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".

Error tracking category for speciesboxes calling non-genus taxonomy templates?

I noticed something odd at Spartina townsendii. |genus= calls Template:Taxonomy/Spartina, which is ranked as a section. The result in that article is basically OK, but it made me realize that you can put the taxonomy template for anything into |genus=; section, family, kingdom etc. Would it be feasible/worthwhile to have an error tracking category to check whether the template called by |genus= (or the first word of |taxon=) has a rank other than genus? Checking |parent= for non-infrageneric ranks would also follow along this line. Plantdrew (talk) 23:19, 13 March 2026 (UTC)

The taxobox shows genus Sporobolus when it should be Spartina, although the binomial is correct. I think that is reason for a tracking category. Also should the article be at Sporobolus × townsendii (as POWO and WFO)?

As an aside, I see Tropicos now needs an account because of bot activity. I assume this is a free account.  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:41, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jts1882: yes, it should be moved to Sporobolus × townsendii. By "basically OK", I meant that Spartina was being displayed as a section of Sporobolus (Spartina is in fact currently treated as a section by sources). The displayed binomial is wrong, but it seems like any fix to that is going to require checking whether a taxonomy template at a non-genus rank is being called by |genus=.

Tropicos accounts are free. The requirement for an account to view data is supposed to be a temporary measure, but it's been three months without another solution yet. Plantdrew (talk) 16:08, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

A tracking category would have helped in this case certainly. The problem arose because the rank at Template:Taxonomy/Spartina was changed from "genus" to "sectio" (via the intermediate and incorrect "zoosectio") without checking what "Spartina" in the taxonomy template actually linked to (for which I must take some responsibility since I corrected the original edit to the taxonomy template). Spartina is muddled between genus and section and needs fixing. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:39, 14 March 2026 (UTC)

Spartina townsendii now moved to Sporobolus × townsendii. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:16, 16 March 2026 (UTC)

The majority of Oxycoleus species were calling the template for tribe Oxycoleini (e.g., see history of Oxycoleus tristis). I don't expect the wrong taxonomy template to be called often, but it would be helpful if that were trackable. Plantdrew (talk) 01:36, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

Ok, added to my "to do" list to look into this. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:17, 19 March 2026 (UTC)

@Plantdrew:@Jts1882: I've implemented the error checking suggested above. I've tested my changes as carefully as I could, but messing with the automated taxobox system is always dodgy, so please revert this edit if there are problems.

It uses Category:Speciesboxes with genus parameter not a genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:27, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

One case found so far – Claytosmunda, where taxonomy template has "sectio" not "genus". Peter coxhead (talk) 12:30, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

Fixed; actually seems to have been my earlier error! Peter coxhead (talk) 13:49, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

I found one earlier: Davidiella dianthi had the family in |genus=.  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:35, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

A few more turned up in the tracking category which I fixed. (E.g. Ranoidea is both a genus and a clade of amphibians, so needed the genus disambiguating in the taxobox.) Peter coxhead (talk) 14:06, 22 March 2026 (UTC)

A few have been turning up each day so far. Genera needing disambiguation, like Platynota (moth) vs. Platynota, are one source. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:28, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

I fixed a few Ranoidea on Sunday but seen none since. All the Ranoidea and Platynota seem fixed (checked using the search facility).  —  Jts1882 | talk  10:02, 24 March 2026 (UTC)

See User talk:William Avery/taxoboxalyzer#Incorrect genus. Several in the category this morning were, it seems, caused by Taxoboxalyzer. When the genus is a redirect to a higher ranked taxon, it appears to pick that as the genus. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:44, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Oreonebria should be a subgenus. I've update and moved Oreonebria atrata to the genus name. There is another at Oreonebria raetzeri, which I updated but cannot move over a redirect. Do you have page mover permissions?  —  Jts1882 | talk  12:10, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

I've moved O. raetzeri. Plantdrew (talk) 15:57, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

As the database slowly updates, more of this kind keep turning up, e.g. caused by this edit. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:30, 25 March 2026 (UTC)

Sigh... There are also some articles using {{Automatic taxobox}} where Taxoboxalyzer has introduced a genus error, as in this edit. These are of course not found by the new error-tracking category. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:01, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

That example was wrong in {{taxobox}} before the update. Taxoboxalyzer seems to strip the wikitext formating from the genus and use that for the taxon, which seems reasonable (without cross check the type species), so it replaced one genus error with another. It's amazing what gets put in the templates. For the invalid conservation status error category, four or five (nearly 10%) had an image caption in the status parameter. —  Jts1882 | talk  14:04, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

@Jts1882: whoops, yes, not a Taxoboxalyzer error. There were 7 or so more errors found this morning which were Taxoboxalyzer errors, mostly Nyctimenius species where the genus currently redirects to a tribe. Peter coxhead (talk) 15:19, 27 March 2026 (UTC)

I'd forgotten that "ichnogenus" and "oogenus" should be acceptable ranks as well as "genus"; {{Speciesbox/checkgenus}} has been updated. Revert if any errors result. Articles like Magnoavipes denaliensis should now be excluded from the error tracking category; the article may need a purge to fix this. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:33, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

More generally, I'm surprised how many cases have been turning up in the category as the database slowly updates. Many go back for years, and just hadn't been noticed. Plantdrew was certainly justified in suggesting this error tracking should be implemented. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:42, 28 March 2026 (UTC)

How many have we found so far? When I first encountered that problem, I would normally skip the genus. In later years, I converted the taxoboxes by hand when I encountered that. I wouldn't expect too many of my conversions to have that problem. The Knowledge Pirate (talk) 01:00, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

@The Knowledge Pirate: I haven't really been counting, but I must have fixed at least a couple of dozen and I know other editors have been fixing them too. Not all the errors are due to Taxoboxalyzer, some are because disambiguation was needed (e.g. genus vs. nominate subgenus), or because an editor has changed the rank in the taxonomy template without fixing the article, or just downright errors. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:22, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

I did eleven this morning, including nine Nemotelus species. All needed modification due to a subgenus, although the taxoboxes were displaying and linking correctly, presumably why they survived so long. Mostly I've seen one or two at a time, so the total must be around 20-30.  —  Jts1882 | talk  08:53, 29 March 2026 (UTC)

30 June 2026 use stats update

30 June 2026

30 June 2026 update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percent auto	# auto added since 3 January 2026	# manual subtracted
Algae	2527	44	2571	98.3	60	20
Amphibians and Reptiles	23603	35	23638	99.9	233	15
Animals	13067	166	13233	98.7	619	447
Arthropods	15113	68	15181	99.6	687	400
Beetles	62832	39	62871	99.9	5901	776
Birds	14764	6	14770	99.96	9	-1
Bivalves	1837	1	1838	99.9	43	2
Cephalopods	2613	56	2669	97.9	472	463
Dinosaurs	1702	0	1702	100	23	0
Diptera	16961	20	16981	99.9	333	263
Extinction	863	0	863	100	9	0
Fishes	27354	62	27416	99.8	192	67
Fungi	17800	167	17967	99.1	1333	945
Gastropods	37056	63	37119	99.8	917	580
Insects	94450	97	94547	99.9	8090	1822
Lepidoptera	98951	96	99047	99.9	888	590
Mammals	9246	25	9271	99.7	208	29
Marine life	10163	92	10255	99.1	323	223
Microbiology	13181	297	13478	97.8	637	600
Palaeontology	20748	426	21174	98.0	1834	1247
Plants	87380*	59	87439	99.9		30
Primates	1018	0	1018	100	7	0
Protista	2368	150	2518	94.0	255	220
Rodents	3314	2	3316	99.9	17	-1
Sharks	938	3	941	99.7	11	1
Spiders	13373	0	13373	100	200	0
Tree of Life		2				-1
Turtles	827	0	827	100	9	0
Viruses	1782	35	1817	98.1	12	-2
Total (Petscan)	495601	1221	496822	99.8	16755	6015
Total (Transclusion count)	498200	3666	501866	99.3	16904	6050

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Cats	184	0	184	100
Cetaceans		0
Dogs	248	0	248	100
Equine	116	0	116	100

Methods and caveats (mostly copy-pasted from previous updates)

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 (I was unable to run the queries for Banksia, Carnivorous plants and Hypericaceae in June 2026). "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 essentially all of the remaining manual taxobox articles, and chose not to convert them to automatic taxoboxes at that time.

"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
• False monotypy; Wikipedia asserts a genus is monotypic but additional species are now accepted; a new article should be written for either the genus or the species (there is a quite a mix whether the existing article is at a genus or species title

I was unable to get the queries for automatic taxoboxes for Tree of Life, Cetaceans and the Plant subprojects (Banksia, Carnivorous plants, Hypericaceae) to run yesterday. I was able to run other queries after those queries timed out, so I'm not sure what the problem is (I had a similar issue with the previous update, where the query for Hypericaceae just wouldn't work). Today I haven't been able to get ANY queries for WikiProject banners on talk pages to run. I'll try some more over the next few days, but I figured I'd post what I had so far.

I expect this will be my last update to these statistics. There are very few manual taxoboxes left, and little difference between the various WikiProjects in terms of both number of manual taxoboxes and percentage. I also don't anticipate working much on converting the remaining manual taxoboxes myself going forward. That has been the primary focus of my Wikipedia editing over the last 9 years, but I've looked at every article with a manual taxobox in the last year and half or so and chose to leave the manual taxoboxees in place. There are issues with uncertain placement of fossil taxa, unclear synonymy, false (outdated?) claims of monotypy that necessitate a new article, and other stuff that would take more time to do right than I wanted to bother with. There are probably a few things out there I should revisit (I didn't have page mover rights until relatively recently, and wasn't comfortable working with incertae sedis templates), so I will probably continue to slowly chip away at some of the remaining taxoboxes, but I'm going to largely refocus my Wikipedia editing efforts (and I'm definitely not done working on taxonomy templates in general; I have my eye on nematodes where existing taxonomy templates are a mix of old and recent classifications). Plantdrew (talk) 01:06, 2 July 2026 (UTC)