Template talk:Philosophy of time

Time related templates

Time is a pretty vast subject, and it's impossible (or, at least, very unwise) to try to group all of it into a single template. A cautionary lesson is the defunct Template:Culture of China. It ran on for hundreds and hundreds of links, but the articles were better served by a few interlocking templates, which they enjoy now.

My intent is to build a loose hierarchy of Time templates. There will a good deal of overlap, especially regarding calendars.

I have no absolute goal in mind for the templates, and expect Wikipedians to edit them to suit. A general goal is, of course, to make articles on Time more accessible and interrelated.

Some suggestions:

• The Time Portal will display all the templates.
• Don't duplicate Template:Calendars, which is very concise and useful, into another template. Calendar topics are bound to show up in several Time templates, but none should be a list like the one in the Calendars template.
• Individual articles should preferably have just one, and no more than two or three Time templates. There may be exceptions, but the goal is to resolve clutter and confusion, not create it.
• Let the Geology editors work out their own Era templates. This may well apply to other disciplines; it's enough to link to chronology and overview pages about time in various disciplines.

Cheers, Yamara ✉ 22:05, 17 March 2008 (UTC)