Template talk:Human timeline

Original vs New Templates
A new template version has been installed - mostly to improve accessibility by increasing the font-size of text [and better colors (a/o 20240310)] - hope this new template is *entirely* ok - please comment if otherwise of course - related timelines include: and  - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:13, 5 June 2021 (UTC) [edit added - Drbogdan (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2024 (UTC)]

Comments
Passing through and was interested in the figure in this template. I thought it was [a] great display of information, very well-done. The one thing that I couldn't find was a legend explaining the differences in the shades of orange around the names of the species. It seems to be a detail that was overlooked when the figure was being designed. Can someone who worked on this figure add something that explains why the orange shading gets lighter toward the top? CoffeeHawk (talk) 01:01, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - Thank you for your comments about the template - there is no particular meaning intended for the template orange coloring/gradations - added mostly to help distinguish the various hominin groupings presented - and for being a bit artistic ("artistic license"?) - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:24, 5 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ (and others) - Decided to adjust some colors - to help avoid any possible misunderstandings - seems better after all - more distinct (and clearer) between groups imo - hope this helps in some way - Comments Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 20:12, 6 September 2021 (UTC)

I can't see an explanation of the 2 'columns' at the left, where the background colour changes are at different times from those where the "H. erectus" etc. text appears. I've tried to make sense of it with "in Africa", or "in Asia", but nothing really seems to work. Can brief text be added to explain them? Peace Makes Plenty (talk) 14:22, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
 * (and others) - Thank You for your comments - and suggestions - not clear re your concern - possibly, the 1st left column may indicate that Australopithecus survived until about 1.20 mya; whereas the 2nd left column may indicate that H. habilis survived until about 1.65 mya - nonetheless - should note that space and related are very limiting with such templates - adding more template text may compromise the template - also - items are hyperlinked to associated WikiArticles for more details - perhaps more clarification may be helpful - Comments Welcome from other Editors also of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:25, 1 September 2023 (UTC)

All the shades of orange here are much too dark for Manual of Style/Accessibility/Colors, when used as a background for blue link text. They should be swapped for lighter colours; probably a range of different ones, if they still need to look visibly distinct. --Belbury (talk) 16:04, 8 March 2024 (UTC)\
 * (and others) - Thank You for your comments - and suggestion - they're appreciated - seems a WP:CONSENSUS may be helpful in considering this - Comments Welcome from other editors - in any case - Thanks again for your comments and all - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:39, 8 March 2024 (UTC)


 * ✅ (and others) - A proposed new template - with suggested Accessibility WCAG AAA Colors - has been added above for viewing and comments - hope this helps in some way - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:59, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Looks good! H. habilis no longer has its own distinct colour, is that intentional? Belbury (talk) 17:03, 10 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your comments - yes - intentional - but otoh - maybe better with a distinct color after all (see image above) - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 17:20, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

✅ (and others) - template has now been updated with better accessibility colors - and installed in main wiki space - should now be ok - please comment if otherwise of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 21:36, 10 March 2024 (UTC) Some of the text was too small to meet accessibility guidelines at MOS:SMALLFONT, i.e. below 85% of the default page font size. I have fixed all of the instances that I was able to find. – Jonesey95 (talk) 20:12, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

Scale of the Hominin Timeline on various pages
Why is this timeline not scaled/presented differently depending on the article. For example, Middle Paleolithic ranges from 300kya to 30kya, yet the timeline goes on to 10mya. It's can definitely be confusing for readers, as I just had to explain to my son that it's not a timeline that is proportionate to the main range of the article. 104.128.253.245 (talk) 04:55, 22 February 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank You for your comments - and suggestions - but not clear re the current graph - no mention of the Middle Paleolithic is considered per se on this graph afaik - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy - Drbogdan (talk) 14:57, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

Item displays vertical not horizontal as earlier
TEMPLATE PROBLEM: For some reason, seems the Neanderthal and Denisovan template items (remmed out at present) are currently displaying vertically instead of horizontally as earlier and as originally intended - is there some way of correcting this? - Thanking you in advance for your reply - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 20:27, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have added nowrap. Does that look as it should? PrimeHunter (talk) 21:11, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * - Yes - all now seems good - and displaying horizontally as earlier - and as intended - Thank You *very much* for your help with this - it's *greatly, greatly* appreciated - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:06, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I have investigated why nowrap is suddenly needed. The display changed Thursday when we got a new MediaWiki version with code from T327334 to allow links to break by default. By the way, your second post pinged me in both the wikitext and edit summary, causing two separate notifications. I have done the same in this edit to show the effect which can be a little confusing. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:48, 19 March 2023 (UTC)
 * - Thank You for your comments - and *excellent* explanation - interesting - at least it helps explain the reason the template changed to the vertical display from the horizontal one it was earlier - Yes - also interesting about the two separate notifications - Thanks again for your comments - they're *greatly* appreciated - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:31, 20 March 2023 (UTC)

Bonobo on ?
(and others) - Thank You for your recent revert of the Bonobo note on the - tried to include an appropriate note (ie, "Bonobo split") at 2 mya re bonobos based on the following: "According to studies published in 2017 by researchers at The George Washington University, bonobos, along with common chimpanzees, split from the human line about 8 million years ago; moreover, bonobos split from the common chimpanzee line about 2 million years ago. - tried "Chimpanzee➔Bonobo" on the  - and tried => "Bonobo-Chimp split" - Comments (and/or Suggestions) Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC) Drbogdan (talk) 12:06, 19 April 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 October 2023
Could a link for LD 350-1 be inserted as a note at 2.8MYA, as something like "earliest known Homo"? Sangrala (talk) 17:16, 27 October 2023 (UTC) | note8-at=-2.800 | note8=Earliest sign of Homo | note8-nudge-down=0.25 - to the template - should now be ok - please comment if otherwise of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:08, 27 October 2023 (UTC)
 * ✅ - (and others) - Thank You for your suggestion - added the following =>
 * ✅ - (and others) - Brief followup - even more adds/adjs/updates have been performed on the  thanks to your original suggestion noted above - seems ok - but please comment if otherwise of course - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:23, 28 October 2023 (UTC)

PROBLEM: Template vertical text changed?
- PROBLEM: Seems the vertical text on the left side of the template is no longer spread apart as earlier - but seemingly sqeezed together for some reason instead - is there some fix for this? - (currently using DellXps8930/Win10tel/Chrome) (add => same problem on FireFox and Opera as well)- Thanks in advance for your reply - Drbogdan (talk) 20:31, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Pinging Stjn who made changes to Vertical text. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:57, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * This is caused by Vertical text being inside the link, not outside of it. A known bug for years: T200704. I fixed the template (basically, by doing  →  . stjn 22:37, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thanks stjn. There are similar problems in other timeline templates at . This limitation should probably be documented at Template:Vertical text. PrimeHunter (talk) 23:50, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I added a note in the documentation and fixed the cases outside sandboxes. stjn 00:08, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Yes - Problem seems to be *completely* solved - Thank You *very, very* much for your help with this - it's *greatly* appreciated - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:37, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Brief Followup - although the "vertical text" issue seems to be fixed on the main page of, the issue seems to persist on this talk-page (see instance of - in the coding context of a "table" - above on this talk-page) - even after this talk-page - and the main page - had been "purged" of any browser cache remains - this may (or may not) be important - and may not require any attention - but perhaps worth mentioning - Thanks again for your recent help with this - Drbogdan (talk) 10:18, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * displays three timelines: Human timeline/sandbox1, Human timeline/sandbox2, Human timeline. The second still uses Vertical text inside a piped link and this apparently affects the third which displays incorrectly now but correctly when it's alone. I don't know TemplateStyles scope rules but here is a simpler example:

Asia

produces:

Asia


 * Both "Asia" fail to become vertical, also the second which is supposed to work. If the order of the two lines is swapped then both become vertical. It can be tested in preview by swapping the order without keeping a copy with the original order. I wasn't able to demonstrate the broken and working order at the same time because they interfere with eachother. PrimeHunter (talk) 10:54, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * To both: would be good if I didn’t get so many pings from this discussion. I am following it. To your question: I did link to the Phabricator task that describes this bug, yes, this is how it ends up bugging out, I don't know what I am supposed to say. I am not responsible for writing TemplateStyles extension. stjn 12:29, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I have moved Vertical text outside the links in Human timeline/sandbox2. This made Human timeline display correctly in . PrimeHunter (talk) 12:57, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I only found three live cases in a limited search and fixed them. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:17, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * After my edit to Human timeline/sandbox2 which is transcluded in, my above "Asia" example displays vertically in a full page view where the correct order with Vertical text outside links is encountered first on the whole page, but horizontally in a section preview where the incorrect order is encountered first. This can be pretty confusing. PrimeHunter (talk) 13:24, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

PROBLEM: Code Removal Distorts Template?
- Seems an editor has removed Template:nowrap from the resulting in a significant (and distorted)  change in the current  display - is there some entirely ok workaround for this? - Thanks for your reply - Drbogdan (talk) 10:55, 3 July 2024 (UTC)
 * You have recently made many template edits like with edit summary "remove all instances of 'Template:nowrap' to prevent that template from being transcluded onto other pages". Why? In this case it made the text unreadable. PrimeHunter (talk) 11:20, 3 July 2024 (UTC)