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How to find automatic taxoboxes of a specific category

Can these templates be categorized so I can correct the algae ones? Again, I found automatic taxoboxes with taxonomies that differ from existing wikipedia taxonomies. But there are hundreds of uncategorized pages altogether,[1] and the algae are getting random taxonomies.

I don't think there are many algae editors on wikipedia. If someone is trying to sort out the algae, but other editors are adding mayhem, it makes attempting the task worthless.

I would like to spend time editing articles, not correcting templates which are impossible to find, much less edit.

How do I locate all of the algae automatic taxoboxes, or find any category of automatic taxoboxes? I will also be sorting out the "protists" and bacteria. I am not going to do work that is being undone faster than I can do it, so I would like to find these automatic taxobox templates so I can stay on top of them. --Kleopatra (talk) 06:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I applaud your enthusiasm for staying on top of the taxonomy and would like to help however I can. In this instance, I'm struggling to understand your objective. To find all pages displaying an automatic taxobox (there's only a couple of hundred at the moment) you can use Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Automatic taxobox. Can you point to where your edits are being undone? In my own edits I have been careful to use existing taxonomy or a recent reference when creating the taxoboxes. Am I unwittingly causing problems, or is someone else to blame? If this is causing mayhem we should educate the offending editors to stop it spreading further. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 06:50, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

A couple of hundred? Can't they be categorized? Yes, you're adding mixed taxonomies. I'm running through hundreds of algae articles, trying to figure out what I can edit as groups, and I am running across incosistent automatic taxoboxes.

Yes, I understand it would be impossible to list them on wikiproject algae, and I will certainly avoid that suggestion and pissing off that editor again, but so I'm not sure how anyone is supposed to follow what is going on, when randomly articles within large groups are given automatic taxoboxes, the automatic taxoboxes are not categorized, and the taxonomies are not standardized in any way.

Should I just give up? I do this elsewhere for money, so it's not like I have to give up algae.

Just give me a list of the algae, bacteria, "protist" taxoboxes, please, so I can check them. Thanks. --Kleopatra (talk) 06:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

If I can find a place to host it I should have a browser up in the next few weeks that you could use to do this pretty easily. But in the meantime, I would love to help; is there a good place I can look these up? Are you especially concerned here about the higher-level taxa? Thank you!! ErikHaugen (talk) 08:11, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

One way to find children is to do a search like this: [2] – that gives you all/most of the children of Protista. It's not ideal, but you can sort of browse around this way. Thank you Kleopatra! ErikHaugen (talk) 08:53, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I've got it: Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Taxonomy/Rhodophyta. People raised a hue and cry when I tried to categorize them, but I think that that link will do what you are looking for. And bear with us; significant usability improvements are planned for early next week.

On a more puzzled note, I have to say, I'm still not understanding what I'm doing wrong -- I'd really appreciate if you could spell it out to me, perhaps including some specific edits, so that I don't continue to make bad edits (and to wind you up). Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:01, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

I happened to create several "protist" taxonomies last night-- I was very careful not to place any of them in Protista and spent a lot of time checking the taxonomies against Wikipedia (I don't know a good source for updated protist taxonomy).

Algae taxonomy templates (that I was able to find):

{{Taxonomy/Excavata}}, {{Taxonomy/Eozoa}}, {{Taxonomy/Loukozoa}}, {{Taxonomy/Malawimonadea}}, {{Taxonomy/Malawimonadida}}, {{Taxonomy/Malawimonadidae}}, {{Taxonomy/Malawimonas}}, {{Taxonomy/Chromalveolata}}, {{Taxonomy/Alveolata}}, {{Taxonomy/Heterokontophyta}}, {{Taxonomy/Actinochrysophyceae}}, {{Taxonomy/Actinophryida}}, {{Taxonomy/Labyrinthulomycetes}}, {{Taxonomy/Oomycota}}, {{Taxonomy/Sagenista}}, {{Taxonomy/Hacrobia}}, {{Taxonomy/Cryptophyta}}, {{Taxonomy/Haptophyta}}, {{Taxonomy/Pavlovophyceae}}, {{Taxonomy/Pavlovophycidae}}, {{Taxonomy/Pavlovales}}, {{Taxonomy/Pavlovaceae}}, {{Taxonomy/Diacronema}}, {{Taxonomy/Diacronema vlkianum}}, {{Taxonomy/Rhizaria}}, {{Taxonomy/Retaria}}, {{Taxonomy/Radiolaria}}, {{Taxonomy/Polycystinea}}, {{Taxonomy/Sticholonchea}}, {{Taxonomy/Taxopodida}}, {{Taxonomy/Sticholonche}}, {{Taxonomy/Sticholonche zanclea}}, {{Taxonomy/Cercozoa}}, {{Taxonomy/Desmothoracida}}, {{Taxonomy/Clathrulinidae}}, {{Taxonomy/Heliomonadida}}, {{Taxonomy/Gymnosphaerida}}. I am NOT going to do that again...that took a good half hour to come up with that list manually via the steps Martin suggested. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 07:34, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

For one thing, wikipedia is not a good source for updated and correct protist taxonomies. I'm unwilling to go near most of these organisms for which you've created automatic taxoboxes--without first doing a lot of research. It would probably take me a good 8 hours of reading before I was willing to write a single one of these.

As bad as everything was, though, these probably can't be worse, because you might capture some internal inconsistencies by using the automatic taxoboxes, and you might make it easier for someone to correct the taxonomies in the future with the new editing tool.

Thanks everyone for the search tips. Could you wait a while for the algae automatic taxoboxes and allow me to provide supporting research for them before creating them? I would like wikipedia algae articles to provide well-supported taxonomies to the general reader. The red algae, the green algae and a few others can be done and all of their taxoboxes changed out to automatic ones. However, an encyclopedia is not a collection of random information, it should be a collection of the currently most-grossly accepted taxonomies, for organisms that is, and this requires internally consistent taxonomies supported through time by the literature. Wikipedia algae taxonomies have paraphyletic groups deriving monophyletic clades and simplified taxonomies that don't exist. I research only a small portion of these organisms, although I have access to sources for more. It would be nice to get it right, once, rather than spend my time trying to clean up the worst destined for "publication" and sort as much as possible while staying on top of what is happening to automatic taxoboxes. --Kleopatra (talk) 00:58, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I'll do my best to leave those alone then. I'm using WikiSpecies' most linked-to taxa as my guide for which ones to create, so I'll start avoiding anything that looks like a protist. Protists are hard enough as it is...no point in doing them if I'm doing them wrong anyway. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:49, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Pretty sure the problem is with the d@n#! protists, not you. But I wouldn't change anything you've done thus far with protists.

You know, I keep trying to avoid them or ignore them, then they won't leave my pet organisms (or my pets) alone. Evolution is just not the linear/Linnean picture first painted--although the old time taxonomist got most things right within the limits of their instruments.

I'll work on the red and green algae this week, as I can. Then I'll post the taxonomies, add the citations to the primary articles, and the taxoboxes can be automated and changed out. --Kleopatra (talk) 03:19, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Well, at least we know who you're really mad at now, lol. It might be a bit tragic if protists just disappeared like that, although yes, it would simplify the classification of living organisms-- perhaps even more than we'd hope for. And by the way, Linneaus had no intention of showing actual relation of animals-- he just felt a need to categorize them according to features that seemed similar.

If you need any help with the templates, don't hesitate to ask-- but please post the questions at Template talk:Automatic taxobox since they'd be more relevant to that template than this one. Martin, Erik, and I watch that page like hawks, so your questions regarding the automatic taxobox should get answered fairly quickly there. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:35, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox problem

The automatic taxobox for the Trochodendrales, in addition to using the unsupported "Eudocots" instead of "Eudicots" and removing this major clade, replaces it with this:

clade: Angiosperms

Order: Trochodendrales

Family: Trochodendraceae

Genus: Trochodendron

Note that "Trochodendrales" is a redirect to "Trochodendraceae." --Kleopatra (talk) 22:55, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Fixed with this edit. It was just a spelling error in the hierarchy of the automatic taxobox. Other errors are usually being reported at Template talk:Automatic taxobox if you want to mention them there. Rkitko ^(talk) 23:07, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry if a fix for this has already been addressed but this page is getting long... Anyway, having a problem when adding an unranked taxon in between the family level taxa. It's eliminating the taxobox colors. Example, Velociraptor with Eudromaeosauria. MMartyniuk (talk) 06:43, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Another problem--is it possible to have pages where a monotypic family and its genus are both listed at the same time? As in Pterodactylus? Nice to have the authority right there and not have to link to a redundant page. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:55, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I don't see any color problem with Velociraptor and Eudromaeosauria is present in the taxobox. On the second problem, you can see my example of multiple taxa in one taxobox at Welwitschia. You have to anchor the taxobox with taxon= and then use authority= for the genus and parent_authority= for the family authority. Hope that helps. Rkitko ^(talk) 13:01, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

One problem with velociraptor right now is that the line that just says "Species" in bold has a white background. ErikHaugen (talk) 19:05, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks. Yeah the whole box was white before, now it's only the species line. Must have been tweaked elsewhere (just noticed a similar thread above). I'll try out the Welwitschia example. MMartyniuk (talk) 23:21, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox question

I'm playing around with the auto taxobox for dinosaur articles, and had a question. Are we meant to create individual templates for every taxon down to the genus level? I thought the benefit of the automated box was having one central taxonomy that individual pages could pull info from. Right now it seems like we're just moving the taxobox off to its own page. I can see where this still makes things more consistent, but in the future, is it possible to create some kind of single central taxonomy on one page? For example, I had to create a new template for the clade Euhadrosauria, and change the parent of Lambeosaurinae to shuffle it into the system. Simply editing some kind of list, rather than making new pages and changing others, would be heaps easier. Not sure how feasible that would be. MMartyniuk (talk) 06:06, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I think yeah, every taxon as low as you want, even subspecies or whatever. I think your suggestion for an editor is good - an interface could eg. let you select a list of genera within a particular family to reparent to a new subfamily of that family. ErikHaugen (talk) 07:46, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Considering the array of millions of valid taxa, placing them into some giant list would require some very efficient hashing technique in order to pull the taxonomy from the list. By handling each this in the form of a linked list with multiple pointers pointing to the same node, we're eliminating a tragic amount of effort on both our parts and the server's. So in short, yes, every taxon is entered individually. It's actually quite nice to be able to squeeze in a taxon as you did with Lambeosaurinae-- it allows those who are pickier (like myself) to perform thorough cleanups after folks who just want the major taxa and leave it at that. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:26, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Taxons with large numbers of species

I am working on the list of validly described Eimeria. This genus of protozoa is unfortuately one of the largest in biology with an estimated 1700 species. I have used the taxobox for genera with about 250 species bfore (Plasmodium) but I am concerned that Eimeria might make this unworkable. Perhaps a multi column format for species might be a useful addition? DrMicro (talk) 14:31, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I think for some of the organisms you work on species list within the taxobox just are not going to work, even if you do multiple columns. You can put the list of species in the text. You can also make the list a separate article and discuss some major species, then put a link to the list in the genus article.

Your work on wikipedia is very useful, thanks. --Kleopatra (talk) 14:40, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

I think the 250 odd at Plasmodium is already far too many for a taxobox, which is only meant to be a summary of taxonomic information. A long list should be located in a separate section in the article or, as Kleopatra suggests, in a separate article. Plasmodium actually has a separate list, which also refers to a number of subgenera. If it were up to me, I would place the full list in the text (with a reference, naturally), and list only the subgenera in the taxobox. If there aren't any infrageneric taxa in Eimeria, then I think the taxobox there should probably avoid listing the subordinate taxa. --Stemonitis (talk) 14:51, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Stemonitis and Kleopatra. The best way forward may be to put something in the taxobox like: |diversity=About 1700 species; see [[List of Eimeria species|List of ''Eimeria'' species]]. Ucucha 15:10, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Automatic taxobox color

The color doesn't show in transclusions of the automatic taxobox template; it does in transclusions of this template. Is it intended that the color bars be phased out, is this an error, or what? I can't find anything that would clarify this in the discussions of the automatic taxobox template. —innotata 15:57, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

It's an error that I think Martin (User:Smith609) is working on right now. I can't figure out why it went wonky; he suspects it's the mediawiki software that's been tweaked recently. See Template talk:Automatic taxobox/Archive 6#Extended nesting support is gone....new limit 27 taxa. Rkitko ^(talk) 16:01, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

In the meantime, please use the {{taxobox}} template and do not automate any until we get things straightened out. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 20:27, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Seems to be working now, good jobMMartyniuk (talk) 01:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Resolved

Always display?

Side question--what does the "always display" field do? I set some important parent taxa like Theropoda to always display, but it still doesn't show on most genus level articles. MMartyniuk (talk) 01:54, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

If you'll provide an example or two, that'll help. As I recall, I noticed the other day that it was displaying quite well on daughter taxon articles. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:25, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

For example, it would be good to have Theropoda appear in modst, if not all, taxoboxes for genera belonging to this suborder. Theropoda is used as the primary subdivision of Dinosauria more often and commonly than Saurischia. I set Template:Taxonomy/Theropoda to 'yes', but it isn't showing in the box at say, Tyrannosaurus. MMartyniuk (talk) 03:59, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The appropriate value for that parameter is "true". I've changed it accordingly. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:23, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed

D'oh! not sure where I got 'yes' from, I was copying from a different template but must have brain farted. Thanks for fixing it. MMartyniuk (talk) 04:24, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Not a problem, I do that myself all the time when programming on Wikipedia-- trying to pass true instead of 1, 1 instead of true, etc.... Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:27, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Template move

For technical reasons, because Template:Automatic taxobox uses this template to produce its output, it is better to move the current template to Template:Taxobox/core.

A direct move of the page, leaving a redirect at Template:Taxobox, will mean that current taxoboxes still work, but may be confusing for editors (who may try to use "Taxobox/core" in articles in place of "taxobox".

An alternative solution is for Template:Taxobox to pass the specified parameters to Template:Taxobox/core in a similar fashion to Template:Citation / Template:Citation/core.

I'm assuming that the second option is preferable and will enact this imminently unless I've overlooked any problems.

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 23:01, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Do it in the sandbox first and post for review please. This is too important to fuck up. Hesperian 23:48, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Martin, I'll have to agree with Hesperian on this one. Besides, what's this all about? How is this better? It seems to me it would generate confusion at minimum. Any improvements? Will this be invisible? Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I'm kind of agreeing with the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" school of thought. Is it really necessary to move it in the first place? Petter Bøckman (talk) 10:01, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it'll be invisible. The user's behaviour will not have to change, and existing taxoboxes will still be called "Taxobox" without introducing any redirects.

The sandbox now contains the test code, ready to be moved to Template:Taxobox if it's justified. The most significant benefit is that Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Taxobox will only list manual taxoboxes (among other things, this makes it much easier to generate lists of manual taxoboxes so that I can search for bugs with the automatic taxobox template and test toolserver tools). In addition, it streamlines the process of passing hidden parameters (e.g. category flags) from manual taxoboxes without rendering them; and it simplifies the process of applying a different output from automatic and manual taxoboxes, whilst keeping most of the template the same (e.g. there is discussion about adding an "edit me" link to the "scientific classification" header of automatic taxoboxes).

Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:19, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Martin that during this transitional stage we have two distinct front ends to the same template rendering core, and that moving the core to Template:Taxobox/core, and decoupling the two front ends from it, is the right thing to do.

I also agree that the manual front end should pass parameters rather than be a straight redirect. Again, I like the decoupling.

One question, though: taxoboxes that were formerly instantiated with parameters omitted will now be instantiated with all parameters present but many of them blank. Can you guarantee that this will not affect behaviour? I've seen many templates that behaved differently according to whether a parameter is passed empty or omitted altogether.

Hesperian 23:38, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Namely, isn't the name parameter one of these that behaves as such? If that won't pose a problem (and assuming no others surface in this discussion), I'll support this wise move. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:13, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes, that's true; I just resolved |colour= but hadn't thought of |name=. Thanks for all your thoughtful input – good that we've been able to catch this at the sandbox stage. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 03:41, 5 November 2010 (UTC)

Now I think of it, |color= was the only parameter that didn't work when Template:Automatic taxobox calls Template:Taxobox, and that's now fixed, so there shouldn't be any problems. I've modified core a little so as to resolve ambiguous names in the calling template; but it should be ready to launch. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 15:11, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

You've got my approval, then. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:28, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

This might work, now. Please check the sandbox with any unusual cases you can think of. Thanks, Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 06:12, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

I've made some further modifications. A taxobox with all parameters specified, and some samples in the wild, produce the expected output; if there's any further testing to be done, please let me know. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:53, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

•  Done in this revision. Any problems, please revert if necessary and let me know. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 04:57, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Taxobox not working for Opisthokont

Can anyone please check why the taxobox is completely broken for the page Opisthokont? MichaK (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Looks like a stray hash ('#') was causing the problems. --Stemonitis (talk) 15:18, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

How about Eukaryote? mgiganteus1 (talk) 15:22, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for your fast reply. Looks like there were some changes in the background that made the template more brittle, but who knows how many pages currently use #color instead of color? MichaK (talk) 15:26, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

All such pages will now appear at Category:Taxoboxes whose colour parameters begin with a hash. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:33, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

I've also noticed unnecessary white space in many taxon articles, at the top of the page. This seems to only occur where there is another template preceding the taxobox. I guess this is related to the recent automatic taxbox-related changes? mgiganteus1 (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

The whitespace issue should now be fixed. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 16:23, 29 November 2010 (UTC)

Why are you putting the color parameter in taxoboxes at all? A bit of a step backward, to be automating and unautomating at the same time.... --Kleopatra (talk) 05:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Type-genus parameter broken?

Is it my imagination, or are the type_genus and type_genus_authority parameters not showing up in the taxoboxes of family articles? See, for example, Mycenaceae. Sasata (talk) 19:18, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

 Fixed Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 20:02, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Footer parameter broken?

I can't get a collapsible box to show up with the "footer" parameter anymore. See Polyporus squamosus. Sasata (talk) 02:44, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Only documented parameters were maintained when updating the template to Template:Taxobox/core. Please provide documentation for this parameter and ensure that it is listed throughout the doc page, to help with the maintenance of the template! Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:54, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Protection

In response to recent vandalism, I've permanently protected a number of the templates this references per WP:HRT. I'm sure I've missed several. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:29, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Missing ranks

Could we get these ranks supported again? They seem to have gone missing when the Taxobox/core was updated.

• unranked_subclassis, directly above subclassis
• unranked_infraclassis, directly above infraclassis
• alliance, directly above unranked_genus
• subsectio, directly above series
• subseries, directly below series
• variety, directly below subspecies

trinomial2, trinomial3, trinomial4 also appear to have disappeared, but were they ever used? I can't imagine any use for those. Once the above are added back, I will make sure to add them to the documentation. Rkitko ^(talk) 23:42, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Hesperian 00:25, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Awesome, thanks. I updated the documentation to reflect those changes. Rkitko ^(talk) 01:09, 10 December 2010 (UTC)

Parataxa

Can this badboy be modified to support ichnotaxa, ootaxa, and the like? Abyssal (talk) 01:35, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's a great idea. Parataxa should, if anything, get a totally different template. Too many people are already under the mistaken impression that say, Grallator is the name of an animal, and not the name of a particular set of shapes left in the mud by a variety of different animals, both known and unknown. For example, Grallator-type tracks from Triassic New Jersey were probably made by a coelophysid. Grallator from the Yixian formation closely match, and were probably made by, some species of Caudipteryx. MMartyniuk (talk) 01:39, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

What do you have in mind for how a "parataxabox" should look like? Abyssal (talk) 17:56, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Maybe just basic info, name, authority, temporal range etc. Do parataxa even exist above the family level? Are there 'ichnophyla' or something? MMartyniuk (talk) 00:17, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Using this as a guide, I managed to come up with the following rough structure (I didn't actually put them all together, just ran through the list compiling something that appeared coherent with the structure suggested):

Ichnostem Ichnosuperclass Ichnoclass Ichnosubclass Ichnoinfraclass Ichnodivision Ichnosubdivision Ichnoinfradivision Ichnomagnorder Ichnosuperorder Ichnograndorder Ichnomicrorder Ichnoorder Ichnosuborder Ichnoinfraorder Ichnoparvorder Ichnosuborder Ichnoinfraorder Ichnoparvorder Ichnosuperfamily Ichnofamily Ichnosubfamily Ichnogenus Ichnosubgenus Ichnospecies Ichnosubspecies

Note in particular the suborder within the parvorder.

I also ended up with the ichnostem-group, ranked somewhere above above the ichnoinfraclass, as well as ichnolegion>ichnosublegion>ichnosupercohort>ichnocohort, all ranked somewhere above ichnomagnorder. Hope this helps.

I don't know of any oology references, just happened to remember this ichnology one from earlier browsing sessions. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 03:21, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Template:Automatic taxobox can support ranks with arbitrary names, so could be used to provide ichnotaxoboxes with no modifications. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 14:57, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

A few weeks ago I included a taxonomy in two such articles, but it was quickly removed by someone from the Dinosaur WikiProject. However, I used order/family/genus, etc...instead of specifying icho-whatever. Before doing anything, I'd run it past the others at the project if I were you since at least one of them had a problem with what I did. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:50, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

I removed at least one of those. Placing a form taxon in Dinosauria, for example, is simply incorrect. If ichnotaxa were used for all ranks I don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. MMartyniuk (talk) 05:24, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

So what you're saying is that the ichnostem would link to {{Taxonomy/Life}}. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 01:10, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Ideally, it would link to "Taxonomy:Ichnolife" or something :) An ichnospecies isn't a living thing, it's a category like Mineralia. A taxobox for Grallator should be treated the same way as a taxobox for Pyrite. In fact, that mineral infobox may be a better basis for parataxa, emphasizing the characteristics of the object over its arbitrary classification. MMartyniuk (talk) 02:42, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Interesting...would you care to create a sample of what this ichnobox might look like? It would help if you included all the non-rank parameters you'd like included, such as diversity, authority, and anything else that might belong in it. If you can't get it to display properly a simple MS Paint job would do the trick. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 02:59, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I don't know nearly enough about ichnology to even attempt it... we need a footprint/egg/burrow person to address this, I think.MMartyniuk (talk) 04:04, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Know any? I don't. Perhaps for now I'll just focus on making it display the taxonomy. In my "spare time", the {{ichnobox}} will be on my list of things to work on over Christmas break, using the automatic taxobox as a guide. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 04:18, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Mattmart's proposal reaks of original research or NPOV violations, trying to shift emphasis away from how actual ichnologist classify actual trace fossils. I'm still going to support a taxabox-derived infobox since actual ichnological classification systems are based on the Linnaean system. Abyssal (talk) 04:31, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I never said we couldn't/shouldn't also list the taxonomy. But placing Ichnostem Whatever in a higher taxon shared with real taxa doesn't seem right. Is that how actual ichnologists do it? (I have to admit it seems completely absurd that scientists in the 21st Century still use such a system to classify trace fossils. But if that's the way it is, that's the way it is.) MMartyniuk (talk) 04:47, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

You mean words like "ichnofamily," "ichnogenus," "oospecies," and that sort of thing? Yes, that's actually how its done. Abyssal (talk) 17:45, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, here's a working template: {{ichnobox}}. I've debuted it at Discosauriscidae and Grallator. If needed, it can actually link to zoological taxa by changing the "Ichnos" link at the stem taxon to the appropriate one. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 09:08, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I like it, but "Scientific Classification" should link to something like ichnology or parataxonomy or something like that. Abyssal (talk) 17:48, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

This morning I noticed the link parameter isn't getting italicized. I'll hopefully get around to looking at that tonight. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 23:24, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

• Template:Get italic link might be what you're looking for. Martin (Smith609 – Talk) 13:55, 9 December 2010 (UTC)

{{taxonomy}} was the culprit. Anyway, {{ichnobox}} and {{oobox}} are ready for testing. I've implemented a few ichnoboxes, and I'm hesitating to implement the ooboxes mainly due to the controversy it may cause-- the reference I've found here incorporates actual taxa into the Veterovata system, making them relevant, and I don't doubt the validity, but I know a few editors might get upset seeing taxa amidst parataxa. Please leave feedback on the individual templates, as well as bug reports, at Template talk:Ichnobox and Template talk:Oobox. Bob the Wikipedian ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:50, 31 December 2010 (UTC)