Please correct the format of dates shown on Forum posts

[nlj]

(09-01-2015 07:35 PM)nlj Wrote:  This is a request for you to correct the format of the dates you display on Forum posts.

Currently you display dates like 08-30-2015. A correct ISO 8601 date would be 2015-08-30. If you don't want to conform to the standard, please use a traditionally ambiguous separator (any other separator really, other than "-") and a form such 08/30/2015 or 30/08/2015.

(09-01-2015 07:59 PM)Massimo Gnerucci Wrote:  Did you try to use the format that suits you better?

How the site looks to me is beside the point. These invalid dates should not be the site's default. The concern is that by displaying these rogue dates, the site risks the possibility (likelihood even) that visitors will think this format is acceptable and, though subconscious mimicry or deliberate imitation, they will duplicate it elsewhere, making the world a slightly worse place for everyone.

ISO 8601 brought us a huge step forward. Not only did it standardise a rational date ordering (like the leap from Roman numerals to the Arabic Base 10 system of writing numbers, it places the most significant digit on the left, the next-most significant digit next, all the way to the least significant digit on the right), but even more importantly it deliberately used a novel separator, the "-" to break away from "/" (and "." and "·"), the separators used in the ambiguous dates written in the past. Seeing a "-" in a date became a guarantee of an unambiguous date.

When someone writes a date with a "-" separator but arbitrarily muddles up the order of the digits they sabotage the value of this standard, making the clear communication of dates harder.

I'm not asking other people to use ISO 8601 dates; everyone is obviously free to use their own personal format (regardless of anyone else's ability to understand it), but I'm asking people not to use the "-" date separator when they're not writing an ISO 8601 date.