Wikipedia:Requests for permissions/Template editor

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User:Rwv37

• Rwv37 (t·th·c^{(template space·edit requests)}·del·cross-wiki·SUL·edit counter·templates created·non-automated edits·BLP edits·undos·manual reverts·rollbacks·logs^{(blocks·rights·moves)}·rfar·spi·cci) (assign permissions)^(notify)

For quite a while now (a year? years? I don't know), I've been frequently making changes to various taxonomic articles to help cut down on Special:WhatLinksHere/Template: Taxobox (there's a relatively new set of templates, such as {{Automatic taxobox}} and {{Speciesbox}}, which is intended to largely replace {{Taxobox}}). These newer templates make use of another set of new templates, {{Taxonomy}}, in order to cut down on difficulties making and maintaining the "Scientific classification" portion of the infoboxes in taxonomic articles.

For example, {{Taxonomy/Homo}} is used by the {{Speciesbox}} on Homo sapiens in order to automatically figure out that the genus Homo is in the subtribe Hominina, then uses {{Taxonomy/Hominina}} to figure out that we're in the tribe Hominini, and so on up through the various taxonomic ranks. In the case of Homo, this is all already done, of course, but it's fairly common that when editing a taxonomic article to update it to the new {{Automatic taxobox}} scheme, you'll also have to create a new {{Taxonomy}} template to go along with it. Also, fairly often I'll notice that an existing {{Taxonomy}} template is missing a reference, or that its parent {{Taxonomy}} template is, so I usually try to update that while I'm there.

And that's what leads me to this request: For most {{Taxonomy}} templates, no special permission is needed to edit them. But once it gets high enough up the taxonomic tree (maybe the Family level? not sure exactly), editing them requires this permission. I don't run into this situation very often, but I do run into it once in a while, and in fact I just ran into it a few minutes ago. So, I would like this permission in order to be able to just make such changes myself rather than opening up a new section on the talk page or whatever, describing the proposed change there, et cetera.

Beyond this specific taxonomy-related stuff, I have on occasion made other template changes in the past, and to modules too (though in that case, almost entirely -- maybe literally entirely, not sure -- just to my own personal MediaWiki-based sites). I don't use Lua very often, but I have used it both in and out of MediaWiki, and before I retired I was a professional computer programmer for decades.

I've also been a Wikipedian for decades (I believe 100% in good standing, but certainly at the very least very close to 100%), and have made thousands of edits, including hundreds of template edits (mostly but not entirely of this taxonomical sort). - Rwv37 (talk) 22:10, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Standard Guidelines review:

1. Y (guideline: >1 year, applicant: 21 years)
2. Y (guideline: >1000 edits, applicant: 2000)
3. Y (guideline: >150 template edits, applicant: 200)
4. Y (guideline: !<6 months, applicant: never)
5. N (guideline: 3 sandboxes, applicant: 0 but more like N/A since sandboxes aren't generally used for this area)
6. N (guideline: 5 requests, applicant: 0)

This is an odd use case, so the standard guidelines don't apply clearly, but running them anyway. Leaving the merits of this request for others to evaluate. * Pppery *_{it has begun...}22:34, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

maybe the Family level? not sure exactly - it's based on the number of transclusions, which for taxonomy templates is the number of child taxa with Wikipedia articles (counting genera and above twice). The threshold for template protection is 5000-ish transclusions. * Pppery *_{it has begun...}22:34, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I'm not sure I'm understanding, but I think #2 and #3 are reversed - I have over 2000 edits including over 200 template edits, not 200 edits including 2000 template edits. Also, I definitely don't understand what the transclusion count is referring to? I have over 200 template edits definitely not counting transclusions (here are my most recent 200, and you can see there that there's another page after that. Eyeballing it, I think I have maybe 250 or so (again, transclusions not involved).

Like I said, I'm not sure I'm understanding; my apologies if not. - Rwv37 (talk) 22:50, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

Yep, I swapped those, now fixed. The transclusion count comment was referring to what pages get template protected, not your edits. * Pppery *_{it has begun...}22:51, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

@Pppery Oh, never mind about the transclusion thing - I didn't understand that you were explaining the rules under which a {{Taxonomy}} template would be protected, and mistakenly guessed you were instead talking about my "2000" (really more like 200) template edits. Rwv37 (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2025 (UTC)

I'll take a look at possible mitigation for the protection level of this template family later, but we (admins) might want to consider adjusting either the TPER rules or the protection rules for cases like this where an editor only wants to edit a single template (or template family) and otherwise has no interest in templates elsewhere. I know it's not a discussion for this request specifically but it's been on my mind for a while. Primefac (talk) 00:16, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

@Primefac Thanks. To be clear: (1) I do not "otherwise have no interest in templates elsewhere", but (2) I understand that I haven't really demonstrated much of an interest in templates elsewhere, and (3) it's definitely correct that (at least at the present time, and at least on Wikipedia specifically) most of my interest in templates elsewhere is largely theoretical rather than practical. - Rwv37 (talk) 00:27, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

Apologies, my comment was about the general case (I've been seeing a lot of this type of request in the last few months), so I wasn't necessarily saying you didn't have any interest in other templates. Primefac (talk) 11:29, 26 April 2025 (UTC)

At the moment I am leaning towards "not done for now" primarily because of the lack of edit requests. Being occasionally inconvenienced is not really a reason for having this permission, whereas being regularly inconvenienced demonstrates a need. With zero edit requests (and all of four template-talk-space edits in total) I'm just not seeing that need. Primefac (talk) 12:21, 26 April 2025 (UTC)