Template talk:Life timeline

Fungi evolution and land colonization
I was wondering if it could be possible to add the "Earliest fungi" to the template. I'm not sure if adding the "earliest form of fungi" (the one that diverged 1.5 billion years ago; Wang et al. 1999) or the earliest land colonization of fungi on the earth ~460 mya would be better. It seems that the timeline is more about "colonization" of living groups. As the "earliest plant" means the plants that "colonized land". The late, colonization of land, would reinforce the idea that plants have colonized land in conjunction with fungi (Claire et al. 2010). Wang, D.Y.C.; Kumar, S.; Hedges, S.B. (1999). "Divergence time estimates for the early history of animal phyla and the origin of plants, animals and fungi". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B. 266 (1415): 163–171. doi:10.1098/rspb.1999.0617. PMC 1689654. PMID 10097391. Claire P. Humphreys, Peter J. Franks, Mark Rees, Martin I. Bidartondo, Jonathan R. Leake, David J. Beerling. Mutualistic mycorrhiza-like symbiosis in the most ancient group of land plants. Nature Communications, 2010; 1 (8): 103 doi:10.1038/ncomms1105 --Beausoleilmo (talk) 02:55, 30 September 2020 (UTC)


 * ✅ - added the following to the "Template:Life timeline" => add => | note40-at=-1500  | note40=Earliest fungi - per "Template talk:Life timeline" - seems ok - please post if otherwise of course - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 04:15, 30 September 2020 (UTC)

Formatting
Hello. On my devices the formatting of this template seems to be quite off. I was wondering whether the following edits could help:
 * ❌ there isn't enough space on the left side to portray the full names of the ice ages. There is a bit of space left on the right-hand side though. Could the timeline for shifted to the right a bit?
 * ✅ The word Quaternary now overlaps with the zero. As the beige colour denotes the period it's not entirely necessary to have Quaternary displayed exactly at that location. Could it be shifted downwards a bit?
 * ❌ Is it possible to decrease the distance between the letters in the vertical, so that Phanerezoic doesn't intrude too much in the next category? Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:13, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments - and suggestions - template seems to work very well (and for a very long time) on popular pc systems, including Wintel10-Chrome/Brave/Firefox/Opera browsers - what pc systems are you using? - perhaps you could try testing a newer template version at "Template:Life timeline/sandbox" (or equivalent sandbox location) and present the newer version for consideration - hope this helps in some way - Thanks again for your comments and all - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 17:00, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your quick response. I've decreased the vertical spacing in the sandbox. Before the word Hadean wasn't entirely visible (using Firefox, Internet Explorer and android), with the letter n falling off. Now half of the letter n is displayed. Would you say that is an improvement? I haven't quite figured out how to do the horizontal placement. Femke Nijsse (talk) 17:20, 24 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ Thanks for your comments - and efforts - yes - the Hadean text in the template now looks better, and has been added to the main template - Thanks again - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 02:21, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Great! Shall we do the same for the other vertical words?

I don't understand the template sufficiently well to make my first proposed change. I see in previous versions the font size of the different ice ages was smaller, and there were some longer words in the right hand side. With the current wording and font size, we should be able to shift the timeline to the right bit. There are a few millimetres right of the words earliest animals. I think it's quite an important change to make, preventing Quaternary and Cryogenian to overlap with the actual timeline. Femke Nijsse (talk) 08:38, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * FYI, I am the person who made the text bigger, per MOS:FONTSIZE, for accessibility. At the time, I suggested that if words didn't fit, the timeline elements that house them might have to be made larger. I don't know if that is possible. – Jonesey95 (talk) 15:10, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ ok - unable to shift entire template to right as suggested - but moved notes ("Quaternary", "Cryogenian" and others) to the right a bit - seems better - and hopefully sufficient - hope this is now *entirely* ok - if you like, you may first test the suggested vertical text in the sandbox template for consideration - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:15, 25 October 2020 (UTC)
 * (sorry to be so insistent, working on the FAR for Earth). I think the problem has gotten worse now? The notes should be shifted left compared to the timeline so that they overlap less. (of course, there is only space on the right, so everything should be shifted right if that were possible) Femke Nijsse (talk) 15:25, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

✅  - several suggested "Ice age" notes shifted left (might be max extent afaik atm) - hope this helps - Drbogdan (talk) 15:37, 25 October 2020 (UTC)

Too-small text reinstated twice
An editor has twice inserted text that is too small without discussion, even though I explained the limitations on this talk page. I reverted the first edit, and that change was itself reverted. I have no interest in edit-warring, but the current version of the template violates a core policy. The onus is on to explain why this template should violate Wikipedia's core accessibility policy (note: policy, not guideline). – Jonesey95 (talk) 17:21, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * The explanation is simple and already recapitulated in the edit notes: the font size as desired by User:Jonesey95 is so large that it doesn't fit in the graphic, which cuts off the words and, most glaringly, requires the truncation of "Molluscs" into "Mollus". Mind you: "Mollus" was the actual encoded text, not merely a graphical glitch; thus the previous editor(s) have deliberately chosen to mangle the information just to slavishly obey a guideline. The MOS:FONTSIZE guideline that Jonesey95 is appealing to has resulted in the graphic being mangled. As the MOS has led us to the mangled state, WP:IAR allows us--encourages us, even--to ignore it. BirdValiant (talk) 18:06, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * I have explained in my note above that one accessible solution would be to make the elements of the timeline larger, rather than violating policy by making the text smaller. There may be other accessible solutions. – Jonesey95 (talk) 18:23, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

FWIW - making the template elements larger may be a possible solution I would think - I don't know how to do this - some others may know how of course - trying out related template tests first at "Template:Life timeline/sandbox" may be preferred - Comments Welcome - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2020 (UTC)
 * MOS:SMALL should be ignored here, per the core policy WP:IAR, as following MOS:SMALL leads to ridiculous truncations like "Molluscs/Flowers/Hadean" to "Mollus/Flowe/Hadea," due to the sheer quantity of the information conveyed in the graphic (complexified by the close proximity of many elements). Upscaling the entire template would break its parallelism with other graphical timelines and would also overflow a typical page, so that's out too.
 * A better solution is simply to link to a larger version from the template page, like Template:Nature timeline/large. Compare to how thumbnails of wordy images violate MOS:SMALL, but we compensate by hosting a larger version that's accessible from the image page (e.g. File:Geological time spiral.png).  Of course with templates, you can just zoom your browser too. — wing   gundam  10:24, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

Sexual Reproduction
According to our own article on Evolution of sexual reproduction linked in this timeline,
 * true sex is thought to have arisen in the Last Eukaryotic Common Ancestor (LECA), possibly via several processes of varying success, and then to have persisted (compare to "LUCA").

and so cannot antedate either "Earliest Fungi" or "Earliest multicell life" --136.24.115.209 (talk) 22:42, 12 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments - yes - but in the same Wikipedia article (at "Evolution of sexual reproduction" ), there is the following => "In the eukaryotic fossil record, sexual reproduction first appeared by 1.2 billion years ago in the Proterozoic Eon".  - hope this helps in some way - nonetheless - there may be a need for some further clarification about this perhaps - Comments Welcome from other editors - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 23:11, 12 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Reading the "Wangetal1999" reference of the Wikipedia article Evolution of fungi states, "The three-way split of plants, animals and fungi, 1576.88 Ma". The second paragraph of the Wikipedia article Evolution of sexual reproduction has three references for this, "sexually reproducing animals, plants, fungi and protists could have evolved from a common ancestor that was a single-celled eukaryotic species." Thus it is impossible for fungi to have appeared before sexual reproduction. Now it may be true that the earliest fossil evidence for sexual reproduction is where stated in this time line template, that is a nuance which will be lost on the great majority of Wikipedia readers. Under the Wikipedia dictum "be bold", and in good faith, I made the change to match the reference, and put the reference in as a comment, hidden from readers, but available to Wikipedia editors. Nick Beeson (talk) 17:43, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * - Yes - *entirely* agree with your adjustments to the template - no problem whatsoever - Thank You for your help with this - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! Drbogdan (talk) 18:19, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Original vs Test templates - comments welcome
(and any others that may be interested in this template):

Test templates are being considered - comparison of templates is below - *ORIGINAL* template - (Pros: linear scale; clear "ice ages"; regular template size - Cons: smaller fonts) - VERSUS - *TEST-1* NON-Linear scaling (Pros: bigger fonts - Cons: non-linear scaling [distorted view?; less realistic/objective?; anthropic biased?]; obscure "ice ages"; bigger [longer & wider] template size) - VERSUS - *TEST-2* Linear scaling (Current) (Pros: bigger fonts; linear scaling - Cons: bigger template size) - Comments Welcome from Editors - related templates include: and  - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:15, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Wow, you did a great job updating this template to comply with accessibility-related guidelines, including MOS:SMALLFONT. Very nice. It looks like the smallest font is at 85.5% of normal; you could go down to 85% if it would help. – Jonesey95 (talk) 22:50, 13 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments - please understand that the Test template (Sandbox version at "") was developed by "User:Hike395" - yes - *entirely* agree - a truly *Excellent* job was done with this template of course - nonetheless - the Test template may have some pros and cons also - and may require further comments, critical review and agreements from other editors before being fully implemented - in any case - Thanks again for your comments - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 00:11, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Overall, I like the content of this template and think it's useful. However, as Bsherr and Jonesey95 have pointed out, above, the current template violates MOS:SMALLFONT. The template is used on four Feature Articles: Earth, Evolution, Formation and evolution of the Solar System, and Ediacaran biota. Those Featured Articles are required to follow all of the Manual of Style. If we can't fix the fonts in the template, we would have to remove the template from those four articles. I think that would be a shame, because the template does provide useful information.
 * As User:72.16.99.93 points out, above, the template is quite crowded with information about the last billion years. That makes sense, since life has become much more complex since the Cambrian explosion. I agree with DrBogdan that the links are valuable and should be preserved. The only way I know how to present such information without using small fonts is to expand the area devoted to them. Thus, I used a slightly non-linear time scaling (t^0.8) where more room is allowed to present the numerous links corresponding to the last billion years.
 * Drbogdan is asking whether the non-linear scaling is biased or less realistic. In the art of data visualization, non-linear mapping of time is rather common. For example, people use log log charts. Timelines are not required to be linear --- to quote the Wikipedia article, "Timelines can use any suitable scale representing time, suiting the subject and data; many use a linear scale, in which a unit of distance is equal to a set amount of time."
 * The sandbox is my attempt to keep the information in the original template while still obeying MOS:SMALLFONT. (I still need to check whether the colors are accessible). I'd like to hear whether editors think it's better to keep a linear timeline and have a smaller infobox, or to obey MOS:SMALLFONT, or to drop many of the links. — hike395 (talk) 06:47, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

(and others): Thank you for your *Excellent* comments above - they're *greatly* appreciated - just wondering - would it be possible to preserve both the better Font-size and the Linear-scaling on the "Original" template by *Lengthening* the Template size itself? - seems that with the current longer/wider sandbox "Test" template version displayed above this may be possible after all - maybe this could be a possible solution of the Font-size and Linear-scaling concerns? - and perhaps provide even more room for any additional relevant notes/links/details - in any case - Thanks again for your comments - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 13:07, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * I don't think that getting rid of arthropods and molluscs is an acceptable outcome. BirdValiant (talk) 14:00, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

- Thank you *very much* for the newly made *Longer* "Linear-scaling" Test version - for my part, I *really* like this version - but also agree with "User:BirdValiant" to now also include the "arthropods" and "molluscs" text if possible (which may now be even easier than earlier due to the larger template size) - ALSO - should the inside template text be "Bold" like in the "Original" template version? - iac - Thanks again - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:40, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * I changed "Arthropods" and "Molluscs" to "Chordates" not because of formatting, but because all three versions make it seem that Dinosaurs and Mammals descended from Arthropods and Molluscs. But that's not relevant to the formatting change, so I restored it back. We can decide later.

I prefer the compressed (middle) version. DrBogdan had previously mentioned that having a larger infobox is not great, and I agree with that. I was trying to go for the smallest infobox that still obeyed the Manual of Style. I think most of the space past 2000 Ma is not well-utilized and will crowd the article text. I also see that the Primates and Flowers label are overflowing their boxes. But I don't want to make the infobox any longer. — hike395 (talk) 15:13, 14 May 2021 (UTC) ✅ - Nudged the "Primates" and "Flowers" text up a bit on the "Linear test" template version - seems better - and - no (or much less) overlapping/overflowing-the-box - still prefer the "Original" and/or "Linear test* versions&mdash;more realistic views imo&mdash;(rather than the "Non-linear test" version&mdash;somewhat "distorted" view imo) - however - expect to follow the "WP:CONSENSUS" of other editors of course - NOTE - my earlier comments (05/06/2021)  re template scaling and Wikipedia readability may also be relevant to the present discussion, and can be viewed in full at the following link => "Template talk:Eons graphical timeline" - and are copied, in part (and with minor updated editing for relevance here), as follows => my main concern ... with scaling, other than linear, is one of presenting material with the best understanding for most viewers ... to me, the less technical the presentation, the better the understanding of the material - in "wording" - and in "scaling" (linear is much better understood by most imo) as well - non-linear time scaling, besides being a somewhat distorted view of things, is not easily understood even by technical students (including engineer-types) based on my university lecturing experiences - linear scaling is much, much better understood by most - also - IF Possible, the best wording(s) for the "" (as well as the "" and the "") may be wordings as non-technical and as brief as possible - more detail re the event may be found at associated wikilinks - this may make the "" more accessible and useful to the average reader - after all => "Readability of Wikipedia Articles" (BEST? => Score of 60/"9th grade/14yo" level)  - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:58, 14 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Great that you're working on it. I'm always looking for 'less is more', to make sure that readers can find interesting information fast. I can only think of a few tweaks:
 * Go back to having less tick labels on the left. I don't think having 4250 is quite relevant
 * I don't think it's necessary to have ice ages with an asterisk; it's already in the name (or glaciation).
 * There is a bit more white space on the right than necessary. Can 'this box' be shuffled to the left a bit?
 * We can shorten it (and maybe avoid a tiny bit of sandwhiching) by putting millions years ago on top?
 * Maybe not having italics is less distracting? FemkeMilene (talk) 16:32, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Made fewer tick labels
 * Ice ages with asterisks: Drbogdan wanted to highlight them. How about if we only use one asterisk?
 * The white space depends on the browser you're using. In Chrome, there is white space to spare. In Firefox, it's pretty tight. Which browser do you use?
 * There's no facility in the underlying module to put something on top.
 * I can remove italics.
 * — hike395 (talk) 15:35, 16 May 2021 (UTC)


 * When I looked yesterday several text descriptions were overlapping vertically over one another in the test template (possibly as I don't allow the browser to display fonts below a certain size). This now seems improved, except for "Glaciation" and "Oxygen crisis".  — Paleo  Neonate  – 18:14, 14 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Can put more space between those. — hike395 (talk) 15:35, 16 May 2021 (UTC)


 * Really good improvements. I'm particularly happy to see the fixing of the "links that are black text", which is a design anti-pattern to be avoided. - I wonder if we could similarly change the white text for the link to "water", perhaps by lightening the background or similar? Demo-diff here using the somewhat arbitrary #f2f7ff - It needs to be approximately that light in order to still be clearly distinguishable for people with Deuteranopia, per tests at Toptal (URL) and Coblis (screenshot upload). HTH. Quiddity (talk) 18:08, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ (and others) Thanks for your suggestion re "water" - one possibility is to lighten the background but still be bluish and a bit shaded (for the color of water at a low depth) - also added bold to the "water" text - for better contrast => "result is here" - may now be ok? - or at least better than the "original white text on bluer background"? - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 21:56, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * After your and hike395's edits, it looks good to me, and still passes the contrast check. Thanks again! Quiddity (talk) 05:18, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

Large size of linear scaling
I see your point about linear scaling. How about a compromise? Let's stick with linear scaling, but set the class to "nomobile", which will hide the template on mobile browsers. The timeline is so big that the user experience on phones is not so nice. Just to point out, elements like sidebars and navboxes are already hidden on mobile browsers, so this will be the same as those.

What do editors think? — hike395 (talk) 15:35, 16 May 2021 (UTC)
 * (and others) - Thank You for your comments - and suggestion - yes - seems like an *excellent* idea - *entirely* ok with me - no problem whartsoever - hope this helps - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:53, 16 May 2021 (UTC)

New template seems ready for a "Test Run"
✅ - To All Interested - copied the "Test Template Life timeline - Linear (sandbox2) version" to the "main template page" - seems ready for at least a "test run" so-to-speak - may (or may not) need some tweaks - *entirely* ok with me to rv/rm/mv/ce the edit of course - the " "Original" (sandbox3) version" is now at "sandbox3" - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:53, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Looks like we've gotten to a good graphic! — hike395 (talk) 15:01, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Looks good to me. BirdValiant (talk) 16:14, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

- Thank you for your comments - and *all* your own *excellent* efforts with this new template - yes - *entirely* agree - seems the new template is better (and more suitable) to Wikipedia re accessibility requirements and related than the "older original template" - Thanks again for your efforts with this new better template - your efforts are *greatly, greatly* appreciated - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 15:16, 17 May 2021 (UTC)
 * Confirming that my concern above was addressed, the current test template no longer has any overlapping text for me. I also think that it looks cleaner without the bold or italics the older one had.  Thanks for working on this, — Paleo  Neonate  – 17:59, 17 May 2021 (UTC)

A quick question
Apologies for the late response; my thesis has been consuming my life. I was wondering why there is no line extending to the modern day for the arthropods/mollusks group? Otherwise, I am loving the new template; it's much more readable (and accurate!) than the old one. Icarosaurvus (talk) 09:02, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * (and others) - Thanks for your comments - and concern - by coincidence, I was just wondering exactly the same thing last night - maybe there is a fix for this - guess we'll have to wait-and-see at the moment - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 16:21, 20 May 2021 (UTC)
 * (and others) - BRIEF Followup - one possible way to do this may be to extend a single very thin line from the middle of the "Arthrodods"/"Molluscs" block/bar vertically up to the top - between the "Birds" and "Primates" - some shifting may be needed (ie, "Dinosaurs" moved to the left a bit) - also - some shifting of other blocks/bars may be required - working in the sandbox ("Template:Life timeline/sandbox") before adding to the main template may be in order of course - doing this may be beyond my abilities at the moment, but other editors may like to give this (or some other solution) a try I would think - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 13:03, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * What about running it up along the far right side? I do not have time to do it myself, as graduate school is all-consuming, but it seems as though widening it slightly might be an option? Thanks for all your work! Icarosaurvus (talk) 16:42, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Snuck it up the right side, per . I sure wish we could change this to Chordates, though. — hike395 (talk) 20:26, 21 May 2021 (UTC)
 * It looks great; thanks for all the work! Though you do bring up a great point with chordates. Icarosaurvus (talk) 10:48, 22 May 2021 (UTC)

Restore orange boxes marking ice ages
Moving the ice age names to the right looks OK. However, you should restore some narrow orange boxes (with no text) on the left, to mark the durations of the ice ages. New size looks very nice otherwise. — wing  gundam  00:14, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your recent comments - and compliments re the updated "" - the notion of restoring the ice ages (including narrow orange boxes) to the left was thoroughly considered by myself and other template editors, including "User:Hike395", at the time of the recent template updating, but was not considered as good an option, for one reason or another, than the one we finally adopted - you may try to develop a test template of your preferred notions for "WP:CONSENSUS" in the template sandbox (at => "Template:Life timeline/sandbox" ) if you like of course - hope this helps in some ways - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:07, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Beginning of sexual reproduction
User:AmazinglyLifelike has recently changed the date of the beginning of sexual reproduction to a later date and basically changed one primary paper with another. On the Evolution of sexual reproduction article there are references pointing to sexual reproduction possibly being integral to the evolution of the first eukaryotic cell. Unless I see some better documentation, I favor just getting rid of the entry on the timeline altogether. BirdValiant (talk) 21:31, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

When did multicellular life start?
There's a considerable gap between the "Earliest Multicellular Life" arrow and the start of the Multicellular Life section. They would have to be in the same place. Should I change it? AmazinglyLifelike (talk) 03:27, 30 September 2021 (UTC)


 * ✅ - (and others): "Adjustments" made to the  template as suggested above - at least for starters until the issue(s) are better understood - Comments Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 22:45, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Seems like the best idea, aye; these debates seem to get pretty contentious in academic circles, and there's no sense in bringing that grief here to Wikipedia at this time. Thanks a bunch for all your work, Drbogdan. Icarosaurvus (talk) 01:50, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

When did sexual reproduction start?
(and others):

At the moment, "Earliest sexual reproduction" is not noted on the template since the time is not clear - previously, noted times on the template included the date 1200 Mya  - and - the date 1576 Mya - in addition - and after a recent Google search - seems the date 2000 Mya  is very well cited.

QUESTION: Are there any other suggested times (with WP:Reliable sources)? - Comments Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 13:36, 1 October 2021 (UTC)


 * BRIEF Followup - based on the above references and related, seems the very best available supported estimate of the earliest time sexual reproduction began is about 2000 Mya - accordingly - this date is being used as a note on the  template - at least for starters at the moment - this date can be updated based on even better documentation than currently available of course  - Comments Welcome on this and related issues - hope this helps in some way - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:26, 2 October 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 January 2024
Fix wl “Pongola glaciation” accordingly to its label, not, as it is, to something different (i.e. “Fix wl”) 5.170.68.251 (talk) 17:45, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank You for your comments - and suggested fix - ok - now done - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 18:05, 5 January 2024 (UTC)