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

[tyger]

Oh god, that would be an absolute nightmare, yeah.

I use a combination of whatever comes up and site-schemed if it's too narrow for my browser, and yeah, you see a whole lot of different formats. At least when it's [year]-xx-xx, it's USUALLY [year]-[month]-[day], but there's really no way to be sure, early-month. =/

[blue_rampion]

For one site I ended up having to go digging through other random articles until I found one that was dated for a day beyond the 12th in order to be able to tell. And it wasn't like I could just guess from the site, because the site in general seemed international in scope but the article itself was specific to Australia. So it really could have been anything (though it ended up being the American order).

To be fair, out of all the ones written numerically year-month-day is the best one. It's just difficult to read when you're used to dates being written in the completely opposite order. Half the time I'll be looking at dates and automatically reading the month as the day, until I realise what I've been doing and go "...wait. This isn't February, it's October!"

[tyger]

Oh, geeze. D: That sucks.

Yeah, I know what you mean. =/ Dates! Why so complicated, seriously.

[blue_rampion]

Curse you, different standards!

[aunty_marion]

I agree that if numerical, dates formatted as year-month-day are best. I use it myself, as six digits, for file naming, so that things will sort in year/month/day order! i.e. 120703, today, will sort correctly with 120307 (7th March this year) and 110705 (5th July 2011) and 030712 (12th July 2003) and so on!

I've got a different style on my journal, so have selected to have dates appear as (e.g.) Jul. 3rd, 2012. Which is nice and clear. But the option should be there for *anyone* who'd like more clarity.

[blue_rampion]

For file naming I imagine it would definitely be useful, I imagine! That does have a different purpose to it than displaying a date that's meant to be read, though - the numbers you list are definitely useful, but I wouldn't call them easy to read.

I pretty much use the site-scheme comment pages exclusively, so even though you can alter that on journals it's not too useful for me! Although, I do vaguely recall some mention somewhere that DW plans to have the site default pages also coded through the styles system? If I'm remembering that right, perhaps that would allow for more user customisation in terms of display dates.