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

[zellieh]

I say this should be implemented, with changes -- I think the main suggestion of [year--named month--day] for dates is great*, and I'd like to see it implemented.

I think the side suggestion of letting people choose their own date order is a terrible idea, though; at least for dates that use all numbers. That means 2012-06-07 could mean 6th of July on some journals, but 7th of June for others, if date format depended on what that journal or community owner preferred.

While logged-in DW users would be able to override that with their own date settings, having contradictory usage on journals and comments would be very confusing for people who don't have a DW account, or who aren't logged in, because different journals & communities would be using different systems.

*ETA: On second thoughts, would this be anglo-centric? Considering month names are different in different languages, is it easier for global users to just use numbers?

Would allowing people to set month-names in languages other than english be difficult to do? What about Greek or Russian? Could existing services for global users be easily extended to cover this?

[kaberett]

Hmm, YYYY-MM-DD is an international standard and therefore probably a good compromise (not that this means it's used that way in practice!). I haven't gone and looked at the code (and should do before blathering about this...!), but suspect that the English-stripping involved would be a bit awkward.

[velocivector]

Hmm. I chose "should be implemented with changes" because my idea is to allow a DW user to choose between American standard and European standard for the date format they see. A site I use frequently, which has a fair number of non-US users, offers this as one of their customization options. This could be easier to implement than your initial proposed "type out the name of the month" thing.

[erik]

I totally support standards-based solutions, and in that sense I think "2012-07-02" is the "right" answer.

But I also support clear communcation. And it's obvious that significant numbers of people don't know about or use that standard. "02-Jul-2012" is impossible to misunderstand. Even if you have to look up the English names of months to figure out which month it is, there's no way to misinterperet it as the seventh of February.

[ninetydegrees]

I think this overlaps http://dw-suggestions.dreamwidth.org/350464.html.

[montuos]

Is it possible to set it up to follow the user's own system format? If so, that might be simplest.