Template talk:Nature timeline

Best wording for "" events?
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) - Comments/Suggestions Welcome of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 01:41, 20 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the feedback and the revision; as an astronomer, I may not have the best feeling as to what is most easily understandable to the average reader. I agree about the lengthiness, just did not expect something like "NGC 188" may come over as more than some cryptic alphanumerical code to many readers. "Star cluster" should serve well -- cheers! --BDwinds (talk) 19:35, 20 May 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank you *very much* for your comments - they're all *greatly* appreciated - yes - agreed - wording is ok - no problem whatsoever - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 20:42, 20 May 2016 (UTC)

This illustration seems of little relevance to the big rip theory, which consequences mostly apply to the future. As for the observations the theory explains (lately accelerated expansion, inflation?), they are not present or not related to in the text. Now, the problem seems to be general to all "bigs" theories (crunch, freeze, etc.), as the same timeline is shown. 134.171.34.25 (talk) 06:44, 5 July 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank you for your comments - the "" template is intended to be an overview (for the purpose of context) of very basic events (as far as is known at the moment) since the beginning of the "universe" - the vertical "Primordial" entry in the template is wikilinked to the "Chronology of the universe" article, which refers to the "Big Rip", the "Big Crunch", "Inflation", and much more - the noted "cosmic speed-up" event in the template is wikilinked to the "Accelerating expansion of the universe" article - hope this helps in some way - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:33, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Complex Life, Land Life, Cambrian explosion
Linked "Complex Life" region, starting about 2500 Mya to Eukaryotes, instead of multicellulars, a more important milestone, and made "Land Life" region begin with Silurian, as there was negligible colonization of land before that. Added Cambrian explosion as significant event on right side.CharlesHBennett (talk) 02:23, 10 July 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank you for your comments - and suggestions - "Land life" on the timeline has now been adjusted (from -0.541 Bya) to a somewhat more accurate time (-0.4438 Bya) (per "Silurian" article) and is now wikilinked to "Silurian" - hope this helps in some way - let me know if otherwise of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 13:18, 10 July 2016 (UTC)

Multicellular life
The article Multicellular life says "The first evidence of multicellularity is from cyanobacteria-like organisms that lived 3–3.5 billion years ago", but the figure on this template says 2.5 billion and the copy? Life timeline says 1.5 billion. (ohh, and both templates are on this talk page, so it should be obvious that they are contradicting each other). Christian75 (talk) 15:14, 3 December 2016 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank you for your comments - yes - agreed - seems "multicellular life" began with "cyanobacteria" (and/or "photosynthesis") about 3500 Mya - the "photosynthesis" section is noted (in color) accordingly - in both timelines: ie, the "" and the "" - both timelines indicate that the "photosynthesis" section begins at 3500 Mya - and this event is wikilinked to the "Evolution of photosynthesis" article which describes the relationship of "photosynthesis" with "cyanobacteria" in great detail (also see => 'Evolution of photosynthesis") - please understand that the timelines are intended to suggest - in a very, very broad way -  the overall sequence of significant biological events as best we may know them at the present time - more details re the events themselves can be found at the wikilinked articles - Comments Welcome from other editors - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Thanks again for your comments - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 21:15, 3 December 2016 (UTC)

First Water on Earth => 4.412 or 4.4 bya or other?
FWIW - Seems the following edit is relevant, worthy and well sourced - and should be copied to talk:  Copied from "User talk:Red Planet X (Hercolubus)": @: Thank you for your recent edits on the - QUESTION: Do you have a reference to support your noted 4.412 bya data? So far, I've found cited support for the 4.4 bya data at the following => "Origin of water on Earth" - and - "National Science Foundation (2001)" - Several references, "NASA (2005)" - and - "National Geographic (2001)", suggests a more recent date => 4.3 bya - in any case - Thanks again for your edits - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 23:50, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * BRIEF Followup - answer may have been found - seems the oceans may have formed as early as => at least 4.404 ± 0.008 bya - based on dating of Zircon minerals - this seems to account for your noted 4.412 bya data - in any regards - Thanks again for your recent editing efforts - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:23, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Hope this helps in some way - Comments Welcome from other editors of course - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:38, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Fix "Odd images" problem with page WP:PURGE
 -- Edit request re odd images --

Copied from "Template talk:Human timeline":

Page has been vandalized, please remove obscene photos. 121.214.61.2 (talk) 12:25, 28 November 2017 (UTC)
 * ✅ - Thank you for your note - now "fixed" - however - affected transcluded pages may need to be refreshed with a "WP:PURGE" - if interested, please see related technical discussion at the following => "Village pump (technical)" - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 14:18, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Hope this helps in some way - in any regards - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 18:23, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

Earliest light - comparison of templates
I think this is mistaken. The date is given as 13.42 Gya, which would amount to 380 My after the Big Bang, plus it is linked to cosmic microwave background. What I think this was meant to express is Decoupling (cosmology), which happened about 380 ky after the Big Bang. I.e. it is off by a factor of 1,000, "380 thousand years" accidentially became "380 million years". Of course there is no way to graphically represent 380 kya on this scale, but this is no reason to just show this single event misplaced by a factor of 1k.

There are other problems with the "cosmological" part (what is "earliest gravity", why are "dark matter" and "dark energy" marked where they are?).

--dab (𒁳) 07:45, 15 April 2018 (UTC)
 * Thank you for your comments - and recent adjustments to the /(original-20180304)(as well as to the /(original-20180408) and the /(original-20180303)).


 * FWIW - Several Notes:


 * Re: "Earliest light in the universe"


 * Originally based, in part, on the following: (also here)


 * Oldest Light in the Universe =>
 * The CMB is a faint cosmic background radiation filling all space that is an important source of data on the early universe because it is the oldest electromagnetic radiation in the universe, dating to the epoch of recombination.
 * – From Cosmic microwave background - Wikipedia


 * Re: "Earliest gravity in the universe"


 * Originally based, in part, on the following:


 * It took 380,000 years for electrons to be trapped in orbits around nuclei, forming the first atoms. These were mainly helium and hydrogen, which are still by far the most abundant elements in the universe. 1.6 million years later, gravity began to form stars and galaxies from clouds of gas.
 * – From The early universe - CERN


 * ALSO – from the lede of the Gravity article =>
 * The earliest instance of gravity in the Universe, possibly in the form of quantum gravity, supergravity or a gravitational singularity, along with ordinary space and time, developed during the Planck epoch (up to 10−43 seconds after the birth of the Universe), possibly from a primeval state, such as a false vacuum, quantum vacuum or virtual particle, in a currently unknown manner. 


 * ALSO – from the book "The Grand Design" by Stephen Hawking
 * The authors write: Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.


 * Hope the above notes help in some way - in any regards - Thanks again - and - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 20:55, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 10 June 2020
Hello, I was wondering if you could change where the words are where the dark age part is. They are overlapping. 2601:40B:8500:2F70:B51F:EBA0:8F9E:79C (talk) 06:29, 10 June 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: I see what you're referring to, but extending the dark area would probably result in an inaccurate graph; and reducing the size of the text would make it unreadable, so I think the current solution is the most appropriate compromise. If, of course, a regular here has a better option feel free to implement it. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 22:58, 13 June 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think you understand the request. The words are completely illegible to some of us. I've made a similar one below. TricksterWolf (talk) 20:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Age of the Alpha Centauri system is marked too old
Currently, this template marks the birth date of the Alpha Centauri system as roughly 6.2 billion years. However, the Alpha Centauri page lists it as just 5.3 billion, which is more plausible since Alpha Centauri A having a mass of 1.1 solar masses would have left the main sequence already to become a giant star. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.206.240.94 (talk) 18:27, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Illegible Annotations
I use Verdana as my default sans-serif font in Chrome, while I assume most people use Arial. Many of the annotations are entirely illegible and hard to click on (in one case, impossible) because they are displayed written on top of one another. Changing the scale in the browser does not fix this. It appears to be due to the fact that Verdana is not quite narrow enough for the labels to fit, and whoever set it up made it just barely wide enough to fit Arial under the assumption that Arial is the only sans-serif font that exists.

Could you please either force the specific font you want the user to see, or else adapt the setup to handle other common sans-serif fonts? Adding 25% to the annotations column's width might be sufficient to account for other common sans-serif fonts. If you don't fix this, it will be illegible for many users. TricksterWolf (talk) 20:37, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
 * and others - Thank you for your comments and concerns - and suggestions - not sure how best to do this - and still maintain a worthy legible layout - at least for some, maybe even most afaik - some of your concerns seem to have been discussed on the "Template talk:Life timeline" page - perhaps in several sections, including the "Template talk:Life timeline" section - perhaps you can make a test template related to your concerns in the "Template:Nature timeline/sandbox" - such a test template could be discussed for "WP:CONSENSUS" by other editors before actually implementing the template in Main Space - hope this helps in some way - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Having just complained about the same thing (cf. [1], [2]), I think it's mildly infuriating to now see that others have previously complained about this and essentially just been brushed off. YOU have caused the problem and YOU have been given clear pointers as to how to fix it. Heck, even just reverting to the original would at least fix most of the relatively recently-created issues. I'm seriously tempted to just delete the (sole iffy) "Earliest star" legend from the original and otherwise revert to that, especially if there's not a positive response. If you won't fix your version, your version needs to go. Fix or be fixed. –ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 08:05, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 January 2021
This figure needs a closing. I can't readily see where (and I can try out, since it's locked for editing). I have, for now, put a closing in the text directly after the figure: see the edit of 8-1-2021, 11:09 for https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Age_of_the_universe&action=history. That one should be removed once the figure is fixed. 2001:981:17D4:1:D5C2:7A86:4E7D:D0C9 (talk) 11:13, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done – Thjarkur (talk) 11:32, 8 January 2021 (UTC)

Original vs New Templates - comments welcome
A new template version has been installed - mostly to improve accessibility by increasing the font-size of text - 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) 13:31, 14 June 2021 (UTC)

"accessibility" improvements considered harmful

 * Re. the new template installed "" ← This has caused more problems than before. See the comment I just posted in § . Overlapping text is worse and less "accessible" than slightly larger text that (just) works on your machine. On my machine, the ORIGINAL had only one instance of overlap, between Earliest stars and Earliest universe, the REVISED version fixed that (by omitting Earliest stars) but created more problems in the Vertebrates/Multicellular life vicinity, and the current timeline, despite being bigger, has the most problems, both up top and at its bottom. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 07:43, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 September 2021
Sorry if this was submitted multiple times - Change the linked page for quasars from this to this - 69.74.33.158 (talk) 14:36, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done for now: It seems to refer specifically to the earliest quasar, so it's probably necessary to get consensus for the change first (per WP:ER). Perhaps you could provide input here? — LauritzT (talk) 16:28, 23 September 2021 (UTC)
 * ✅ Yes - *entirely* agree with the request - note has now been updated to the "Quasar" wikilink - the original note indicated "J0313–1806", earliest known quasar to date, and may be correct at this time - however - the more general, but still accurate, wikilink to "Quasar" may be better - and contain more updated information(s) as newer quasar discoveries are made - hope this helps in some way - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 17:11, 23 September 2021 (UTC)

Layout issues, font sizes and timeline widths
The current timeline too closely depends upon the reader's installed default fonts being a specific size. I am writing this on a Unix-like system where installed fonts may be slightly differently-dimensioned than on the system this timeline was evidently created on. The result is that words wrap, run together and overlap. If I do just a little in-browser client-side editing of font sizes and HTML element widths, I can get the timeline to "look right" – the way I have no doubt it looks on some other popular operating systems or distributions. But I don't think that's just my problem. I think it's generally unhealthy to go right to the limit and depend on everybody else's font sizes being just so. It would be better to fix the timeline, but I'm not quite sure if that can or should be fixed on the Nature timeline template itself or on some other level, possibly the Graphical timeline template. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 07:13, 10 January 2024 (UTC)

PS: Again, the problem is not just font sizes. One problem seems to be that the width of the timeline is overly restrictive, assuming a closely limited max width of the text legend, and with slightly wider characters/fonts, it's easy for some of the longer legends to exceed that, which makes the words wrap. Just being a little more accommodating and giving all the text a little more space around the margins would probably do the trick.

PPS: I have done a quick test. The template as rendered on this page (based on the "ORIGINAL" version) looks right to me, except that maybe Single-celled life could be given a little more room, or shrunk, or shortened to Single-cell life, because it's nearly bursting at the seams. The other versions look significantly more screwed-up and I guess more difficult to fix. Maybe others might want to take a look and chime in if the modified original looks okay to you, especially if you've encountered layout problems with the newer versions.

NB: I think at some point, accessing the old template required going to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:EditPage/Template:Nature_timeline/sandbox4 – I'm just mentioning this in case it helps a third party who might take it upon themselves to help fix the present mess.

PPPS: Just to summarise: As of this writing, people who have previously complained about this issue just on this page include: all of which might be worth reading. —ReadOnlyAccount (talk) 11:46, 10 January 2024 (UTC)
 * in the section,
 * in the above and
 * the sections,
 * and yours truly ,
 * in the above section,
 * the subsection,
 * and this section,
 * the subsection,
 * and this section,


 * (and others) - Thank You for all your comments (here and above) - seems the current Timeline is ok for most readers/users afaik at the moment - however - seems there may be room for improvement for some - you seem much more knowledgeable about all this than I (I'm very limited in my experiences with this) - perhaps one solution may be to make your own Timeline to fit your own particular needs (and perhaps those of some others) - your newly created template could be based on the current one - but named "Template:Nature timeline - 2" instead - perhaps a future WP:CONSENSUS among Editors could decide if your newer one is an improved version and should replace the current one - in any case - Thanks again for your recent comments - Comments Welcome from others about all this of course - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 12:19, 10 January 2024 (UTC)