ಟೆಂಪ್ಲೇಟು:Automatic taxobox/doc/intro

This is a brief introduction to the "automated taxobox system". It is not a "how-to" guide.

Introduction to the automated taxobox system

What is it?

Taxoboxes display the "taxonomic hierarchy" for a taxon. ("Taxon" is a general term for a named group of organisms, such a subspecies, a species, a family, an order, etc.) The taxonomic hierarchy shows the location of the taxon within a particular classification system; e.g. for a genus, it may show its family, order, etc. up to kingdom.

Taxoboxes can be created manually by using the {{Taxobox}} template. Each taxobox must specify the complete taxonomic hierarchy to be displayed in the article. However, this results in a great deal of redundancy. As of ಫೆಬ್ರವರಿ 2012 there were 38 articles on the species of Mammillaria. Using the Taxobox template means that it has to be repeated 38 times that the genus Mammillaria is in the family Cactaceae, which is in the order Caryophyllales, and so on up to Kingdom Plantae. Any one of the 38 articles could easily have a taxobox which was inconsistent with the others.

The automated taxobox system is a set of templates which automatically generate the taxonomic hierarchy for a taxon. Thus knowing that Mammillaria tetrancistra is in the genus Mammillaria, the system can work out and display the complete hierarchy, from species up to kingdom. It can do the same for subspecies (and for botanical varieties).

(Its advantages and disadvantages are described in more detail in the "about" subpage.)

How does it work?

There are two parts to the system.

1. Taxonomy templates, which act like a database, storing taxonomic hierarchies. These don't produce any visible output by themselves. They simply store information.
2. Display templates, which create a visible taxobox, complete with an automatically generated taxonomic hierarchy created from the taxonomy templates.

Taxonomy templates

The taxonomy templates are pages with titles of the general form "Template:Taxonomy/<taxon>" where <taxon> represents the name of the taxon. To show that a plant genus with the imaginary name Junkia is in the family Junkiaceae, you would create a page with the title "Template:Taxonomy/Junkia". When finished, the page would look something like this:

Rank:	genus
Parent:	Junkiaceae
other information

This says that Junkia (the last part of the name of the page) is a "genus" and has the parent "Junkiaceae". Then to connect up Junkiaceae, you would need to create a page with the title "Template:Taxonomy/Junkiaceae" which gave the rank and parent of Junkiaceae. This process would be continued until you found that the relevant template already existed.

A large number of taxonomy templates have already been created, so that for a real genus it's likely that the relevant templates are already there, or at most the genus template needs to be created.

Display templates

The display templates use the taxonomy templates to show a taxonomic hierarchy in a taxobox. As of ಫೆಬ್ರವರಿ 2012 there are four display templates:

1. Template:Automatic taxobox is used for taxa at the rank of genus and above.
2. Template:Speciesbox is used for species. Species don't normally need to be connected to their parent genus via a taxonomy template because the genus name is part of the name of the species. So there aren't usually any templates with names of the form "Template:Taxonomy/<genus> <species>". Hence species and lower ranks need to be handled a little differently from higher ranked taxa.
3. Template:Subspeciesbox is used for subspecies whose names are governed by the zoological code (ICZN). This provides for three-part names (trinomials) without a "connecting term" (e.g. Junkia communis communis).
4. Template:Infraspeciesbox is used for ranks below species (e.g. subspecies, varieties) whose names are governed by the botanical code (ICN). This provides for three-part names with a connecting term (e.g. Junkia communis subsp. communis or Junkia communis var. communis).

These four templates are alternatives to the manual Taxobox template, and require less information. Thus, provided that the taxonomy templates already existed, an article whose title was Felis which was about the animal genus Felis could use a template like the following:

Felis
Scientific classification
ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರ:	Eukaryota
ಸಾಮ್ರಾಜ್ಯ:	Animalia
ವಿಭಾಗ:	ಕಾರ್ಡೇಟಾ
ವರ್ಗ:	Mammalia
ಗಣ:	ಕಾರ್ನಿವೋರಾ
ಉಪಗಣ:	ಫ಼ೆಲಿಫ಼ಾರ್ಮಿಯಾ
ಕುಟುಂಬ:	ಫ಼ೆಲಿಡೀ
ಉಪಕುಟುಂಬ:	Felinae
ಕುಲ:	Felis

{{Automatic taxobox
| taxon = Felis
}}

which generates the taxobox shown on the right.

Notice how the ranks above the genus Felis have been supplied automatically in the taxobox, using the taxonomy templates. (Have a look at Template:Taxonomy/Felis, for example.)

(If the Automatic taxobox template above is placed on the page whose title is exactly "Felis", then even the taxon = line can be omitted, as the name of the taxon will be picked up from the title of the page. However, as of ಸೆಪ್ಟೆಂಬರ್ 2012, this practice is strongly deprecated as it is more likely to lead to "expansion depth exceeded" errors. Specifying the parameter also ensures that the taxobox remains correct if the page is moved.)

In practice, other parameters would also be needed, e.g. to supply an image and a caption for it, or to supply an authority for the genus name.

For a species, such as Felis chaus, a template like this could be used:

Felis chaus
Scientific classification
ಕ್ಷೇತ್ರ:	Eukaryota
ಸಾಮ್ರಾಜ್ಯ:	Animalia
ವಿಭಾಗ:	ಕಾರ್ಡೇಟಾ
ವರ್ಗ:	Mammalia
ಗಣ:	ಕಾರ್ನಿವೋರಾ
ಉಪಗಣ:	ಫ಼ೆಲಿಫ಼ಾರ್ಮಿಯಾ
ಕುಟುಂಬ:	ಫ಼ೆಲಿಡೀ
ಉಪಕುಟುಂಬ:	Felinae
ಕುಲ:	Felis
ಪ್ರಜಾತಿ:	F. chaus
Binomial name
Felis chaus

{{Speciesbox
| taxon = Felis chaus
}}

which generates the taxobox shown on the right.

What next?

If you want to use the automated taxobox system, there's a lot of documentation available. Many more facilities exist than are discussed here (e.g. a taxobox can automatically show child taxa).

• {{Automatic taxobox/doc}} is the main resource; it starts with a table of contents, linking to explanations of how to create and use the various parts of the system.
• {{Speciesbox/doc}} explains how to create taxoboxes for species.
• {{Subspeciesbox/doc}} and {{Infraspeciesbox/doc}} explain how to create taxoboxes for ranks below species (e.g. subspecies). The first is for animals, the second for plants (names regulated by the botanical code).