Wikipedia:WikiProject Tree of Life/Taxobox task force

This is a task force, an area for focused collaboration among Wikipedians. New participants are welcome; please feel free to participate!

Welcome to the taxobox task force of WikiProject Tree of Life.

Scope

The taxobox task force is responsible for all aspects relating to taxoboxes, from maintenance to assistance to patrolling to coding.

The taxobox task force is not responsible for inventing new taxonomic classifications, though revisions per research are usually encouraged, provided there is reasonable scientific consensus prior to revising Wikipedia's taxonomies.

Participants

Bob the WikipediaN ^{(talk • contribs)} 22:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Rkitko ^(talk) 23:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC) Yeah, sure. I rarely take wikibreaks and keep a vigilant eye on my watchlist. I'd be happy to revert vandalism on taxonomy templates.[reply]
ErikHaugen (talk | contribs) 20:22, 2 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
EncycloPetey (adjunct) I'm happy to assist in looking things up, especially bryophytes, pteridophytes, monocots, and algae, but I work more on Wikispecies than here (for now).
Faendalimas - am a specialist taxonomist, mostly working on turtles but also a member of the ICZN so work with taxonomic theory. Happy to help out with this project.
Reid,iain james - I'm maintaining classification, mostly on reptiles and mammals, and I'm fine with monitoring pages. Glad to help.
SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼ – Principal author of draft WP:Manual of Style/Organisms; not a professional taxonomist (my degree's in anthropology), but also (ergo) not a partisan for particular organizations' peccadilloes; I edit in hominids, felids, caudates, domestics generally; tracking taxonomy & nomenclature standards articles; involved in system-wide cleanup/consistency; skilled template editor, though not fully up-to-speed on all the Lua stuff.
Dan Koehl (talk) 05:54, 13 March 2015 (UTC) Veteran wikipedian, who made my first taxobox on SvWp back in 2002. Admin and bureaucrat on Wikispecies.[reply]
Leomk0403 (talk) 07:19, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Snoteleks – Biology student, phylogeny lover, cladogram creator and principal author of Taxonomy of Protista, focused on eukaryote classification (especially protists, fungi, green algae and some arthropods). Snoteleks (talk) 13:39, 17 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Edward-Woodrow :) _[talk] 19:42, 14 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
User:Webclouddat - Random person 5:40, 16 September 2023 (UTC)

To do

Fix the cultivar bug in the automatic taxobox
Correct taxon authorities for all angiosperm orders and families to match APG III
Monitor the Taxobot RSS feed for vandalism or misguided edits
Monitor the categories for problematic pages
Add taxoboxes to organism articles that represent valid taxa (see Category:Missing taxobox ( 1 ))
Participate in discussions and RfCs as they come up
Try to solve the top problems posed by the automatic taxobox
Report bugs with taxobox code and implementation
Debug the taxobox code as needed, leaving clearly phrased edit logs on the relevant template talk pages
Fill in missing taxobox information, including authorities, type species, synonyms, and images
Create range maps for taxoboxes
Help write the documentation for the automatic taxoboxes
Convert manual taxoboxes to automatic taxoboxes on stub articles only within the scope of WP:PALEO.

Guidelines

Where possible, replace manual taxoboxes with automatic taxoboxes as per consensus at WP:TOL. If doing so will alter in any way the manner in which the taxonomy is displayed, make sure the edit is uncontroversial before proceeding.

In zoology, use "unranked" instead of "clade". For botany, the upper-level taxa should all be listed as "clade" instead of "unranked" and should use the common name rather than the Latin name.

Tagging and assessment

All articles that are within the scope of this project should be tagged with the project banners of WikiProject Tree of Life or one of its daughter projects.

Templates

The primary templates associated with this task force are:

{{automatic taxobox}} - an advanced taxobox that uses a relational database and a complex algorithm to generate taxonomies
{{speciesbox}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling species
{{virusbox}} - automated taxobox for viruses
{{subspeciesbox}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling ranks below species for taxa regulated by the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature
{{infraspeciesbox}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling ranks lower than species (an infraspecific rank) for taxa governed by the ICN (the botanical code).
{{Paraphyletic group}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling paraphyletic and polyphyletic groups
{{Hybridbox}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling hybrids of 2 species within a single genus
{{Hybridbox/lua}} - automated taxobox specialized for handling more complicated hybrid organisms
{{ichnobox}} - automated taxobox for ichnotaxa
{{oobox}} - automated taxobox for ootaxa
{{taxobox}} - a manual taxobox that can still be used for taxa that can not easily use an automated taxobox (i.e. one of the above)

{{Missing-taxobox}} - a banner for articles that need a taxobox
{{Taxonbar}} - not a taxobox, but should be applied to all articles that include a taxobox

Additionally, there are tens of other templates referenced by the templates listed above (such as {{Biota infobox}}) which may need debugging or revisions as further developments may occur. The relational database that the automatic taxobox family uses is made up of thousands of templates, each representing an individual taxon.

Userbox template

User warning templates

Resources

The following preferred taxonomies have been voiced by various WikiProjects; please use them when there is a question as to which taxonomy is preferred:

Viruses: "International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV)".
Flowering plants: APG III system#Detailed version (with all families)
Gastropods: Taxonomy of the Gastropoda (Bouchet & Rocroi, 2005) and Changes in the taxonomy of gastropods since 2005.
Cephalopods: CephBase
Spiders: Norman Platnick's World Spider Catalog
Lepidopterans: "LepIndex Home".
Fishes: Fishes of the World
Marine Life: World Register of Marine Species
Amphibians: "Amphibian Species of the World". and Frost et al. 2006
Reptiles: "Integrated Taxonomic Information System".
Dinosaurs: Benton 2004
Mammals: "Mammal Species of the World - Browse".

When in doubt, please consult the relevant WikiProject on their talk page.