Can we have a date format that everyone understands back please.

E.g: dd mmm yyyy.

This is an international forum, so why use a date format which is only recognised in the U.S?

It probably uses the US date format because that is where the system is set up.

But I agree: a date format that includes the name of the month instead of a number is much better.

No, they can do it.

I mentioned it to the team last year and eventually I downloaded a copy of the forum software and played around with it for a few minutes to tell them how to do it.

It's just a matter of getting through a couple of menus and typing in 'dd mmm yyyy' if I remember correctly. 30 seconds work.

I don't seem to be getting a 'subscribe' link, either, and adding comments forces a preview.

I believe the forced preview of comments is a spam thwarting measure. We've been hit pretty hard (though mostly in the off season). Previewing isn't as useful to get rid of bots that post on the site for NaNoWriMo, but the lower server requirements of SF seem to make this a very good option.

I'll see if we can turn it off during the actual challenge period though.

The preview isn't a problem, just time-consuming, but the date format is bewildering if you see 04/03/2009 because without checking other dates until you find something over 12, you can't tell what the format is. and then you have to remember what site is set which way. Any date format with 'mmm' in it means no-one will have to wonder if you have been clever enough to localise the dates, or maybe just don't know enough/care enough about the rest of the world to fix it.

And you fixed it last year :-)

It looks wrong and causes confusion. Imagine if you saw 9/11/2001 and it meant November the 9th (which it does to all English speakers outside of North America).

I'm sorry, but it gives the impression that you either don't care or can't be bothered to spend the 60 seconds it takes to change it.

And while I'm in a miserable mood...

...where's the Subscribe To This Thread button?

Oh, and the times are out by an hour - probably due to the US changing to summer-time when the rest of the northern hemisphere is leaving it until the snow has gone :-)

And the metric sys...

OK, I'll leave it there :-P

Ian

I'm sorry, but it gives the impression that you either don't care or can't be bothered to spend the 60 seconds it takes to change it.

Actually, it's neither of the above. ;)

We just have a swamped tech team who is doing as much as they can, and I personally have no idea where this would fall on their priority list. Since it's a minor display issue, I'd guess it's pretty low, but I don't know for sure.

I'll double check the queue, and see if I can put in a request on your behalf, though.

Oh, and the times are out by an hour - probably due to the US changing to summer-time when the rest of the northern hemisphere is leaving it until the snow has gone :-)

Actually, you can change this yourself in your profile. Display time is determined by the offset you set in your profile.

Go to

Administer | Site Configuration | Date and Time

look for "Medium date format"

select one with the month name in it

click 'Save configuration"

30 seconds, max. Surely they can find the time to do that?

What about the email alerts? Are we not going to get them this year?

Please consider:
- It may not be an issue of the time it actually takes - it may be an issue of people who have the access to change what you want being very, very busy with more pressing things (like the functioning of the website).
- I don't know the exact stats, but I'm pretty sure most Script Frenzy participants are in the US. If the staff make the change you're proposing, they'll be confused in the opposite direction to you.

It seems to me like such a minor thing to get so worked up about, especially when it's pretty obvious in context!

Good news! This is one of the few things that, after poking around, I found I have access to.

Date format now includes the full month.