Talk:Timeline of evolution/Archive 2

message: I added an external link to an evolutionary timeline that's a bit more compact.  I also noticed that one of the external links (Palaeos) isn't working so I put it to the bottom.  Made some minor edits, including internal linking to monsoon. Kaimiddleton 21:32, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Some work with the External Links 

message: Well, I've done a bunch of edits tonight, mostly making links, so that mammoth is instead mammoth, etc.  And I received a warning that the article, at 40K, exceeds the recommended maximum 32K length.
Personally I like a lot of information on one page.  E.g., if I'm reading an FAQ I much prefer to have a multi-hundred KB document because I can page through it quickly with the browser.  That's my natural bias. But also, I think this timeline is not easily limited in size.  It is natural to expand it with new information as it comes out (e.g. homo floresiensis).
One thing that the Wikipedia:Article_size guidelines suggest is to break the article into sections.  I don't know if sections would work in a table.  I might try it out to see.  If I read it right, then, so long as each section is under 20K we're good.  And it wouldn't be hard to make arbitrary sections based on some MYA or kYA number; e.g. we could use these sections: >= 1000MYA, 500-1000MYA, 250-500MYA, 65-250MYA, 30-65MYA, 5-30MYA, 1-5MYA, 100kYA-1MYA, 30-100kYA, 0-30kYA, present.  I haven't thought about these numbers much.
What do folks think?
Kaimiddleton 07:56, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Important: The 32k warning is a data relic from earlier versions of MediaWiki. There are no hard and fast rules regarding article length of Wikipedia articles; just use common sense. For example, many featured articles are two or three times over the "limit" (History of Poland (1945–1989) is 73kb, Hugo Chávez is 99kb), but because they're no longer than their subject merits and are already in summary format, it is unnecessary to trim them down further. In fact, almost all featured articles break this arbitrary limit; it's hard to have a good article without going in depth enough to do so. So, don't sweat it—worry about the quality of the article itself, not about blind archaic-rules-following. -Silence 12:02, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for the feedback!  I agree that an emphasis on quality should come first and have been doing a lot of polishing work, in addition to my minor adds here and there.-Kaimiddleton 01:01, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I have absolutely no problem with keeping the timeline on one page, but I still think a split into section should be discussed. The earlier mentioned intervals (>= 1000MYA, 500-1000MYA, 250-500MYA, 65-250MYA, 30-65MYA, 5-30MYA, 1-5MYA, 100kYA-1MYA, 30-100kYA, 0-30kYA, present) could be used as section headers (enclosed by ==), while using the current left-side table cells as subsection headers (enclosed by ===). Yes, that would mean we'd drop the table entirely :-) What do you think? --Fred Bradstadt 13:05, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  The timeline exceeds 32K 

message: I just added an item to the timeline about fossil footprints discovered at 530 MYA in 2002.  Yet the timeline has animals 'invading' the land at 450 MYA.  That's quite a few MYs in between, there.  Can anyone comment on this, especially as we're going on 4 years with this discovery? Kaimiddleton 00:17, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 'Ancient sandstone is notoriously difficult to date.'
That quote from the margin might help explaine. I'd think that the info added might be better left out till it is concrete and less speculative. 12.20.127.229 19:41, 23 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  First footprints 530 MYA, animals invade the land 450 MYA? 

message: 21 MYA: A mongoose-like creature floats to Madagascar from Africa on a raft of vegetation. Becomes ancestor of all carnivorous mammals there.
That's just silly. Someone do something.
:And if you know about this subject, please also address this line: 
:64 MYA  Lemurs cross the ocean into Madagascar from Africa mainland. 
:Kaimiddleton 21:43, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Explanation for arrival of carnivores on Madagascar 

message: Here's another request for someone to make a fix:  when does this event occur?  The timeline has two entries:
5 MYA: Volcanoes erupt and create the small area of land that joins North and South America
3 MYA: North and South America become joined, allowing migration of animals.
Which is it?  Can someone work this through?
Kaimiddleton 22:06, 26 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  North America meets South America 

message: Tierra del Fuego is described as "the last continental region to be inhabited by humans". But surely it's an island (or an archipelago), rather than a continental region. --OpenToppedBus - Talk to the driver 10:13, 22 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tierra del Fuego

message: I'm a bit worried about the reliability of some of the information in here. For example, it talks about the extinction of Homo floresiensis, a species discovered only a few years ago. I'm not arguing that the estimated extinction is wrong (that'd be original research), but should something that is still at the bleeding edge of science be included in a timeline like this? Andjam 03:52, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The date of extinction of H. floresiensis is unknown and probably always will be disputed.  Ebu Gogo indicates it may have survived until quite recently. -- —Moondyne 05:30, 3 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reliability of information 

message: I found the first term in a book and the second in a footnote of this article. Do they refer to the same thing, the ancient water mass from where (they say) all forms of life started, or are they different? Adam78 19:26, 5 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Primordial tide pool = primordial sea/ocean? 

message: The timeline states 360 Ma as an estimate for when seeds evolved. Does anyone have a citation for this or know where this figure came from? I'd like to use it for History of Earth. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 05:40, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Took a quick look at K.J. Willis and J.C. McElwain, The evolution of plants. Oxford: OUP, 2002. Their chart on p. 93, and text, shows seeds present in the geological record from the Carboniferous period onwards, i.e. 354 Ma onwards. The earliest seed plants were the seed ferns (Palaeozoic pteridosperms). So 360 Ma seems an acceptable figure, given that something like a seedcoat was evolving in the Late Devonian (370-354 Ma). Mark Nesbitt 07:20, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: That is extremely helpful. Thanks! — Knowledge Seeker দ 07:14, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of seed reference? 

message: I was just wondering: why not give this article the more broad and simple name of just "timeline of life"? This would help clear up any potential confusing between this article and the "history of evolutionary thought" page, and it would clear up people's misconceptions over the idea that evolution and the history of life are somehow distinct concepts. -Silence 00:41, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. History of life (currently a redirect) is another alternative, but maybe Timeline is more appropriate given that the article is a list. -- bcasterline • talk 01:09, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, "Timeline" is fine as-is, since this page is a timeline (and hence a list), not a prose history (unlike History of Earth). So, should I make the move, or should we wait for more feedback? -Silence 00:28, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Comment: The article seems a timeline of the evolution of life towards us and and some things we care about.  Which is fine.  People are more interested in lions than in extinct ecosystems and classes.  Or even than in all existent insects, or in the plants which dominate our planet.  But a timeline format article on life?  If it was rewritten as prose, would History of Life be a good title?  Maybe.  Perhaps a History of when new forms of life showed up?  It seems the "evolution" in the title is actually saying something significant about what the article does and doesn't cover.  Timeline of life's evolution?  I'm not objecting, merely noting reservations. 66.30.119.55 23:13, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Though if someone wanted to make it more like the history of life, that could be nice.  I was just now wishing for more biome information.  You can sort of read between the lines ("at N Ma, all the components of a grassland exist, so maybe so does it").  Ie, moving beyond when individual species evolved, to what you would see if you were there.  But that might be a different article.  And require a lot more work.  66.30.119.55 05:02, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Title discussion: why not "timeline of life"? 

message: I would have more easily understood the timeline if there was an orienting sentence, a mini-timeline, to help provide context.  Rather than having to work one out myself.
Eg, Basically, since 4000 Ma, simple cells; since 3000 Ma, photosynthesis; since 2000 Ma, complex cells; and since 1000 Ma, multi-cellular life.. 66.30.119.55 23:30, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Upon being able to see the big picture, the biggest suprise for me was that mammals had been around for 1/10 the time of multicellular life (and 1/3 the time of animals in general).  I had thought of them as more recent.  66.30.119.55 04:40, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add an overview sentence? 

message: Perhaps more of the text should be turned into links?   Many of the concepts mentioned now have their own articles.  A higher than usual density of linkage might make for more interesting browsing.  Hopefully without significantly reducing clarity.  66.30.119.55 05:22, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Please review WP:MOS-L and WP:CONTEXT. -Silence 03:27, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *Good stuff from everyone.  It is a question that requires some balance.  Here's a proposal: make the change all at once (or in two or three steps in the same evening), then ask people what they think.  If people don't like it we can revert easily enough, without intertwined changes; otherwise, you've made an improvement. Kaimiddleton 06:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Add additional links? 

message: I've added Cynodictus, or dawn dog, the progenitor of modern dogs.  But I'm not sure of the correct date.  I've seen 40 million years ago, but I've also seen 30 million years ago.  If someone could narrow it down that would be great. Kaimiddleton 16:00, 9 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Cynodictus]] 

message: I judge an article by 3 criteria. Does it answer my questions? Does it provide me with new info that deepens my understanding? Is it clearly written and well-organised? Yes, on all 3 points. Don't worry about people who want the Olympic Games in Sydney to be on the list. You can't please everyone. You have made good list choices. The non-bilogical stuff, mainly the origin of Solar System is there to frame and give context to what follows. The extinctions are obviously important, so are tectonic plate splitups. 
Naturally, we humans we have a specific interest in the geneology of our own species, and few would expect us to organise such a list from the viewpoint of a gerbil. Development of tools is a must inclusion, and landing on the moon is significant as the first step to a wider colonisation of space prefigured by the earlier ones. The later human stuff too gives a reader a good sense of the vast scale of this timeline, events in Western "ancient history" are but seconds in the grand narrative. And that's a perspective that is well-worth presenting clearly. While we think of history in terms of thousands of years rather than millions and thousands of millions, we cannot grasp the nature of evolutionary history. Altogether, a well-considered and wisely chosen selection.Leave it as it is. Certainly, no nukes, no UN, no Black Death.
This would be set off beutifully with a good overview of what follows. Something that points out life has been on Earth for about one quarter of the time that the Earth has existed, and that for most of this time, that life was of the unicellular type. Then a couple of lines on the reign of the dinosaurs and the emergence of mammals etc. Lists can be great lookup devices, but they tend to atomise info. Typically, and most especially for a novice reader, they require some more discursive background material to tie the whole thing together. Put that in and you've got a winner.
abzorba 08:07, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: History of Earth may have some of what you are looking for. — Knowledge Seeker দ 08:27, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  needs intro par. overview/summary main strands 

message: Says that all carnivores derive from a common ancestory. Any sources? thx--sin-man 06:42, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 21Mya

message: I thought the oldest fossilized life was 3.3-3.5 billion years old in Australia and South Africa. I thought the first photosynthetics were about as old. I also thought the moon formed within 30 million of earth's final form.GetAgrippa 21:57, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Oldest life

message: what does the unit KY stand for, this should be stated in the intro. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.26.102.42 (talk) 04:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: KY