Template talk:Taxobox: Difference between revisions

Voalavo antsahabensis; Temporal range: Holocene
Conservation status
	Not extinct
Scientific classification
Binomial name
	Voalavo antsahabensis; Goodman et al., 2005

Primates
	Olive Baboon
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Subclass:	Eutheria
Not ranked:	Euarchontoglires
Superorder:	Euarchonta
Order:	Primates; Linnaeus, 1758
Families
	15, See classification;

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Revision as of 11:54, 27 December 2005

See the template page itself to learn how to use this template.

Suggested parameters

Great work bringing on the new template!... but there are still a couple of parameters missing.

Firstly, I need to be able to specify taxa at "Section" and "Series" rank. See Taxonomy of Banksia for evidence of a number of non-existent species articles, for which these ranks will be needed when I get around to writing them.

Secondly, the "Diversity" option was very useful. I used it at Banksia to state the number of species, since the subdivision was at subgenus rank. It is also very useful for higher taxa such as families and orders.

Thirdly, the "Synonyms" option was also useful, and should be included here.

Snottygobble | Talk 23:58, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Diversity option done. Snottygobble | Talk 23:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Section, Series and Synonyms options done. Snottygobble | Talk 00:09, 4 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- The "section" rank should have been entered in Latin, so it should have been 'Sectio'. (The sectio templates already existed). I don't think the section and series ranks were added in the right place. At least on the page Taxonomy of Banksia, both ranks are above the Families.
  - Thanks for that, but you lost me in the last sentence there. On Taxonomy of Banksia, Banksia is a genus, and sections and series are subgeneric taxa, just as in the taxobox. Snottygobble | Talk 05:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
    - You're right, they are. I misremembered. However, you inserted them at the bottom of the template, below the subspecies level. Eugene van der Pijll 10:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
      - So I did; thanks for picking that up. It's fixed now. Snottygobble | Talk 05:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
- Your addition of the diversity and synonym templates inserted more whitespace in taxoboxes not containing these templates. I've tried to remove the whitespace, with horrible effects on Banksia... As that is so far the only page using a new taxobox with these templates, I've subst'ed the taxobox, and repaired it manually. I hope someone knowledgeable in the arcane templating arts can debug the template... Eugene van der Pijll 17:50, 4 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  - I confess the whitespace was indeed introduced by me, but this was in an attempt to fix the taxobox at Jarrah, which was showing the same horrible effects you saw at Banksia, even though it does not use either of the new parameters. Your fix has destroyed the taxobox at Jarrah once again. I'm going to revert your change. I acknowledge that the whitespace is a problem, but until we can find someone "knowledgeable in the arcane templateing arts" to address this problem properly, extra whitespace is preferable to some boxes not working at all. Snottygobble | Talk 05:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

- - - Yes, but I thought only Banksia was broken, and I had subst'ed that template out. Anyway, it's been solved now, thanks to Josh. Eugene van der Pijll 10:17, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Whitespace problem

Can somebody who understands templates fix it to remove the unattractive extra whitespace please? The most obvious and simple fix utterly destroys the taxoboxes at Jarrah and Banksia, so please take these pages into account when fixing. Snottygobble | Talk 05:57, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I've fixed the problem by including empty comments at the start of each footer template. Josh

Thanks Josh. Snottygobble | Talk 05:51, 6 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WikiSpecies

Shouldn't everything that links to this template be transwikied to WikiSpecies?the1physicist 17:55, 23 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

WikiSpecies isn't a content fork of Wikipedia. It is a directory, eg. it only includes taxological ranking. --Oldak Quill 18:49, 30 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

..oh. In that case, I don't see the point of wikispecies since we're duplicating the taxology here.the1physicist 04:18, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Heh... you are not alone... see the mailing list around the time of Wikispecies creation :). Pcb21 Pete 08:06, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can we change the "?"

The first time I saw the question mark in the top right corner of the "taxobox" I thought someone had typed it to question the name of the plant (a sort of "is this really correct?" comment). Then when I saw it a few more times I began to think it was some sort of bug or formatting glitch in the template. Now finally I realise that it's a link to some help. Could we change it to read "help" in some suitably small and unobtrusive font? (Or at least make it look like a question mark icon, or graphic, rather than just text.)

unranked

I'd like to start working the new taxobox into the Primate articles, but there's a hitch preventing me. Several Primate taxoboxes (including the one at Primate itself!) includes an unranked taxon. I recognize the unfeasibility of inserting code into the template between every named taxa for a possible unranked one. Is there another way to get this to work? I've put the new taxobox into Primate, but left it commented out. - UtherSRG (talk) 19:24, 29 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Before optional parameters were possible, I used some HTML to put within a parameter. It worked as follows:

As you may see, it works :-). Ucucha (talk) 16:15, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Wonderful! I had tried with wiki syntax. I hadn't thought to "go deeper" and use HTML.... and here I was one of the guys saying we should stick with HTML and not use wiki syntax for taxoboxes.... :) - UtherSRG (talk) 16:25, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

:-). Ucucha (talk) 16:33, 1 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Eliminating meta-templates

Netoholic created a new version of this page that didn't use meta-templates. This is, of itself, a good thing. Unfortunately the new version didn't work properly; for pages with subdivision lists, like Percolozoa, it created a duplicate of the list above the table. I don't know enough about the alternate syntax to fix the problem, so for the time being I've done a complete revert. However, it would be better if it could be fixed. Thanks, Josh

This is cause by a flaw in the way the template was inserted into the articles. From Percolozoa, the source shows this:

| subdivision = Acrasidae<br>
Gruberellidae<br>
Lyromonadidae<br>
Vahlkampfiidae

It should be:

| subdivision = Acrasidae<br>Gruberellidae<br>Lyromonadidae<br>Vahlkampfiidae

Please correct any occurences of this poor formatting, just like this, but meta-templates are a much bigger problem and we need to move away from them agressively. -- Netoholic @ 19:25, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

follow-up: I ran a bot process and I think all of these occurences are fixed. -- Netoholic @ 20:15, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The page states that meta templates should be avoided, but they should not be avoided at any cost, your CSS hack totally breaks layout in browsers that don't support CSS, which we aim to support. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 19:52, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Read the talk page and look especially for comments from Jamesday. He has asked us to actively remove meta-templates, and Taxobox is the worst offender I've seen. CSS is a reasonable approach which works without straining the servers. As far as CSS support, I have read nothing that we "aim to support" people without it, and every major template relies on CSS. Even still, it won't break for that one guy without CSS, he will simply see all the rows, most empty. -- Netoholic @ 20:00, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Your "reasonable" approach inserts a lot of irrelivant garbage into the XHTML output which looks horrid in browsers that don't support CSS, and presumably also screws with screen readers. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 20:19, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It does look horrible in Lynx and possibly worse in Links. I shudder to think what a screen reader would make of it. But there should be a way to do it without, ahh, conditional templates ;-D At least partially - David Gerard 20:28, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sure if there is something more current, but Wikipedia:Browsers says links/lynx is about 0.03% of our readers as of Feb 2004. Every infobox (converted or not) will look bad on them. Oh well. -- Netoholic @ 20:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think that's extremly arrogant of you, IMO having the page works properly (i.e. not contain lots of garbage content) and be accessable in all browsers is more important than shaving a few milliseconds off execution time. Accessability *is* important, whether you think people should just use another browser or magically gain eyesight or whatever *annoyed*. —Ævar Arnfjörð Bjarmason 02:51, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed. I'm all for reducing server load, but not at the expense of editors or visitors. I'm tempted to revert back to your version based upon the screenshot you provided alone. —Locke Cole 05:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Just one question Netoholic: there apppears to be a small white space right around the picture - any way to get rid of that? Also, don't forget about Template:Taxobox begin. --Khoikhoi 20:21, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the table to use em rather than px as a better way to support various local font setting. I can fill the space with the {{{color}} if that's better. -- Netoholic @ 20:38, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What about having the image fit so there is no whtie space? --Khoikhoi 20:41, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

By hard-coding the width in pixels, you restrict what a hard-of-sight person can do. They may run their fonts very large locally, yet the table won't adjust. Using em avoids this. -- Netoholic @ 20:43, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, it's fine how it is now, then. --Khoikhoi 22:57, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Netoholic, having the template work properly is more important than having it follow efficiency guidelines. I'm glad you found a work-around for the subdivision problem, but we need a way to split the lists over multiple lines, as some of them are extremely long. I'll try some experiments when I have more time; but ultimately, if meta-templates are the only way to do this, we are going to need meta-templates, plain and simple. Unless we wanted to go back to using Template:Taxobox begin.

In the mean time, I'll leave the new version, but it would be nice if you could try to address Ævar's problems. Also, I'm going to restore Yath's formatting, as the new formatting is plainly disputed above and nobody was consulted before changing it. Josh

Is there any way to get rid of Yath's formatting? I've been trying for 10 minutes. --Khoikhoi 03:47, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Can you explain what you mean? Josh

Yes, on pages such as Orca there is an extra line in-between the species name and its status. How does one remove that? --Khoikhoi 05:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I see User:UtherSRG has been trying to do the same thing. Does anyone know how? --Khoikhoi 17:50, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Remove the < br> in the template. Ucucha (talk) 19:52, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Where? The only place I can find < br> is further down. --Khoikhoi 20:58, 25 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, I see. The Dutch template did have a < br> ;-). I don't know. Ucucha (talk) 07:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't it be a good idea to have a separate template (Template:taxobox2 or so) to test changes before they are changed here? This is a very important template; I think it's better not to fight revert wars on it. Ucucha (talk) 07:27, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

So wait, no one knows how to remove the line between Name and Status? --Khoikhoi 07:36, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I tried in taxobox2. Ucucha (talk) 07:44, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you so much! --Khoikhoi 16:54, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I am in fact wholly unconvinced that it is important to have this template working perfectly - at least, that it is more important than not crushing the servers under painful load. We got by for quite some time without pretty boxes on our taxonomy articles. Perhaps we need to simply return to that time. Alternatively, if Aevar and others were to join in trying to find a good solution instead of shooting solutions down, that would be helpful. Phil Sandifer 23:38, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe you missed it, but WP:AUM stands for Avoid using meta-templates, not Never use meta-templates. There should almost never be a situation where the quality of the encyclopedia suffers because of developer constraints– this is precisely such a situation where WP:AUM likely does not apply because the alternative is demonstratably worse. —Locke Cole 23:58, 26 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Exactly. Our goal is to create an encyclopedia, not to make life easier for the BOFHs. Firebug 01:00, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And, quite obviously, the solution is to add inherent support for infoboxes (including optional parameters) to the MediaWiki engine, thus avoiding the need for any template hacks. In case you ask why I don't do this myself, it's because my programming skills are in C and assembly, not PHP, and because I don't know how to use a CVS database nor have a server available for testing any modifications to the software. Firebug 01:02, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

It's plainly important to have things work properly. Anybody who changes the taxoboxes without that in mind may as well be vandalizing them, for all the good they're likely to do. That said, the concerns expressed in AUM are worth keeping in mind. I appreciate the work Netoholic has done in letting the taxoboxes confrom to his new version. However, there are three main problems:

It doesn't work on some browsers;
It doesn't accept multi-line inputs, which will make lists all but impossible to maintain;
It messes up some of the formatting.

If anyone has solutions to these, excellent, but I get the impressions none exist. The hidden table sections are simply not as powerful as meta-templates, and we have to decide what to do until we get something that is. These are the three options:

Keep using the new version, despite its problems;
Revert to the old version, despite the server strain;
Revert back to the multi-template system using Template:Taxobox begin, until a better solution emerges.

This is what I think. The meta-template version is definitely the best to use, but if it really consumes signficiant time and money, I don't think we can expect the rest of wikipedia to indulge it. I wouldn't have written it if I though it would be a serious issue. The multi-template system is harder to edit, but at least it works on all computers and didn't require lists stuffed in a single parameter. It's still used on most articles, and I'd suggest we go back to it, until developers add proper infobox support. Thoughts? Josh

Perhaps a compromise? Use the CSS / hidden table stuff where it works, but put in meta-templates/other solutions just for the things CSS doesn't cover right. Are multi-line inputs required in every section of the taxobox or just a few? Could a change be made for the 'standard.css' (or whichever skin) of users with older browsers to strip out undefined items in CSS-style infoboxes? Et cetera. There are going to be issues with any new implementation. Given that this does have performance issues (though I still have no clear idea of how significant they are) we should see if solutions to these glitches can be worked out. --CBD _☎ ^✉ 11:39, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's the problem, the CSS/hidden table stuff doesn't work anywhere. Frankly this WP:AUM crusade Netoholic is on is really bad for the Wiki, far worse than the performance hit IMO. We should wait until there's a viable alternative to templates such as {{if}} and {{qif}} before killing them off (the author of {{qif}} has some code on meta that may help here, but I haven't heard where that's going). —Locke Cole 11:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 166: / Line 166: @@
 This is what I think.  The meta-template version is definitely the best to use, but if it really consumes signficiant time and money, I don't think we can expect the rest of wikipedia to indulge it.  I wouldn't have written it if I though it would be a serious issue.  The multi-template system is harder to edit, but at least it works on all computers and didn't require lists stuffed in a single parameter.  It's still used on most articles, and I'd suggest we go back to it, until developers add proper infobox support.  Thoughts? [[User:Josh Grosse|Josh]]
 :Perhaps a compromise? Use the CSS / hidden table stuff where it works, but put in meta-templates/other solutions ''just'' for the things CSS doesn't cover right. Are multi-line inputs required in every section of the taxobox or just a few? Could a change be made for the 'standard.css' (or whichever skin) of users with older browsers to strip out undefined items in CSS-style infoboxes? Et cetera. There are going to be issues with any new implementation. Given that this does have performance issues (though I still have no clear idea of ''how'' significant they are) we should see if solutions to these glitches can be worked out. --[[User:CBDunkerson|CBD]] <big><sub>[[User talk:CBDunkerson|&#x260E;]]</sub></big> <sup>[[Special:Emailuser/CBDunkerson|&#x2709;]]</sup> 11:39, 27 December 2005 (UTC)
+::That's the problem, [http://www.simnet.is/velfag/tmp/lynx.png the CSS/hidden table stuff doesn't work anywhere]. Frankly this [[WP:AUM]] crusade Netoholic is on is really bad for the Wiki, far worse than the performance hit IMO. We should wait until there's a viable alternative to templates such as {{tl|if}} and {{tl|qif}} before killing them off (the author of {{tl|qif}} has [[m:User:AzaToth/Logic|some code on meta]] that may help here, but I haven't heard where that's going). —[[User:Locke Cole|Locke Cole]] 11:54, 27 December 2005 (UTC)