Why use different date formats on an international forum?

[cristo]

One more option: if (now - timestamp < 24 hours) then show the time, else show the date. A posted time that exceeds the current time is easily understood to be yesterday's. However I'm not sure if this would end up being clear or confusing. It may require posting the current time somewhere to prevent confusion due to different time zones. Maybe not, opinions welcomed.

I think that would get extremely confusing!

But whatever format is used in the end, it should be consistent on all pages for the sake of clarity as well as ease of coding (single time formatting function).

Finally, for the sake of international clarity, dropping the US-specific date (dis)ordering should be considered. I think the yyyy-mm-dd format is universally understood.

I don't think that's necessary either. I wasn't familiar with the US date conventions when I first joined, but it takes (like the Y and T) a few days to get used to.

 

[out of whack]

I think that would get extremely confusing!

Yeah, on further consideration its not the brightest idea...

I wasn't familiar with the US date conventions when I first joined, but it takes (like the Y and T) a few days to get used to.

Speaking of confusing... Yes, I've seen the US date format all my life, but also other date formats. When I come across 03.04.05 I have to check the source to know if it means 2003-APRIL-05, 2005-APRIL-03 or 2005-MARCH-04. It's not hard to lose track when you go from one document to the other and I got it wrong a few times. But then, everyone seems to agree on what 2005-04-03 means. What reason can there be to use anything else on an international forum?

 

[Kurdt]

Well considering the majority of the world uses dd/mm/yyyy it should be that.

The T and the Y I've already gotten used to and if its needed to keep the overall aesthetics of the site in check I don't mind. The time stamps were something I always loved from the Nexus skin. They are much more useful.

 

[out of whack]

I support http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-time.html" .

 

[robphy]

Yeah, on further consideration its not the brightest idea...
Speaking of confusing... Yes, I've seen the US date format all my life, but also other date formats. When I come across 03.04.05 I have to check the source to know if it means 2003-APRIL-05, 2005-APRIL-03 or 2005-MARCH-04. It's not hard to lose track when you go from one document to the other and I got it wrong a few times. But then, everyone seems to agree on what 2005-04-03 means. What reason can there be to use anything else on an international forum?

While I personally use yyyy-mm-dd to label versions of files and while it is more logical,
I find it visually more appealing to read (especially when scanning quickly) dd-mm-yyyy or the more familiar but less-logical mm-dd-yyyy... since most of the years will be the same.

For me, the goal of the timestamps in the list of recent posts
is to identify the most-recent and most-active discussions.
(Since I'm daydreaming... let me go on to say that it would be
cool to have some color coding to indicate the level of recent activity ("hot topic") based on the rate of recent-postings rather than the number of posts. [I haven't decoded the envelope-symbols on the left column.] It would also be nice to see some kind of "quality of discussion" rating as seen in http://www.fatwallet.com/c/18/ ..maybe one-vote per user, like the Photo Contests... maybe more weight to votes by Mentors etc...)