suggested". I've long thought there should be another qualifier for "should not normally be used, but necessary in exceptional cases" (I'm not sure how to name it in a concise way). |color_as= is an instance of "should not normally be used, but necessary in exceptional cases". I suppose |image_caption_align= may be as well, but I have never come across it being used in my time on Wikipedia.

Variety is correctly deprecated; |varietas= should be used instead of |variety= Most of the parameter names for ranks are Latin not English (regnum/classis/ordo/familia, not kingdom/class/order/family with phylum/genus/species being the same in Latin and English).

|alliance= is also English, but isn't used anywhere. I'm pretty sure I set it to "deprecated" as work-around when trying to find articles that used it and update them to recent classifications that didn't use that rank (the TemplateData Error Report will show articles using a particular parameter/value when a template has few transclusions. When a template has many transclusions (over 50k, I think) the option to see which articles use a particular parameter is disabled unless that parameter is marked as deprecated).

The "_width" parameters are correctly deprecated. "_upright" parameters should be used instead, although I would say the "_upright" parameters also fall into "should not normally be used, but necessary in exceptional cases" (the only reason to over-ride the default image display size is when an image has an extreme aspect ratio (tall/narrow or short/wide) that makes it display very large/small).

Any of the parameters you've listed should be removed when empty. Almost all the "_width" parameters should be removed even when non-empty (but the image should be checked to see if it does have an extreme aspect ratio that would merit using an "_upright" parameter instead). Plantdrew (talk) 21:05, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I didn't realize that about TemplateData. Looking through the archives, I found a relevant discussion 5 years ago at #Add support for more sophisticated "required" options, which predicts the need for a "deprecated unless" parameter (oh, you're in that discussion too!), but to submit a bug request on Phabricator. I thought there'd be a much simpler solution to this, so if/when I get around to it, I'll look through phab tickets to see if something like this actually made it there, and go from there.

I think I'll stick with removing these empty parameters for now, and look for the special cases you mention after.   ~ Tom.Reding (talk ⋅dgaf)  22:11, 1 December 2023 (UTC)

@Tom.Reding:, |color= meets your stricter definition of deprecated; it's been removed from the template code, and I just removed it from the documentation. It should definitely be removed when empty. It could be removed when non-empty, as it does not do anything. I have been slowly working through the articles with "color = lightgrey" (the only value specified now) and converting them to automatic taxoboxes. I wouldn't mind at all if you got rid of all non-empty instance |color= now, but it is something I intend to eventually achieve myself if nobody else does it. "image_width=220px" is another bugbear of mine (220 is already the default), that I'm inclined to address with automatic taxoboxes, but wouldn't mind of you went ahead and got rid of it while leaving manual taxoboxes in place. Plantdrew (talk) 02:40, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

In my long template-editor experience, it is best to remove from the documentation entirely any parameters that should no longer be used at all. The fact that they still might work, until all instances of the parameter in use have been removed/replaced, is immaterial. That they still function (at least for now) will be apparent in the source code, but if they are included in the documentation, then people will use them anew, no matter what the documentation says.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  07:29, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree about parameters that should not be used at all. However, the limited classification available in TemplateData does cause some problems. There are some parameters, like |color_as=, that are needed only in exceptional cases, so are "deprecated", but need to be supported indefinitely.

The image_width parameters are a different matter. I would like to remove them altogether. However, right now this tool reports 3,136 uses of |image_width= (plus some for other image width parameters), which ideally would be checked first. On the other hand, these parameters don't exist in the automated taxobox templates, like {{Speciesbox}} and {{Automatic taxobox}}, so perhaps just removing them from the manual taxobox template would be ok. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:52, 2 December 2023 (UTC)

Right. I meant just for the ones that are "dead" parameters to remove them from the docs and replace or remove them, as needed, from "the wild". For stuff with occasional use, it would need to remain in the docs, just really clearly documented as to what unusual cases to use them for.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  10:33, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

I'd be fine with removing support for |image_width= from the code. None of the instances of 100px actually have an image. The remaining values range from 200px to 250px which isn't really a big enough difference from the default 220px to "fix" images with extreme aspect ratios. 234px/235px is used in fungus articles with {{Mycomorphbox}} to make the taxobox display at the same width as the mycomorphbox. If different widths in taxobox and mycomorphbox is even a problem in the first place, a better solution for that would be to make mycomorphboxes display at the same width as a taxobox with a 220px image. Plantdrew (talk) 16:36, 3 December 2023 (UTC)

It would be best to have a bot remove all the instances of |image_width= first, to avoid all the pages showing up in the taxobox error-tracking categories. Peter coxhead (talk) 14:05, 5 December 2023 (UTC)

COSEWIC DD

@Jts1882, Spacepotato, and Pengo: COSEWIC's website says DD is a valid status. We should update our graphics and taxobox to handle it. Please? :) Ijust fixed Arctic wolf to correctly list COSEWIC (when it was listing a full link) and the DD turned into "invalid". - UtherSRG (talk) 17:17, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I've added support for DD to the taxobox, but left it without an image. This would have to be created especially and is more than just adding a colour to the blank image template. —  Jts1882 | talk  17:38, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

Understood, and thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 18:01, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd recommend using a blank COSEWIC with "Data Deficient" below:

Data Deficient

which would match Wikipedia's IUCN DD graphic, e.g. see Allen's spotted bat

If you're wondering why it's like that for IUCN's, I deliberately left out "DD" and "NE" from the image. I'm no graphic designer, but when I made it I wanted to keep it simple and easy to glance, so I chose not to include a separate circle for IUCN's "DD" status because it would stop the circles being in order of threat status, and would make the graphic more confusing (it would be like replacing a fuel gauge with a bunch of indicator lights). Having no filled circle communicates "We don't know", and having no graphic at all communicates "Not evaluated". I should mention that when IUCN made their own graphic they did include NE and DD though (and put Extinct on the right side, making it feel like every species is in an inevitable march towards extinction). —Pengo 23:52, 23 January 2024 (UTC)

I'd have a go at fixing it but I don't want to mess up 75,000 articles today, and I have no idea how this template works any more. I'm in awe that it continues to exist. —Pengo 00:05, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

I've followed your suggestion. The template where it is set is {{taxobox/species}}, not one of the most intuitively named templates. —  Jts1882 | talk  07:02, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Y'all are the best! Much thanks! - UtherSRG (talk) 12:02, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

TemplateStyles tag generates empty paragraph

@Jdlrobson: Blue petrel has an empty paragraph containing a style tag at the top because of this edit adding a TemplateStyles tag to {{taxobox/core}} on an empty line before the table. One way to prevent the creation of a paragraph would be to put the style tag after the |} like this. — Eru·tuon 14:15, 18 April 2024 (UTC)