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Please describe the vandalism you found

Peter, please describe the vandalism you found. I took a screenshot after my final edit at 2:53 p.m. today and it matches the current edit exactly, with the subgenus listed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by GardenOpus (talk • contribs) 05:45, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

TUSC token 4e41785016df312d7f4772b046fd919f

I now have a TUSC account!

Plant article naming convention

Hi Peter coxhead. There is a plant article naming convention request at the Help Desk. I saw your name listed at Naming_conventions_(flora) contributions and am hoping you would post your thoughts at How long does speedy deletion usually take?. I asked Pmanderson on the Pmanderson talk page, but not sure if she/he will see the request. Thanks. --

tetrahedronX7

Hey thank you for editing . My friend

Sarcopterygii in automatic taxoboxes

At Kenichthys (among other Tetrapodomorpha articles) where Sarcopterygii ought to display as a class, it's absent, since it's been skipped in the taxonomy template hierarchy. I understand why that's done, but I don't understand why the result is different than with other paraphyletic groups treated as classes (reptiles). I'm guessing maybe the bird and reptile hierachies maybe fork at some point (perhaps with a parent in the reptile hierarchy that's not included in the bird hierarchy). Is there an easy way to get Sarcopterygii displaying as a class for basal tetrapodomorphs? Plantdrew (talk) 02:03, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

The problem is with knowing what the side-effects would be. As I'm sure you understand, there are two reasons why skip templates have been inserted. The first reason is to shorten taxonomic hierarchies to avoid expansion depth problems. If this is the reason, we can just move the skip a level higher. There are possible longer term solutions, including perhaps recoding parts in Lua. The second reason is to avoid two classes showing up because of very different approaches to classification, as happened with birds. If this is the reason, then it needs quite a bit of investigation. Here the deep underlying reason is that any automated taxobox system has to assume a single agreed classification to work properly, and for vertebrates, there just isn't one. The only real solution I can see would be to have taxonomy templates of the form "Template:Taxonomy/taxon/system", and then different WikiProjects could adopt different systems.

I have limited access/time for the next couple of days, but I'll try to get back to this. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:05, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: motivated by the work that Jts1882 has been doing in converting {{Clade}} and {{Cladex}} to Lua, I looked at re-writing some of the core parts of the automated taxobox system in Lua. It took me about 20 minutes to knock up a Lua version of what took me 30-40 hours in the template language – and this was the first time I'd programmed in Lua. As far as I can see, there's no problem in traversing at least 100 levels of the taxonomic hierarchy in Lua. So, my first step is to complete some of this work and include it in the automated taxobox system. Then those skip templates and hard-coded levels needed at present to deal with the expansion depth problem can go, I believe. That should make it much easier to see what skips are actually needed to deal with different classifications. Peter coxhead (talk) 22:48, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

Fantastic news! Plantdrew (talk) 22:54, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: I've now deployed the first bit of Lua coding in {{Automatic taxobox}}. It reduces the expansion depth of Pteranodon (the worst case I know of) from the absolute maximum of 40 down to 33. More to come. I hope this won't be a green light for dinosaur editors to add yet more clades! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:53, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Great. I did ask if there was an "easy way to get Sarcopterygii displaying". Rewriting the taxobox in Lua wasn't exactly what I had in mind as "easy", but if you want to take that on, more power to you. Plantdrew (talk) 17:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: actually I'm feeling stupid that I didn't do this before (I'm only going to convert those key parts of the automated taxobox system that traverse the taxonomic hierarchy, which is where the problems arise). Not all done yet, so avoiding skip templates would still cause problems. The relevance to your original question can be seen by comparing Template:Taxonomy/Rhipidistia/skip and Template:Taxonomy/Rhipidistia. I think that Sarcopterygii disappears because it was necessary to link to the former rather than the latter to reduce expansion depth. If the expansion depth issue can be fixed, and I now think it can, then we can remove all the skip templates except those necessary to avoid duplicate class ranks, etc.

If a short-term fix is important, it should be ok to go Tetrapodomorpha → Rhipidistia → Sarcopterygii/skip → Vertebrata instead of Tetrapodomorpha → Rhipidistia/skip → Vertebrata, but it's always a matter of trying it and seeing what happens.

The automated taxobox system traverses the taxonomic hierarchy in three distinct places. I've coded one of them in Lua (determining taxobox colour, which is happens first). On to the next two, but it will take several days to code and test. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:41, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: ok, to get back to your original question, after a lengthy but I think productive digression.

Now there's no need for skip templates to reduce depth, I took out the skip in the hierarchy for Kenichthys. Looking at Template:Taxonomy/Kenichthys, it seems consistent, so I think it's ok with the skip template removed. However, the manual taxoboxes, like the one at Marsdenichthys appear to treat Tetrapodomorpha as an infraclass, rather than a clade. It's not my area, so I don't know which should be preferred.

Looking around fish taxonomy templates, the only obvious inconsistency I found (which doesn't mean there aren't more) is at Template:Taxonomy/Dipnoi, where there are two subclasses in the hierarchy. Again, I don't know which should be preferred.

It would be nice to have a tool that checked a taxonomic hierarchy for out-of-order Linnaean ranks, although with the ridiculous number of minor ranks used in mammal classification it would be tedious to code. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:43, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for fixing the Sarcopterygians. I'm not sure what you mean by "out-of-order Linnaean ranks". Order of parameters doesn't effect the displayed taxobox. It would be nice to have some better tools for checking taxoboxes for consistency though. Plantdrew (talk) 18:12, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: all I meant by "out-of-order Linnaean ranks" was that the table shown on the right when looking at "Template:Taxonomy/taxon" shows Linnaean ranks that are not in their correct order, e.g. Order above Class, or another Class above Class. Depending on what is displayed, the taxobox would then also show Linnaean ranks out of their correct order. I hope this is clear now.

{{#invoke:Autotaxobox/sandbox|chkRanks|taxon}} is an experimental tool for checking the ordering of Linnaean ranks in taxonomy templates from taxon upwards.

{{#invoke:Autotaxobox/sandbox|chkRanks|Dipnoi}} as of right now produces Script error: The function "chkRanks" does not exist.

Not a very informative error message, but it's just a draft. One problem is that different sources seem to use prefixes like "mir-" and "parv-" in different ways, so it's not clear what the order should be. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:37, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Miscommunication

I'm not sure why you're throwing your hands up there, and am a bit alarmed that our much-improved mutual communication is taking a backward step. I did think I was addressing your "why isn't this proposal reasonable?" question by pointing out that it serves the interests of opponents of style consolidation and of proponents of unecyclopedic (usually jargonstic) writing, without serving reader interests or those of the broader editorship. And it does seem clear to me that when the sub-topic is style matters that aren't covered in MoS that people over-"enforcing" what is covered in MoS is not the same discussion. I'm not sure where the disjunct is. If you're irritated that I mentioned "wikiprojects of 'experts'", I make that point as the founder or co-founder of many projects (and arguably an expert at some things, but not always the subjects of those projects), and I thought the meaning was clear: wikiprojects are open to anyone, not just actual experts; and actual experts are not under any requirement to join a wikiproject; ergo, "wikiproject" and "experts" are not synonymous.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ≼  09:02, 12 December 2016 (UTC)

Viroids

Viroid taxoboxes are displaying the error color. There's a little headache here, because we're mashing together two different classification systems. Baltimore Classification is what we follow for virus groups, but ICTV is the source for lower ranks. ICTV recognizes the viroid families (in their wastebin "families not assigned an order"). I don't know if the Baltimore Classification considers viroids to be viruses or not. Taxonomic list of viruses lists the viroid families under group IV (Positive-sense single-stranded RNA virus) which seems to be an accurate description of the structure of their genetic code. The technical difference seems to be that viroids harness (somehow) the host organsms RNA polymerase II for replication while group IV viruses encode RNA-dependent RNA polymerase themselves. I wonder how much original research has gone into aligning the Baltimore and ICTV systems on Misplaced Pages?

I'd swear I saw some documentation (or maybe talk page discussion) somewhere that said that including |virus_group= alone, no parameter value needed, was enough to set the virus color, but I'm not finding that documentation now, and a Baltimore Roman numeral value does seem to be required for the color to display. Displaying color without a value might be the best solution; other options would be treating "Viroid" or "Subviral agent" as a Virus Group (probably WP:OR) or adding "unassigned" as a value that allows the virus color to display (or just go with |color_as=. Plantdrew (talk) 04:00, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Having stopped |color= having any effect in {{Automatic taxobox}} and {{Taxobox}} yesterday evening, I expected that overnight the error-tracking categories would be quite full, so I was pleased to see the few articles there!

I think that using the same colour in the taxobox for viroids as for viruses is the best solution; there aren't enough articles to make it worth thinking about using a different colour. So I've added "viroid" and "viroids" to {{Taxobox colour}}. The taxobox doesn't need to say that viroids are viruses (which might well be OR); we just use the same colour for both on the grounds of similarity. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:47, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: in the last hour or so, some virus articles turned up in Category:Taxoboxes with the error color, most with |color=violet. I've fixed them all. Some don't have a virus group specified, so I used |color_as=Virus; others did, but not with a recognized value, so I corrected it.

I'm not sure whether just putting |virus_group= without a value did previously set the taxobox colour; it certainly doesn't since my recent edits. It's possible to make this happen (it works with {{Taxobox/sandbox}}), but it violates the usual expectation that omitting a parameter and having it present but with no value should have the same effect, so I'm not keen to make this live, unless you think it would be a really good idea.

It does seem so far that ignoring |color= only causes relatively few and fixable problems, but I know from past experience that template-determined categorization can take a long time to take effect, so the situation may change. Peter coxhead (talk) 11:09, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Nah, don't bother making blank |virus_group= set color. Most of the missing colors that are turning up are due to other problems in the taxobox that should be fixed anyway, so even if we do get a flood of missing colors, I think it's good that the articles are getting flagged as having a problem. Plantdrew (talk) 17:50, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Ok. Earlier today (my morning) most of those I found had other problems, too. I guess that editors who set |color=, especially to unexpected colours like the "violet" and "darkgreen" ones I found, didn't really understand taxoboxes and made other errors. I see you've fixed a lot, including fuller fixes to some articles for which I'd just sorted out the colour. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:28, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sattva yoga

You nominated the subpages of "User:Taxobot/children" for deletion on Misplaced Pages:Articles for deletion/Sattva yoga. The appropriate venue seems to be Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion. Gulumeemee (talk) 08:41, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@Gulumeemee: whoops, hopefully done correctly now. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:08, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Pelargonium zonale photo

Doubts about Pelargonia: why do you doubt ? It was written beside her, also can find on same name some similar photos. --PetarM (talk) 12:04, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

@PetarM: I assume we are talking about File:Pelargonium zonale (Geraniaceae).jpg.

Actually, I am certain that this is not a photograph of the wild species. The plant is a cultivar, a member of the Pelargonium Zonal Group. It is correctly in this category on Commons. The wild species has flowers like this image: File:Pelargonium zonale.jpg.

At the place you added the photo, there should be an image of the wild species, not of a cultivar. Peter coxhead (talk) 18:27, 20 December 2016 (UTC)

Extended confirmed protection policy RfC

You are receiving this notification because you participated in a past RfC related to the use of extended confirmed protection levels. There is currently a discussion ongoing about two specific use cases of extended confirmed protection. You are invited to participate. ~ Rob₁₃ (sent by MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 16:31, 22 December 2016 (UTC))

Donald Pigott

Seasons greetings. I noticed you deleted C.D.Pigott, I'm doing a biography on him (as part of a larger project on Cambridge botanists). This is a recurrent problem, alternative authority abbreviations. In the Tilia literature C.D.Pigott appears after taxa names. Do you have a solution?! Michael Goodyear (talk) 03:22, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: my real concern is to ensure that all entries in the lists are sourced, using a source that clearly identifies the botanist, which must include date(s). Entries in IPNI are sourced by default; all others need an explicit reference. So if you have a source that clearly identifies "C.D.Piggott" as IPNI's "Pigott – Christopher Donald Pigott 1928-", by all means restore "C.D.Pigott" with this reference. However, it does seem to me that the real point of the lists of botanists by author abbreviation is to decode ones like "Art.Mey.", and where a full name (including full initials + surname) is used, I think that all readers need is a wikilink.

Season's greetings to you too! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

In this case the source is Tropicos, so I should probably restore it. It may make its way from there to IPNI given that he is a living botanist.--Michael Goodyear (talk) 16:19, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

@Michael Goodyear: Tropicos seems to use "Pigott" when I looked; certainly it does here. Where does it use his full name? Please add a source for "C.D.Pigott", otherwise it looks as though it's in IPNI, which it isn't. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:35, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Actually I think you are right - if you search Tropicos for Pigott you get three entries

• Pigott, C.D.
• Pigott, Christopher Donald
• Pigott, Julian Patrick

which I inadvertently read as an approved name since I had seen it written that way, but it is the third column that matters not the first that only gives Pigott. But I had seen CDPigott in numerous places such as here but if you go back to Pigott's original paper describing the taxon, he just uses Pigott. I will delete it - thanks! --Michael Goodyear (talk) 22:43, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Donald Pigott now published --Michael Goodyear (talk) 23:21, 24 December 2016 (UTC)

Cichorieae subtribes

Seasonal Greetings from me as well. I'd like some guidance on a couple of issues which I will split up over two headings.

The first issue has to do with some work I've done on Cichorieae, among which devising phylogenetic trees. I made one to the level of subtribes. I made three further ones that elaborate to the level of genera for clusters of subtribes. Could you have a look at it. Do you think articles for each of the subtribes need to be created?

Ok, will do, but I won't have much time for the next few days.

Personally, I'm biassed against articles on ranks like subtribes, but on the other hand Asteraceae is such a large family that dividing up is necessary. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Great, I'm not in a hurry, so please take your time. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm also working on Gymnarrhena micrantha (henceforth in my sandbox), the only species of the subfamily Gymnarrhenoideae (Asteraceae). Should a redirect for the subfamily be created? And should the subfamily be included in the text of the article, and what about in the taxobox? Many thanks in advance, kind regards, Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

WP:FAUNA is the guide here. The article should be at the genus name, and should cover all monotypic taxa above that rank and the species below it, with redirects from all the other ranks (the general principle is to be free with taxonomic redirects). Personally I wouldn't put a monotypic subfamily in the taxobox; what does it tell readers? Peter coxhead (talk) 09:31, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Clear enough, I'll proceed along those lines, thanks. Dwergenpaartje (talk) 17:37, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Amphicarpy

Hello again. I referenced and extended the article on Amphicarpy. Now, I came across an article that elaborates amphicarpy, basicarpy and geocarpy, and lists a large number of examples. Do you think it would desirable to create a list of amphicarpic, basicarpic and geocarpic species, and if so, what do you think should be the title?

Another issue is that there is also a Wiktionary lemma on the same topic, which has a rather different, although consistent circumscription. Should Wiktionary and Misplaced Pages articles be more identical? What can be done in this case?

Thanks for your council again! Dwergenpaartje (talk) 14:43, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@Dwergenpaartje: you need a real botanist for that question, I'll ping one – @Sminthopsis84: one for you! Peter coxhead (talk) 15:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

There are some points that need fixing on those pages before a list is attempted. I'll make some changes at wiktionary. Amphicarpy is used by some authors to mean simply having more than one type of fruit, but others have lots of separate terms. Various grasses of genera such as Stipa are memorable if you wear socks; they have fruit that drill their way into soil or flesh, and they don't fit the current definition at Geocarpy because the fruit have detached from the plant when they take aim at your fibular artery. Hesperostipa spartea is one where geocarpy is already mentioned.

I think that a list of plants with amphicarpous fruits could potentially be very long. It is very difficult to describe in sufficient detail how different people have created their own sets of terms, as this guy has. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I'll remember that information next time I'm removing thousands of seedlings of Stipa tenuissima from between cracks in paving - they probably drilled their way down there.... (strange we don't have an article on S. tenuissima - unless it's a synonym?) PaleCloudedWhite (talk) 19:06, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

I guess you'd use very tiny forceps for that. It looks as if the US states of New Mexico and Texas could use your help. The Plant List calls S. tenuissima a synonym of Nassella tenuissima, but we don't have a page for that either. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:36, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

GrassBase concurs with TPL (which is not surprising, since TPL gets its record from Kew); Tropicos here prefers Stipa to Nassella. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:26, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

That's not how I'd read Tropicos; 10 sources go with Nasella, all but one of them published since 1997. Another 10 sources go with Stipa, but only one was published after 1994. More recent sources overwhelming go with Nassella. Interpretating Tropicos is a 4 step process.

1: check for a * vs a !; * names are illegitimate/rejected.

2: Count citations in the Accepted names tab (accepted as something else) and the References tab (accepted as the name currently being viewed).

3: If the results in step 2 aren't conclusive, look at publication dates of the works cited and go with more recent consensus.

4: Check for taxonomic authoritativeness. A "Systematic revision of the genus Fooia" published 5 years ago probably trumps a "Checklist of the vascular flora of East Podunk County Park" published 2 years ago. Plantdrew (talk) 22:11, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

@Plantdrew: yes, I'd looked at Tropicos too hastily (Christmas holiday alcohol?). Peter coxhead (talk) 09:14, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I've provided a source for the statement that amphicarpy dominantly occurs in annuals. If a list would be too long, a category would be a better suggestion? Dwergenpaartje (talk) 22:09, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

A list would get very long if people add plants that simply have fruit of more than one type (e.g., with large wings or with small wings, fruit of six different weight categories, etc.). I think that is likely to happen at some point, and wikipedia isn't in the business of deciding which of the definitions of amphicarpy to accept. As for a category instead of a list, I wouldn't advise that because there is no way to monitor the contents of a category, vandals can come in and strip it, and there is no systematic way to recover. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

All I will say about this subject, as an amateur botanist, is that when working on some of the fruit-related articles, it became clear to me that there are major differences in the terminology used for fruit by different reliable sources. We badly need a balanced article covering botanical fruit classification. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:42, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

There is a baby page at Nassella tenuissima now, ready for additions. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 13:43, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Move assistance

I just came across a homonym situation with some snakes and was hoping you could help. Pseudoeryx Jan, 1862 is a redirect in the synonymy of Charina. Pseudoeryx (genus) Fitzinger, 1826 is newly created. (genus) isn't a sensible dab term in this case, and I think the senior homonym just needs to usurp the title completely from the junior homonym. I'm not quite sure if it's kosher to use round robin moves to disappear the (genus) title altogether. Incoming links to Pseudoeryx all intend Fitzinger's genus. Plantdrew (talk) 22:24, 28 December 2016 (UTC)

 Done Just swapping them seems fine to me. If the synonym Pseudoeryx is used significantly, there could be a hatnote at Pseudoeryx pointing to Charina, but I leave that to you. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:22, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Taxobot children

After going through your contributions I was able to get to Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Taxobot children. However, I can't see which of the pages you put the MfD on. Thanks. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 23:00, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather: all of the very large number of pages listed at were created by a bot no longer running and are not used or needed now. There are far too many to tag individually, or indeed delete individually. I assume there's some way of deleting all subpages of Taxobot/children/. The pages aren't actively harmful, I think; it would just be tidier to get rid of them all. Peter coxhead (talk) 23:06, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I can delete them within a couple of minutes but can you assure me that I won't brake anything. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 23:30, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Does that include everything up to https://en.wikipedia.org/search/?title=Special:PrefixIndex&from=Taxobot%2Fchildren%2FTrigonidiinae&prefix=Taxobot%2Fchildren&namespace=2 ? CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 23:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I can only say that knowing how these pages got created and how they were intended to be used makes it clear to me that they can safely be deleted. The pages fall into two groups: a large group with names of the form "Taxobot/children/name-of-taxon", none of which are linked to and all of which are potentially out-of-date anyway and would be re-created should Taxobot ever be allowed to run again; and a few oddities, like User:Taxobot/children/template and User:Taxobot/children/preload, which are actually templates although not in Template namespace, that I have checked individually and have no transclusions.

So, yes, I am confident that they can all be deleted, from User:Taxobot/children/ to User:Taxobot/children/template. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:57, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

All 2,945 deleted. Glad that WP:TWINKLE allows for mass deletes. Got the lot in three minutes. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 00:24, 31 December 2016 (UTC)

@CambridgeBayWeather: yes, I saw. Thanks! It's good to be tidy for the New Year – Happy New Year to you! Peter coxhead (talk) 08:45, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Testcases page in mainspace

Why did you move Template:Autotaxobox/testcases to mainspace at Autotaxobox/testcases with no redirect when subpages are discouraged in mainspace? The best location is Module:Autotaxobox/testcases, which you have created with a link to the incorrect mainspace page. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, GeoffreyT2000 (talk, contribs) 00:49, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

GeoffreyT2000 Because I don't think he can. I just tried and got "Non-Module pages cannot be moved to the Module namespace (except for /doc pages), and Module pages (except for /doc pages) cannot be moved out of the Module namespace." If admins can't move it then I'm not sure who can. CambridgeBayWeather, Uqaqtuq (talk), Sunasuttuq 01:02, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@GeoffreyT2000: it's exactly as CambridgeBayWeather says. I discovered that any page in the Module namespace is assumed to be Lua. Since Module:Autotaxobox is only designed to be used by being called from existing templates that make the automated taxobox system work, the best way to test it is not from Lua code but from those templates.

• "Template:Autotaxobox/testcases" isn't right because it assumes there is a "Template:Autotaxobox" page to which it links, and there isn't.
• I agree that mainspace "Autotaxobox/testcases" isn't right either.
• "Module talk:Autotaxobox/testcases" would appear to be possible, although it seems odd to me to put testcases in a talk namespace. It also puts up a message saying "The purpose of this page is to run the testcases stored at Module:Autotaxobox/testcases. Any discussion about them should be posted at Module talk:Autotaxobox, not here." But there is no "Module:Autotaxobox/testcases".
• Another alternative is to write Lua code that calls templates that call the functions in Module:Autotaxobox, but (a) this seems pointless (b) the Lua test code then needs updating if the calling templates change and if this is forgotten the tests will be wrong (c) this introduces another layer in which errors could occur which is undesirable.

So I don't know what to do. There seems to be nowhere to put testcases written in the template language. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:37, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Addendum: testing shows that it would be possible to put the testcases at a title like "Module talk:Autotaxobox/test cases"; it's the exact string "testcases" that triggers the undesirable edit notice. Peter coxhead (talk) 08:41, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

User:Edgars2007 moved the page to Module talk:Autotaxobox/testcases, which I don't like because of the incorrect edit notice, so I moved it again to Module talk:Autotaxobox/test cases, which avoids this edit notice, but then implies that there is a page Module:Autotaxobox/test cases. Sigh...

There seems nowhere to put test cases for a Lua module when they are written in the template language, yet when Lua is used solely to support other templates making up a system, the only reliable tests are from within those modules. As a software engineer, it seems to me quite wrong to write tests in Lua that simulate calls from a template, as per Module:String/testcases, which is what it seems you are supposed to do. These aren't direct tests, and make it difficult to construct a table showing differences between the deployed and sandbox versions, which is vital in testing possible changes. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:23, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

I agree - there's no ideal place to put these test cases. Perhaps in the future we could add another namespace to Mediawiki for running module tests, but for now we have to work with what we have. I think that the least-worst solution at the moment would be to put the test cases at Template:Autotaxobox/testcases and leave a short explanation at Template:Autotaxobox linking to the module page. The conceptual link between templates and modules is well-established enough in people's minds here that that would not seem too unnatural. The next-least-worst option would be to put the page in the Module talk namespace as you have done. There are some existing examples of this, although pages like Module talk:Foo/testcases are generally reserved for displaying the results of a test module at Module:Foo/testcases (hence the annoying edit notice). I believe it is possible to override the edit notice, so using the standard title of Module talk:Autotaxobox/testcases with a blank edit notice may be slightly better than the current non-standard title of Module talk:Autotaxobox/test cases. — Mr. Stradivarius 10:36, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

@Mr. Stradivarius, Edgars2007, GeoffreyT2000, and CambridgeBayWeather: thanks particularly to Mr. Stradivarius, the position now is "least worst", I think, but still not ideal – there needs to be a proper location for template language testcases for Lua modules. Where should this be taken up? Peter coxhead (talk) 08:50, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

Error on Oldhamia and some other like pages

{{children_rank|{{taxonomy/{{Taxobox/taxon|Oldhamia| }}|rank}} }}
{{Taxobox/taxon|Oldhamia| }}
{{taxonomy/Oldhamia|rank}}
{{children_rank|ichnogenus }}

I can't figure this out. When I break out the component templates it works, but the package at the top errors. I can't find anything that's changed recently, and this is a new error on a page that presumably worked before. I'm guessing that it's related somehow to changes you've been making. – wbm1058 (talk) 05:48, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

@Wbm1058: firstly, apologies; this will indeed have been caused by some of the changes I have made. I have to confess that I have been concentrating on the 'main' system and have been aware that I haven't been checking the much less used 'ichno' and 'oo' taxoboxes as thoroughly as I should have.

The work-around is to explicitly supply |subdivision_ranks=, in the case of Oldhamia |subdivision_ranks=Ichnospecies. I'll try to fix the underlying problem as soon as I can. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:00, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Fixed now, I think. I'd forgotten to apply a change made to {{Automatic taxobox}} to {{Ichnobox/short}}. However, I consider it good practice to explicitly supply |subdivision_ranks=; I've found quite a few taxoboxes where the subdivisions in the taxoboxes weren't actually at the automatically determined rank, especially at higher levels, e.g. for an order the predicted subdivision ranks are families, but this is rare now – usually there are suborders, etc. or more likely clades. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:15, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

As I see from your user page that you're a programmer, I thought I should offer an explanation. Ignore if you're not interested. The automated taxobox system is littered with templates and code left over from its development; usually a better version has been implemented, but a few calls to the original version got missed. I've been trying to remove these because they make the system hard to maintain. One example is uses like {{Taxonomy/Oldhamia|rank}} instead of the more efficient {{Taxonomy/Oldhamia|machine code=rank}}. I thought I'd found all calls of the first kind, but wasn't sure, so I made such calls put the caller in a tracking category. In the few ichnobox cases you saw, the non-visible ] caused {{children_rank}} to fail. Peter coxhead (talk) 10:04, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Happy to see that it was an easy fix for you. The taxobox templates are still difficult for me to follow. I don't have any background in biology or the classification systems. Regards, wbm1058 (talk) 21:58, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Template protections

Hi Peter, officially you should have gone to WP:RFPP but in the interests of reducing bureaucracy I have actioned those requests for you. In future it would be easier if you could make the request in one place rather than creating a dozen separate requests. Best regards — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:57, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

@MSGJ: thanks very much! The reason for multiple requests was partly that I didn't realize that so many of the "Don't edit this line XXX" variants were fully protected; the first few I dealt with were only template editor protected. I'll do things properly in future :-). Peter coxhead (talk) 15:20, 9 January 2017 (UTC)

Metadata

Can I ask why you chose to remove metadata from the article on moss after I added it? Human-readable reference names are beneficial, and would only be unnecessary if Misplaced Pages was write-once-modify-never. You may not think it's necessary to add such names yourself, but once they've been added, I see no reason to remove them — or, for that matter, to describe their addition as 'pointless'.

I look forward to your explanation. DS (talk) 22:45, 17 January 2017 (UTC)

@DragonflySixtyseven: Edits made to the wikitext that don't affect what readers see may be acceptable if made in passing as part of useful edits that do affect what readers see. Otherwise most of them just put a load on the server unnecessarily. Why do you think that your choice of ref names is better than the original editor's? I have my preferences (and like you I would never choose the ref names you changed). But we shouldn't edit articles just to suit our preferences as editors. Chopping and changing things like ref names is pointless and time-wasting. It's just the same as editors who go around changing "]" to "]s", or "<ref name=X>" to "<ref name="X">" (the ref tag is not XML, but a special wikimedia feature), without making any other useful changes to the article.

Usually I just sigh to myself when I see this kind of edit; I don't remember now, but I had probably seen too many that day when I undid your changes. Add them back if you want, but I stand by my view that such edits are generally pointless and time-wasting. Peter coxhead (talk) 09:32, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

The point is that :0, ;1, :2, :3, etc are not anyone's choice of ref names. They're what Visual Editor inserts by default, unless you know to tell it to include ref names. And having two clashing systems of numbering can lead to confusion (reference ":7" can be footnote 22? reference ":8" can be footnote 35?), especially when people copy references wholesale from one article to another. It's like having illustrations whose filenames are 001.jpg, 002.jpg, 003.jpg, and 345678909876567gyuyguy65r76t8yujifacebook.cdn.4567890.jpg. When filenames have actual semantic value, that greatly facilitates page maintenance — and when they don't, that greatly hinders it. It's the same for ref names. DS (talk) 15:27, 18 January 2017 (UTC)

• User pages with script errors