Change Date Format?

[StuM]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

I understand that is an "international forum" and that dd/mm/yyyy is used in the majority of the world, but it is extremely confusing to folks who do not use this format in their day-to-day lives and have to do the conversion in their heads -especially when the Date is <13 so there is no context.

Welcome the the pain that so many of us feel daily when we visit US-centric sites or use US-centric software.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Is this still true, that the date format can not be changed in the member's individual settings? I've looked and couldn't find it in my "control panel" and most of the threads like this one discussing this lack of a feature are quite old.

There is no option for members to change the date configuration. You can change the time zone and order that posts and threads display but the date format is a software setting that affects every forum member. If we change it to the mm/dd/yy format common in North America, it changes for every forum member so the over arching question is "which members should we confuse" ??

To date, we have chosen to retain the status quo as it seems to be the least amount of confusion.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by BlackHeron

Is this still true, that the date format can not be changed in the member's individual settings? I've looked and couldn't find it in my "control panel" and most of the threads like this one discussing this lack of a feature are quite old.

I understand that is an "international forum" and that dd/mm/yyyy is used in the majority of the world, but it is extremely confusing to folks who do not use this format in their day-to-day lives and have to do the conversion in their heads -especially when the Date is <13 so there is no context. Forum members can currently choose a time zone instead of being forced to display zulu time, they are even allowed to chose the starting day of the week for the calendar.

Every other internet forum I have participated in since around the turn of the last century allows for the date format to be customizable. Even the old AOL and Compuserve forums from the 90's allowed this. I wonder if this forum is hosted on modern computers that can effortlessly do simple date code translations for us users, or is it written in ink on papyrus reed paper by ancient and holy scribes?

Sorry to resurrect a zombie thread from the far-back past but let's just say I got confused reading the date and didn't realize how old it was.

Wifey B: Come on dude. Sorry you resurrected it too to whine because you must make a very small mental adjustment. How do you handle a 24 hour clock as opposed to 12 hour? Of all the things to rant about.

Then the software and papyrus and all. If you look at the bottom of the page, you'll see the forum is powered by vBulletin, the most used forum software still. Has zip to do with any server capability, just the software.

Zulu time? Omg where did you get that? I know GMT would be awful for you. If looking at numbers in a different order is an issue, I can only imagine if you had to subtract.

What happens to you when people here start talking metric and kilometers and meters and all that oddball stuff? Can you handle it? Knots vs mph and nm vs statute? Are you able to convert?

I'm just giving you a hard time but this really is silly.

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Janet H

There is no option for members to change the date configuration. You can change the time zone and order that posts and threads display but the date format is a software setting that affects every forum member. If we change it to the mm/dd/yy format common in North America, it changes for every forum member so the over arching question is "which members should we confuse" ??

To date, we have chosen to retain the status quo as it seems to be the least amount of confusion.

Wifey B: Oh, I have an idea. Change it back and forth based on the day of the month. But then the day of the month where? Ooh, that's a hard one.

[Janet H]

Originally Posted by BandB

Wifey B: Oh, I have an idea. Change it back and forth based on the day of the month. But then the day of the month where? Ooh, that's a hard one.

hmm... yes but I would have to remember to change the settings every month ... or day or no, wait... I am confused

Originally Posted by Janet H

To date, we have chosen to retain the status quo as it seems to be the least amount of confusion.

Sigh... ironic pun totally ignored....

[BandB]

Originally Posted by Janet H

hmm... yes but I would have to remember to change the settings every month ... or day or no, wait... I am confused




Sigh... ironic pun totally ignored....

Wifey B: Sorry for ignoring your pun, Marilyn.

I think you people on the west coast should be forced to switch to eastern time too. It's only right. Oh, and I do hate returning to standard time. Hate, hate, hate. Daylight thieves. I think I'll petition FL to protest. In a tourist and boating state it's clear that losing an hour of daylight is expensive.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by jackdale

The international format defined by ISO (ISO 8601) tries to address all these problems by defining a numerical date system as follows: YYYY-MM-DD where

YYYY is the year [all the digits, i.e. 2012]
MM is the month [01 (January) to 12 (December)]
DD is the day [01 to 31]

If it does get changed universally, this is the way to do it.

Would you write 1 million 900 thousand as:
"0000091"?
Or worse "9001000"?

I use a similar format for all file naming now. It starts with YYMMDD.
4 digit year usually isn't needed as I don't expect to be around long enough to see 2100 and I can't go back in time to create files in the 1900's.

Makes it a whole lot easier to sort by date.

[SailRN]

I've tried to find a way to change the date time format, but tech support could only tell me to use the limited options provided.

Almost any other forum that I've utilized over the years has a method to reset the date time format to an individual personal preference:

[IMG]
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Since the forum has grown to be an international venue, how about considering using an international date and time format, i.e., the ISO 8601?

https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601

Where does the current format come from? Very unusual.

[StuM]

Almost any other forum that I've utilized over the years has a method to reset the date time format to an individual personal preference:

Not if they are using vBulletin which is a fairly popular forum package.



Since this comes up periodically, why not change the forums date format to something that's clearly understood by all. On another vBulletin forum I'm a member of, dates are displayed as d mmm yyyy i.e. 11 May 2021.

Of course that may not be feasible since the forum owners have not got around to updating the vBulletin version for many years. It's still running on a Beta version of 3.8.8, Ver 4 was released in 2009 and ver 5 in 2012! The current version is 5.6.4. ver 3 went "End of Life" in 2017.


FWIW, even in ver 5.6.4 date format is not individually customisable - it's still a global setting.
The required vBulletin string for a date formatted as "1 Jan 2021" is "j M Y"

[Montanan]

Looks like a Y2K issue.

[SailRN]

That's incredible that the current version of this BB software doesn't support individual date time preferences!


The international standard, ISO 8601, is presumably the most recognized format, i.e., YYYY-MM-DD and 24 h time.



Even prior to learning it was the international standard I used it for all my date purposes as it naturally sorts in chronological order.


I've run BB systems for years and everything else that I've encountered allows the user to set their individual preferences for the display of date and time, and these settings do not affect other user's preferences for their date time display format.


Even in emails I send and receive, the date formats change smoothly. I send using YYYY-MM-DD and the recipient sees it as they prefer, such as May 11, 2021 commonly used in the U.S. (where ISO-8601 is the legal standard).

[SailRN]

If I remember correctly, the pHp string for ISO-8601 is:


%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S


2021-05-11T22:30:00

[Montanan]

Originally Posted by SailRN

. . .

Even in emails I send and receive, the date formats change smoothly. I send using YYYY-MM-DD and the recipient sees it as they prefer, such as May 11, 2021 commonly used in the U.S. (where ISO-8601 is the legal standard).

Except on the 4th of July.

But the day before is July 3rd and the day after is July 5th.

Months have names use them instead of numbers, then there is no confusion.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Except on the 4th of July.

But the day before is July 3rd and the day after is July 5th.

Months have names use them instead of numbers, then there is no confusion.

At least they are used in the "Join Date". Imagine if you were shown as "Join Date: 10 14"

[SailRN]

Originally Posted by Janet H

Just confirming that it is not possible to change this display on a member by member basis.... you are not the first to make the request, but given the international nature of the board we've opted for the current display.

Hmmm, the international standard is ISO-8601, which is


YYYY-MM-DD and 24 h time.


The current display is certainly not international!