Message dates

I was wondering why there are so many messages that say "Today"? It seems that in any forum there are messages that go right to midnight as "today" followed by early morning messages still "today"... maybe three or four days worth. Might be better to just use the numbered date. It is pretty hard to tell how old a message is. Some do have dates, but I am not sure those dates are right either. I don't want to say "this new software is bad" because I am sure there are things left to do to get the setup right. I have changed software often enough and wished for the old, but then once it was set right was glad I was forced to change.

I think there are a lot of messages that say "today" because there are a lot of messages that were written today.

Don't they show "today" plus the time?

Another thought. It seems to me I put in my time zone with the old software, but looking at the new preferences or profile page I see nowhere to set this. Yet the sign at the bottom still says that my time and ranch time are an hour apart. Maybe something to do with this? Does everyone see this effect?

paul wheaton wrote:I think there are a lot of messages that say "today" because there are a lot of messages that were written today.

Don't they show "today" plus the time?

Yes but the time goes around the clock. Either the messages are not in order time wise or they are more than one day. For example there might be a message that says today at 8:00pm followed by one that says today at 2:00 am then today at 3pm... Around the clock. Take the top three messages of the message thread:
"paul can we get RMH/rocket stove stuff its own forum?"

The oldest says posted Today 03:53:24 AM Then the times go up till :posted Today 05:13:40 PM Good so far... then the next message says:posted Today 04:37:37 PM Ooops time has gone backwards.

Another example from permies » forums » permaculture » cooking, food preservation, food choices :: Newbie question about cast iron frying pans. First message says: posted 11-12-2011 07:46:11 AM, then posted 11-12-2011 03:23:29 PM, then posted 11-12-2011 02:32:18 AM Are they out of order? Farther down on the same thread The date stamps in order are::
posted Today 12:38:34 PM
posted Today 12:41:56 PM <- is this 41 after midnight or noon?
posted Today 02:18:14 AM
posted Today 04:24:04 AM
posted Today 05:56:08 AM
posted Today 08:31:35 AM
posted Today 08:43:20 AM
posted Today 12:34:16 PM <- same question here
posted Today 01:07:45 PM

Sorry the answering took so long... lots of cut and paste.

I too noticed something odd about the time on posts..... but didn't have time to look deeper.

Len Ovens wrote: Take the top three messages of the message thread:
"paul can we get RMH/rocket stove stuff its own forum?"

The oldest says posted Today 03:53:24 AM Then the times go up till :posted Today 05:13:40 PM Good so far... then the next message says:posted Today 04:37:37 PM Ooops time has gone backwards.

That's not what I see. There are currently 7 posts in that thread and for me they show up as:

posted Monday 09 January 2012 05:23:24 IST
posted Monday 09 January 2012 08:54:41 IST
posted Tuesday 10 January 2012 12:36:51 IST
posted Tuesday 10 January 2012 06:43:40 IST
posted Today 06:07:37 IST
posted Today 10:24:12 IST
posted Today 10:27:48 IST

Which browser are you using and what timezone are you in?

When I look at that thread, I see all of the times are in order.

12pm is noon. 12am is midnight.

posted Today 12:38:34 PM
posted Today 12:41:56 PM <- is this 41 after midnight or noon?
posted Today 02:18:14 AM
posted Today 04:24:04 AM
posted Today 05:56:08 AM
posted Today 08:31:35 AM
posted Today 08:43:20 AM
posted Today 12:34:16 PM <- same question here
posted Today 01:07:45 PM

This is wrong. If this is what you are seeing, then we do have a bug.

The first two are shortly after noon today, then it goes back in time to 2am this morning. Then the rest is valid.

paul wheaton wrote:When I look at that thread, I see all of the times are in order.

12pm is noon. 12am is midnight.

posted Today 12:38:34 PM
posted Today 12:41:56 PM <- is this 41 after midnight or noon?
posted Today 02:18:14 AM
posted Today 04:24:04 AM
posted Today 05:56:08 AM
posted Today 08:31:35 AM
posted Today 08:43:20 AM
posted Today 12:34:16 PM <- same question here
posted Today 01:07:45 PM

This is wrong. If this is what you are seeing, then we do have a bug.

The first two are shortly after noon today, then it goes back in time to 2am this morning. Then the rest is valid.

This seems to be a firefox issue. When I looked with opera, konqueror, chrome... the problem went away.

Paul:
I have filed a bug with Ubuntu (bug #916558 ) as I am using a Ubuntu version of Firefox. I have used the link to https://permies.com/t/12027/tinkering-site/paul-we-RMH-rocket-stove. So please leave this thread in place so that they can at least find the code. I would assume that the "old" forum software did not use javascript to find this information but instead used server side stuff? This problem appeared with the implementation of the new forum software. I left it for so long because I figured it was just teething problems, but when nobody seemed to be saying anything... I thought I should.


BTW My new short RMH bench seems to work well. No pipes, just a big chamber, flue gas goes in at the top and exits at the bottom (backwards to pipe). Only 4ft long by 18in wide and 12in high but the flue temp goes way down from in to out.

A bit of background on what is *supposed* to happen. We send the dates in US Mountain time because that's where coderanch lives. We also send a little JavaScript snippet that asks your browser what time zone it is in and adjusts the time accordingly. This is why it is possible to see something wrong in only one browser.

Jeanne Boyarsky wrote:A bit of background on what is *supposed* to happen. We send the dates in US Mountain time because that's where coderanch lives. We also send a little JavaScript snippet that asks your browser what time zone it is in and adjusts the time accordingly. This is why it is possible to see something wrong in only one browser.

It also asks my browser what time format to use. The problem seems to be one of those off by one things. All of the messages from last december say the date is nov12 those from november say nov11 and everything from january says today. So I expect when I get to feb everything from jan will be dec 1. The pattern is that for some reason the month is being used as the day and the year as the month. So Firefox (my version anyway) is counting from the wrong start point (think zero based instead of 1 based) as compared to everyone else. Anyway, looking through the bug reports there seem to be a number of other similar ones that could be the same thing. My knowledge of javascript stuff is not good enough to tell. I don't know if the JS subroutine that does this magic is easy to change to force the right counting or not.... or if it is even worth it. Firefox should be fixed in any case and so there is a bug report in.

Len Ovens wrote:The pattern is that for some reason the month is being used as the day and the year as the month. So Firefox (my version anyway) is counting from the wrong start point (think zero based instead of 1 based) as compared to everyone else.

Has anyone looked to see if the mis-dated posts are being sent from Europe? We use different conventions, and are also busy switching to a completely new one. Maybe there are regional settings which are confusing things.

Example - 25th December 2012

USA would, I believe, use 12/25/2012
UK would use 25/12/2012
Portugal, and I think the rest of Europe, is trying to switch to the more logical 2012/12/25

Burra Maluca wrote:

Len Ovens wrote:The pattern is that for some reason the month is being used as the day and the year as the month. So Firefox (my version anyway) is counting from the wrong start point (think zero based instead of 1 based) as compared to everyone else.

Has anyone looked to see if the mis-dated posts are being sent from Europe? We use different conventions, and are also busy switching to a completely new one. Maybe there are regional settings which are confusing things.

Nope, seems to be all messages. The message dates are kept at javaranch time (-7 or -8 ?), Then the java script is supposed to change it to my timezone in the format I have set for my desktop or set in my browser.

Example - 25th December 2012

USA would, I believe, use 12/25/2012
UK would use 25/12/2012
Portugal, and I think the rest of Europe, is trying to switch to the more logical 2012/12/25

Mine is set for January 15, 2012... the same way I would say it if talking to someone. YYYY/MM/DD is only more logical if one is a computer... personally, I was born in May, not 05 for example. When we talk about dates we start with the least amount that might have meaning.... so if I am talking about a day this week, I will use the day name, like " are you free Thursday?" If I am talking about the same month, but different week, then I am likely to use day, date: "Tuesday the 24th." I have added it on the end. Then if it is outside the month, I still start with the day "Wednesday February the 15th." The month is next because the hearer would have to flip to that page and the the date once they are there to know which week. The year gets thrown in at the end, though in a legal document it is first:"In the Year 1950....". I realize that some languages actually name the months by number which is totally valid, but in English where November, which means ninth, is the 11th month, that would get confusing real quick (sept=7, oct=8, nov=9 and dec=10). Anyway, all that to say, the computer is a tool and might keep the date in whatever format makes sense to it... I think mine thinks is so many milliseconds since some month in 1972, and many pcs start at a later date (10 years later?). Everything is converted from that... so maybe I should have said that YYYY/MM/DD makes sense and is logical if one is a programmer. however, a programmer's job is to make things easy for the user. So while they may use that format internally, it is best to convert the date to what the user would feel most comfortable reading... The programmer only has to do it once, the user has to deal with it every time they use the program. Making the user fit the program is not right, the program should fit the user. As you can see from the examples I posted above, the browsers that work right do that just fine. If I was French I would expect the date to be spelled in my language. ( I only chose French be cause I know the months are similar to what I am used to... being Canadian)

Anyway, just my two cents worth. Agreement in this area is not likely to happen, but it doesn't matter because we can all see things the way we want anyway. Software is wonderful.