Feedback - kind of

[Lupp]

How you ("the forum") are doing? You are doing well!

But - what about the date format used for labelling every topic, every reply, every user ('Joined ...'), too?

I didn't review every single one of the topics in the 'Calc' board - about 13 000 that are. Who did it and can tell how many problems related to deprecated formats were the reason for a cry for help? Mainly deprecated (regional, ambiguous, misinterpretative, ...) formats of date and time, are causing a lot of problems, obviously. Nonetheless they seemingly are used often by habit - also, in many cases, for "values" of that kind when importing from or exporting to plein text files (.csv .txt mostly). This, of course, in many cases by people who did not clearly understand some of the basic concepts of Calc and who therefore cannot find a solution by themselves and also find it difficult to understand good advice. Talking primarily of 'Calc' doesn't mean 'Writer' was not involved. The "often used by habit" does mainly apply to people from the US and the UK (and those mimicking them slavishly). But I honestly don't feel sure about whether "7/10" shall denote the "7th day of October" or the "10th of July". We should be prepared to experience different use here and there. What a pity! What risk of loosing time, money and even more because of misinterpretations.

Taking last week alone we had a significant number of related calls for help . (True for this forum and for two others I also contribute sometimes to.)

My concern and my request: Might not this great forum go one step ahead and switch to internationally recognised formats (best closely but not slavishly following ISO 8601 like using the 'Calc Format Code' "DDD, YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm (UTC)" ). Many contributors and many of those seeking help here are NOT US or UK residents! I can tell you that the German analog of the "AM/PM" notation has (nearly) completely vanished from writing. There is hope.

[acknak]

Good point! I agree.

I don't know what determines the default settings, but the dates & times displayed by the forum are controlled by user options:

User control panel > Board preferences > Edit global settings > Timezone, DST, Date format

Oh, and ok, the default settings are found also under Board preferences on the Admin control panel, so any admin can change them.

I certainly wouldn't mind switching the default to something more widely used but I'm not sure there is any "common" format. I'm fine with using ISO 8601 but I expect most people in the US would find it strange. Even so, I don't think it would confuse anyone.

[Lupp]

@acknak: Thanks for the answer!
You will already have guessed that I don't have an actual problem with the date-time as presented in this forum - and I had never looked for a way to change it. (My daughter-in-law also prefers the "AM/PM" and so does my Japanese motor-bike. Both don't often use Calc, however.) My attempt was honestly triggered by the fact that problems caused by using what I call deprecated formats are omnipresent seemingly. Sometimes it seems to me there are people thinking AM/PM is the correct notation. How often did you help out?
Bammy educational ideas aside! Let's invoice in Guineas again!
As everybody knows the galaxy is speaking (US-)English and we'll be beamed back at 12:30 AM. How far is Mars away by imperial miles? I don't know. Lockeed Martin does.

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[acknak]

I switched my profile to format the forum dates relative to current time, so I get dates like
Today, 9:20 am
less than a minute ago
Yesterday, 9:45 am
14 minutes ago
May 4th, 2014, 4:23 am
...
That seems pretty nice. I'll have to find how to switch to 24hr times

[RusselB]

Go to the Custom setting, and change the g:i to G:i

Edited... The a previously referenced, displays the am/pm indicator

[Hagar Delest]

Go to the Custom setting, and change the g:a to G:a

It's G:i I think.
Thanks for the hint, I had never played with this setting.

Please add [Solved] at the beginning of the title in your first post (top of the topic) with the edit button if your issue has been fixed.

[acknak]

Nice! G:i works great.