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".

3 January 2026 use stats update

3 January 2026 update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percent auto	# auto added since 30 June 2025	# manual subtracted
Algae	2467	64	2531	97.5	84	59
Amphibians and Reptiles	23370	50	23420	99.8	158	31
Animals	12448	613	13061	95.3	370	166
Arthropods	14426	468	14894	96.9	1153	874
Beetles	56931	815	57746	98.6	23432	5116
Birds	14755	5	14760	99.97	-6	0
Bivalves	1794	3	1797	99.8	32	-1
Cephalopods	2141	519	2660	80.5	15	8
Dinosaurs	1679	0	1679	100	18	0
Diptera	16628	283	16911	98.3	852	712
Extinction	854	0	854	100	5	0
Fishes	27162	129	27291	99.5	440	43
Fungi	16467	1112	17579	93.7	2938	2161
Gastropods	36139	643	36782	98.3	1243	812
Insects	86360	1919	88279	97.8	15192	7186
Lepidoptera	98063	686	98749	99.3	5618	5529
Mammals	9038	54	9092	99.4	138	5
Marine life	9840	315	10155	96.9	328	137
Microbiology	12544	897	13441	93.3	3791	3589
Palaeontology	18914	1673	20587	91.9	957	456
Plants*	86707*	89	86796*	99.9	2549	17
Primates	1011	0	1011	100	15	0
Protista	2113	370	2483	85.1	1189	-196
Rodents	3297	1	3298	99.97	21	0
Sharks	927	4	931	99.6	19	-3
Spiders	13173	0	13173	100	2008	0
Tree of Life	112	1	113	99.1	5	-1
Turtles	816	0	816	100	3	0
Viruses	1770	33	1803	98.2	6	1
Total (transclusion)	481296	9716	491012	98.0	37217	22417
Total (PetScan)	478846	7236	486062	98.5

Mammal subprojects with articles tagged for both mammals and subproject:

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Cats	182	0	182	100
Cetaceans	490	0	490	100
Dogs	247	0	247	100
Equine	116	0	116	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.

I added another line for Total. I have been using the transclusion count (https://templatecount.toolforge.org/) for the taxobox templates in previous updates. That includes transclusions outside of article namespace, and at this point a pretty significant number of the remaining transclusions of manual {{Taxobox}} are in other namespace (primarily long abandoned drafts in User space). The new line for total is based on PetScan counts in article space only. That aligns with the counts for the various WikiProjects, where I've been using PetScan counts all along. The reason I had for continuing to use transclusion counts this whole time is that PetScan is slower and sometimes doesn't work. (Case in point: for some bizarre reason, Petscan isn't working today with queries for WikiProject Hypericaceae (which I sum into the Plants count); PetScan has worked fine for every other query today, which were identical to the Hypericaceae queries aside from the WikiProject. I ended up including numbers of taxoboxes from Category:Hypericaceae in the Plants count here which is probably pretty close to what I would have gotten if I'd been able to include the numbers for the Hypericaceae WikiProject, but that isn't the exact method I'd used previously). Anyway...

We're down from 30,000 manual taxoboxes six months ago to less than 10,000 now. Only 3 WikiProjects have more than 1000 manual taxoboxes. There are 10 WikiProjects in the range of 283 to 897 manual taxoboxes; those certainly some lower hanging fruit in those with articles that could be easily converted to automatic taxoboxes (the manual taxoboxes in WikiProjects with less than 100 of them are mostly harder cases; often fossils with conflicting hypotheses about their classification). Thanks to @The Knowledge Pirate: who has put in a massive effort to implement automatic taxoboxes in recent months.

There really is only lower hanging fruit now; the low hanging fruit is gone. On December 1st there were a little over 3000 manual taxoboxes with |binomial=, but 8000 with |genus=. Most manual taxoboxes are for genera that don't have any species level articles. That means that most taxonomy templates that have yet to be created are only going to be used (at least for now) in a single article. The low hanging fruit of being able to put speciesboxes in multiple articles after creating a single taxonomy template is done. Plantdrew (talk) 03:23, 4 January 2026 (UTC)

8 March 2026 brief update

Project	Auto	Manual	Total taxa	Percentage auto
Algae	2488	53	2541	97.9
Animals	12913	250	13163	98.1
Arthropods	14840	183	15023	98.8
Beetles	59725	224	59949	99.6
Cephalopods	2555	113	2668	95.8
Fungi	17510	358	17868	98.0
Gastropods	36771	160	36931	99.6
Insects	90715	354	91069	99.6
Lepidoptera	98456	342	98798	99.7
Marine life	10100	115	10215	98.9
Microbiology	13018	420	13438	96.9
Palaeontology	20221	635	20856	97.0
Protista	2292	195	2487	92.2
Viruses	1770	33	1803	98.2
Total (transclusions)	492376	4904	497280	99.0
Total (Petscan)	489836	2446	492282	99.5

There are now fewer manual taxoboxes in article-space (2446) than there are in other namespaces (2458), so I thought I'd provide a brief update. I've only included stats here for WikiProjects that have more than 100 manual taxoboxes, or less than 99% automated taxoboxes (or both >100 and <99%). Plantdrew (talk) 02:51, 9 March 2026 (UTC)

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)