Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/Timeline of the far future/archive3

The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Dabomb87 14:57, 18 August 2012 [1].

Timeline of the far future

Nominator(s):User: RJHall, User:Spacepotato, User: Joe Kress, User:Arthur Rubin, Serendi ^pod ous 20:12, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am nominating this for featured list because it has been heavily improved since its last FLC and I think it is ready. Serendi ^pod ous 20:13, 12 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Arsenikk ^(talk) 20:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

;Comments from Arsenikk ^(talk)

The key should be placed under the table of contents, for instance in a key section.
I would like to have seen the statements in the lead referenced, even though they also are in the tables. Generally speaking, leads in lists do not have the same "lead reference wavier" that articles have.
The use of symbols needs some sort of ALT text for non-graphical readers.
- Hopefully someone with a bit more experience at accessibility could look at the issue, but in my understanding the ALT should provide information on the symbol's meaning (math, astro etc.) rather than its shape in this case. Arsenikk ^(talk) 20:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
In the first table, three of four sentences in a row start with "by this time". Perhaps rephrase at least one to vary the text more.
"carbonate-silicate cycle" should be carbonate-silicate cycle"
- A bit cryptic from me as the latter should have included an endash. I've fixed this myself. Arsenikk ^(talk) 20:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Why does eukaryotic life die out?
Anything that "practical observational limit" could link to?
Don't think "Cosmic Microwave Background" should be capitalized.
What does "§IID" and the like refer to?

Those are chapter/paragraph references, I think. Serendi ^pod ous 23:34, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would recommend including these in the references, as they are neither user-friendly nor intuitive. Arsenikk ^(talk) 20:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Under astronomical events I would have included an additional column for the exact date. The very few entries without a specific date can have a centered emdash.
Why is the shared year number of the Islamic and Gregorian calendar marked as astronomic, while the one-year separation of the Julian and Gregorian calendars marked as mathematical? I would have though they would have had the same category.

Arsenikk ^(talk) 22:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Issues resolved :-) Serendi ^pod ous 09:50, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would like to have an experienced reviewer have a look at the ALT texts for the key symbols before I support the nomination. Arsenikk ^(talk) 20:25, 15 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from RexxS:

This is an attractive list and I found it very enjoyable reading. It's clear the nominator has put a lot of effort into pulling together many disparate sources to produce a compelling narrative. I have a few points that could be considered:

I assume that it is not intended to be an exhaustive list of predictions, so it might be useful for the nominator to say something in the introduction about the criteria used to determine inclusion in the list.
Good alt text on images is a real help for visitors who are using assistive technology like screen readers. The list would be improved if the top image had alt text that gave a blind visitor an idea of what they would reach if the followed the link there. Since such text is read out immediately before the caption, it needs to complement, not duplicate the text in the caption. Of course if the caption contains all the relevant information, then it becomes difficult to think of things to put into the alt text, which is one of the reasons why it is omitted so often in our articles. Nevertheless we break WCAG guidelines if we have a image that links elsewhere without text that lets the reader know where the link goes. The experience for a visually impaired visitor would be improved if the alt text read something like "View the media page" or "View the black hole image page". In other words, we have the opportunity to give some useful information to the screen reader in the otherwise unused alt text.
Similarly for the symbols used in the key, we have an opportunity to use the alt text to give information directly to anyone using a non-visual user agent (like screen readers and text-only browsers). What sounds better:

"A five-pointed star; 36,000; The small red dwarf star Ross 248 passes within 3.024 light years of Earth, becoming the closest star to the Sun." or

"Astronomy and astrophysics; 36,000; The small red dwarf star Ross 248 passes within 3.024 light years of Earth, becoming the closest star to the Sun."

I'd say the latter because it does not require the listener to remember all of the symbols used in the key when traversing the tables. A sighted visitor can easily find the key table and refresh their memory, but a non-sighted visitor will have much more difficulty. I'd recommend replacing the alt text for each of the symbols with the classification that it represents (change "a Greek letter psi" to "Particle physics", for example).
Have you considered using list defined references to move the bulk of the references out of the tables? In featured content that is not likely to undergo much change they can help make tables much more readable for an editor to "tweak". This is, of course, only personal preference, so feel free to ignore it.

As each of the tables follows close to a second level heading, a caption would almost certainly duplicate the header, so it would probably not improve the article to include table captions. Additionally, none of the tables contain obvious row headers, so I would not insist that they comply with that element of Wp:DTT. I hope I've been able to give some food for thought. --RexxS (talk) 20:45, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

- I hope I've managed to answer your concerns re: alt text
- I haven't got the hang of LDR yet. I'll need time to practice. Serendi ^pod ous 21:24, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- I haven't really thought about inclusion criteria. The only things I've decided to keep out were contradictory, such as when all eight planets will align on one side of the Sun (by the time this is possible, the Solar System will be planetless). Serendi ^pod ous 21:32, 19 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Thanks, that's all good work and will be appreciated by visually impaired visitors. I notice that TRM has worries about compliance with WP:DTT, so I've added column scope to the column headers in the first big table as a demo for you. You should apply the same markup to the column headers in the other tables, or if you're uncertain, I can do it for you. It's only a small improvement, but it helps ensure that all screen readers will correctly identify the headers for each column. I could ask User:Br'er Rabbit to work some magic and clean the bulk of the references out of the tables for you, if you would like? --RexxS (talk) 22:00, 19 July 2012 (UTC)Serendi ^pod ous 14:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for doing that for me. Didn't want to seem like a shirker but I'm on GMT and went to sleep soon afterwards. :-) Serendi ^pod ous 07:11, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This is how you do LDR. That's about half of them done. Before doing the rest, the <ref> need |name= assigned. fyi, you've seen my work before. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 08:25, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've had a go. Serendi ^pod ous 10:57, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

So I see. And I've been in there, too. The tool to do this is User:PleaseStand/References segregator:

var SegregateRefsJsAllowConversion = true;
importScript('User:PleaseStand/segregate-refs.js');

You need that var set true; see the doc. I did some of Ralph's suggestions; expect you saw. There are 5 still refs that should be re-cast in citation templates. Some you may want to shift to being explanatory notes using {{efn}} and {{notes}}. Interesting read, terima kasih. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 14:27, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Not sure what needs doing. As far as I can tell the refs have all been converted. Serendi ^pod ous 14:53, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The ones not using templates are:

<ref name="hl">
<ref name="mini2">
<ref name="solex">
<ref name="greg2">
<ref name="sublight">

Have a look and see if you think a few would be better as notes. I'm thinking "hl", "solex", and "greg2". Br'er Rabbit (talk) 16:38, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done, though for some reason Wikipedia can't read the last two references. Serendi ^pod ous 20:17, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

See WP:REFNEST. mw:Extension:Cite/Cite.php (ref tags) can't nest, so footnotes inside of endnotes don't work. (This is avoided by harv/sfn referencing.) Anyway, I fixed it by putting the footnotes alongside the endnotes in the prose. Br'er Rabbit (talk) 10:03, 21 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I am just wondering if the list would not be more useful if all tables are merged with an extra category column. Nergaal (talk) 18:04, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Personally, I think it would make the list unreadable. Serendi ^pod ous 19:03, 20 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 17:34, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comments thanks for your good work with RexxS on improving the accessibility of the list, excellent stuff.

Not keen at all on the opening "... this list of predictions ..." which we've tried to avoid quite seriously for the past year or more at FLC.
If you want to link planet, do it the first time in the lead.
" renders the constellations unrecognisable" really? All constellations will be unrecognisable? I guess you mean compared with today's version in any case?
You convert km but not km³ into Imperial measurements, be consistent.
"3200 km3" vs " 7,000 km " comma or not? conversion or not?
What's the criteria for adding a ~ to the year claim? Surely all of the far future years are ~?
"Approximate time until the..." no need for "Approximate time until.." because all entries could start like this.
" Chandra X-Ray Observatory " r of Ray is not capitalised.
Link K on the first occasion.
Be consistent with relinking, you relink magma but not black dwarf, for instance.
" extremely rare astronomical events" what's the inclusion criteria for "extremely rare"?

Basically, I can find a source for it. Serendi ^pod ous 17:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Rambling Man (talk) 14:57, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other issues resolved. Serendi ^pod ous 17:31, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but it's a crying shame to nominate such a crap. Not only a content crap, but also a typography crap with various ~~a-z s~~ and x 10² es visible by the naked eye. I leave an article with a better typesetting after one random edit. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 17:58, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, thanks for your interest in the process. If you could provide some constructive comments that the nominator(s) could work on, based on the FL criteria, that would be great, otherwise just designating a notation as "crap" is poor form and will be disregarded. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:02, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, there are no lame-hyphs: "carbon-oxygen star" is correct indeed. But there are x's. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:12, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Again, that's certainly useful to someone, but constructive comments that can be dealt with by all of us would be appreciated. Thanks. The Rambling Man (talk) 18:38, 22 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Leaning support - I looked through this, found it fascinating and frightening at the same time. Attractive list, well referenced, prose looks fine. Leaning support as I'm not a subject matter expert here and as such can't vouch for the accuracy of the article. Would prefer someone with greater knowledge vet it first. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:31, 5 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Support pretty much what Crisco said. The table was a very good idea. Regards.--Kürbis (✔) 08:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Comments You're inconsistent with the dates in the references using 3 date formats example "2007-10-29" "2 April 1994" and "June 11, 2009". Ref 1, 40 isn't working. Ref 14 has no retrieval date. Ref 14, 16, 18 month is shortened ala comment made earlier. What does "Personal web site" mean in Ref 47. An ordinary user may not understand "Minitial" in Ref 48, it may be useful to internally link it. Ref 79 "Solex" doesn't need to be in all caps. Ref 84, 90 doesn't have a publisher. Ref 88 might be better served with their about page. Afro (Talk) 10:25, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've resolved most of your issues but am not sure what the problem is with ref 18. Serendi ^pod ous 12:02, 10 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well the number may of changed to 16, per WP:DATE dates should follow the same format, they don't in the refs. Afro (Talk) 09:46, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed. Serendi ^pod ous 10:21, 11 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

If a subscription is required for Ref 5 it should be noted otherwise it doesn't seem to mention anything regarding what's sourced.

I believe you have an extra square bracket on Ref 27.

Not that I can see. Serendi ^pod ous 14:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ref 39, 40, 50 dates aren't consistent with the rest of the refs.

Ref 79, 82 have no publisher.

I am still interested in what "Personal web site" means on Ref 47.

Thought I got rid of that; it's not a personal web site, it's published by his university, so I don't know why that's there. Serendi ^pod ous 14:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

How reliable is Universe Today, the site looks like a blog and their contact me page suggests it's enthusiasts.

I'm going to call into question think-aboutit.com as well for Ref 62 the sites disclaimer isn't encouraging regarding the accuracy of what they post.

bluewaterarts.com I'm calling into question regarding their credibility, mainly Bill Spencer who seems to of compiled this list mainly his background in science or lack of. Afro (Talk) 11:39, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Other issues resolved. Serendi ^pod ous 14:05, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

On Ref 27 it reads "[astro-ph.EP]." extra square bracket?

It's how the template displays it. The only option is to remove it. Serendi ^pod ous 08:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Once again dude inconsistent date formats which seem unresolved I only harp on it per WP:DATE.

Afro (Talk) 04:52, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I have raked through the references til they bled. If there are any missed dates now, they exist in another dimension. Serendi ^pod ous 08:21, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from GRAPPLE X 15:38, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

*Comments. A very fascinating subject, I really enjoyed reading this list. That said I do have a few small issues to raise.

The icon-based key, while interesting, does create a bit of an issue with scrolling as I found myself having to return to the key every time a new icon appeared. If the images all had a caption defined, then mousing over them would produce the relevant text and save some time. This only needs to be the same as the alt text, so for example [[File:Five Pointed Star Solid.svg|16px|alt=astronomy and astrophysics]] would become [[File:Five Pointed Star Solid.svg|16px|alt=astronomy and astrophysics|Astronomy and astrophysics]]. An example of how this works in practice can be seen on any of the images on the Main Page if you'd like to see it.
I assume you're working with the short scale here; perhaps a brief mention of this would be useful as it's not as readily recognisable to a reader as things like ENGVAR differences (unless you write out digits, "billion", "quadrillion", etc, mean vastly different numbers in different countries). A note after the first use of "billion" might be the best way.
I'm not sure about note b and its intention; surely it would apply as readily to quite a few entries on the list as well, such as the entry two places above the one it's attached to.

Aside from these I think this is a solid entry and I'd be inclined to support it. GRAPPLE X 23:14, 12 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Serendi ^pod ous 08:12, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Changes look good to me, happy to support. GRAPPLE X 15:38, 13 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support I've done a quick run through of some of the incorrect date formats and there appears to be no other issues with the list so I'll support. Afro (Talk) 08:57, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

~~Hold. Unfortunately, the recent changes to date styles have left the references with a mish-mash of styles.~~ I am not referring to having just month and year, or just year; that is not the problem. But whenever you use full dates for publication dates, they must be consistent with each other. Similarly, all access dates also must be the same format as each other, although it is not a requirement that they use the same format as publication dates. There's a summary at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Dates and numbers #Consistency.

I'm sorry but what do you guys want? I made all the dates consistent, and then they were all changed. So which do you want? Serendi ^pod ous 12:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I've gotten most of them, I think. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 14:02, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, Crisco. I'm sorry I wasn't sufficiently specific, Serendipodous. If you look at the article as it was when I commented, you'll see, for example, that reference #16 had a publication date of "2009-07-29" while #30 had a publication date of "1 May, 2008" and there are others. For future reference, you need to pick a format for publication dates and stick to it for all of the references (bearing in mind that some will necessarily be just "1999" and some may be like "April 1997"). I think that the article in its current state meets my concerns and I've struck my request to hold. --RexxS (talk) 14:44, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A note to Serendipodous, I stuck with DD-MM-YYYY since that's what the majority of in-text dates were written as. WP:DATESPROJ has several scripts that can help. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 16:15, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

My rationale regarding the dates was and I apologize if I read it incorrectly but I didn't spot anything in WP:DATE regarding the month and year solely on there own and thought 2006-04 for example would be somewhat misleading and harder to understand for a reader so I didn't change that but 1 May, 2008 was an incorrect date format and I thought it was inconsistent with the Year-Month-Day format for the publication format. Afro (Talk) 09:27, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I looked through the list, and could not find any issues. Congrats! TBran dl ey 16:17, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Quick comment – Just scanned the references quickly, and noticed that reference 2 is to a book without page numbers. Seeing as page numbers help with verifiability, would it be possible to add some to cover the points this book cites? Giants2008 (Talk) 21:23, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I hope that's not a deal-breaker, because sorting it out would take hours in a library. Serendi ^pod ous 22:26, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Amazon.com have a "look inside" option for the book in question that might help solve that, search for the key terms being cited and it should at least indicate the pages mentioning them, if it doesn't outright display them to read. GRAPPLE X 22:32, 15 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can't find it. Serendi ^pod ous 11:09, 16 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.