Change date format in site-styled entries

[blue_rampion]

Title:
Change date format in site-styled entries

Area:
entries, site

Summary:
Instead of displaying the date in site-styled entires numerically, the month should be displayed as the name of the month.

Description:
Currently, all dates on site-styled entries are displayed numerically in the year-month-day order. But not everyone in the world is used to that order, so this can cause confusion for readers used to differently-ordered dates - particularly when the day is 12 or under. I'm used to dates being written with the day before the month, and I'm always having to stop and think about dates when I'm reading and remind myself that a date like 2012-07-03 is actually July and not March.

I suggest that dates instead be written with the name of the month in text, because regardless of what order you are used to for dates there's no chance for confusion.

Other solutions could include allowing users to set the order for all dates in their account settings. The benefit here is that everyone could have dates set up exactly how there are used to. But, I would imagine that this would be more difficult to implement and could increase decision fatigue.

Poll #11029 Change date format in site-styled entries

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 50

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
26 (52.0%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
5 (10.0%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
12 (24.0%)

(I have no opinion)
6 (12.0%)

(Other: please comment)
1 (2.0%)

Comments

[msilverstar]

YYYY-MM-DD is really the only way to go, it's easily decoded by people from all over.

[deborah]

+1

There are only two ways to be sure of what date was intended with certain conditions (July 4/April 7, for example). YYYY-MM-DD and spelling out the month. I'm currently writing code that tries to figure out from the context around it what was meant in cataloging when the date used is ##/##/##, and trust me it's very difficult. OH BAD METADATA.

[turlough]

Exactly! (And here in Sweden it's the way everyone writes it. You only ever see someone writing out the month name in handwritten letters and such. In any kind of official or standardised format it's always YYYY-MM-DD.)

[ninetydegrees]

As someone's who's not used to seeing dates in that order, ever, it really isn't.

[msilverstar]

which is more clear, 6/4/12 or 2012/06/04?

[ninetydegrees]

None of them. All I read at first is Day-Month for both because that's what I'm used to so both requires I put numbers in a different order (if the first one is month-day). The first one is less confusing but the last one isn't easier to *read* for me. If the first one's day-month it's actually my country's format.