Feedback - kind of
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 1:35 pm
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.
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.