Show HN: Transform any Wikipedia article into a graphical timeline(observablehq.com)
observablehq.com
Show HN: Transform any Wikipedia article into a graphical timeline
https://observablehq.com/@winkjs/how-to-visualize-timeline-of-a-wiki-article
20 comments
> Love to see a timeline of world history
> You ought to be able to zoom in
IMO history is so complicated, and timelines do not do justice to the nuances.
Being more familiar to us (as contemporaries), what about timelines of recent news? (Wikipedia current events [1], or even HN?). it helps to visualize the bigger picture for those who don't follow very close (which is healthier these days)
Beyond zooming, filtering will also help declutter the UI.
FYI There are already nice open-source timelines widgets like https://github.com/NUKnightLab/TimelineJS3 and http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
> You ought to be able to zoom in
IMO history is so complicated, and timelines do not do justice to the nuances.
Being more familiar to us (as contemporaries), what about timelines of recent news? (Wikipedia current events [1], or even HN?). it helps to visualize the bigger picture for those who don't follow very close (which is healthier these days)
Beyond zooming, filtering will also help declutter the UI.
FYI There are already nice open-source timelines widgets like https://github.com/NUKnightLab/TimelineJS3 and http://www.simile-widgets.org/timeline/
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
Unfortunately each WP article must be converted into a WinkNLP’s document first.
> Love to see a timeline of world history.
Granted. You could start here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Centuries]
Alternately, start where you want. Warning: this will take a while.
> Love to see a timeline of world history.
Granted. You could start here: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Centuries]
Alternately, start where you want. Warning: this will take a while.
Not quite the same, but I've been working on geo-timeline views of Wikidata events.
WWII example: https://conze.pt/explore/World%20War%20II?l=en&t=link-split&...
Works of Rembrandt (by inception date and their location): https://conze.pt/explore/Rembrandt?l=en&t=link-split&i=Q5598...
Showing cultural periods is still to be worked out, but already supported somewhat: https://conze.pt/explore/Victorian%20era?l=en&t=link-split&i...
WWII example: https://conze.pt/explore/World%20War%20II?l=en&t=link-split&...
Works of Rembrandt (by inception date and their location): https://conze.pt/explore/Rembrandt?l=en&t=link-split&i=Q5598...
Showing cultural periods is still to be worked out, but already supported somewhat: https://conze.pt/explore/Victorian%20era?l=en&t=link-split&i...
The old Britannica DVDs had this feature. Last saw it work in 2015. I don't know if they have it in the online subscription.
Aren't timelines usually ordered? Maybe it's a rendering issue (Firefox 106 on a Mac), but I'm seeing 1992 at the top of the timeline, then, as I scroll down, dates from 2021, 2022, 2021, 2022, 2030, 2022, in that order.
It's just a bug in the timeLine code — this would fix it:
return timeline.sort( ( a, b ) => b.unixTime - a.unixTime )Sounds like a rendering issue. I'm also on Firefox on Mac but I see them in correct order. They are however displayed in alternating left-right columns which I guess could mean there's some hackish element ordering behind the scenes.
I’m also getting this strange ordering on mobile Safari.
So am I. Not seem very reliable.
Looks cool, but text is severely crammed (~10 characters per line) on mobile which makes it hard to read.
Love this concept!
Implementation seems a bit erratic, e.g. tried it on the Richard I page (Richard the Lionheart), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England and get most random modern dates of research articles, and virtually none of the basic dates of his life (birth death, etc).
Implementation seems a bit erratic, e.g. tried it on the Richard I page (Richard the Lionheart), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_I_of_England and get most random modern dates of research articles, and virtually none of the basic dates of his life (birth death, etc).
Interesting for me because the example on the page: "2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference" shows a neatly presented timeline that is full of sentences with dates attached that have no consistency with their importance or theme.
Confirmation bias for me is: the software doesn't understand anything so the summary (or transformation) is nonsensical.
Confirmation bias for me is: the software doesn't understand anything so the summary (or transformation) is nonsensical.
The "timeline" for the article about Wikipedia itself starts in 1408, even though the event it chose was on September 9th, 2007. And this theme of seemingly random years being chosen for display continues :D
Right now this tools lacks context awareness.
"Oh, this looks like a date, put this on the timeline!"
Looks cool, but I get a like of CORS errors in the console. Doesn't work.
https://winkjs.org/showcase-timeline/
https://winkjs.org/showcase-timeline/
Oh nice. Check out this, it could be of your interest https://www.historytimeline.com/
I used winkNLP for text highlighting. Thanks for providing this in js.
Link here https://www.castdop.com
When you are "zoomed out" do you get clumped eras like "Victorian" or "Age of Enlightenment"? Or since those are region-specific, does it just give you the regular spacing and boringness of "centuries"? Perhaps region does need to figure into the timeline so for the European belt you could still go with "Industrial Revolution" or "Edwardian" — that would overlap in areas with "Meiji" for Japan.
It also occurs to me that art had its own "eras" as well. Perhaps banding by geophysical location alone is rather limiting.
You ought to be able to zoom in of course and Wikipedia links to major wars (for example) appear — zoom in further and Wikipedia links to specific battles...
But then there are people as well: scientists, monarchs, explorers, artists....
The whole scale of the thing makes my head hurt. But if done "right" it would be, to me, the perfect interface to Wikipedia.