5 ms·

Off-topic but I love that the timestamp on that says "1 decade ago"

by brassattax 6y ago

pmiller2 6y ago
Hah, yes. It sort of assumes the page will be around for more than 1 decade, doesn't it?
- zild3d 6y ago
  hm how so? I just assumed they're using something like moment for relative time https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/ https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/
  - pmiller2 6y ago
    If not, you lose resolution for no reason.
myself248 6y ago
Ugh, I haaaaaaaaaate this habit of masking real timestamps and making them progressively worse. It _completely_ changes the meaning, if someone asked a question about airplanes on September 10th, 2001 or one day later. Just saying "two decades ago" with no way to reveal the original timestamp removes that context. It's just one of a whole lot of ways the modern web goes out of its way to get in my way.
- mkr-hn 6y ago
  They at least put the real time and date the question was posted in the headers. <meta property="og:question:published_time" content="2009-02-26T17:04:37Z">
  - hunter2_ 6y ago
    Many sites also put it in the title text (tooltip, i.e., hover / long press). When that fails, I often find it by inspecting the element and looking at every attribute of the elements within 1 level on the tree. Horrible experience.
  - hnick 6y ago
    Revealing it on hover would be the desktop UI answer and perfectly achievable on the web if they wanted to. Facebook does this on post times. I think it's a decent tradeoff. Unfortunately mobile doesn't always work nicely with hover semantics.
- m463 6y ago
  I now remember a bunch of text clocks years ago... "It's about half past two." "It's a little before quarter to three."
- Igelau 6y ago
  I would prefer Yahoo Answers to have fuzzy timestamps. On a site where the information is somewhat reliable it would be really annoying, but on Yahoo Answers when you see "decade" you know its not even worth opening the lid to smell it. Just chuck it.
  - canjobear 6y ago
    The point of Yahoo Answers isn't to find useful information. It's to find hysterically dumb questions and even worse answers
- ud_0 6y ago
  With recent content, I prefer to know how many hours/days ago it was posted. I find that exponentially more helpful than guessing timezones and things like that. However, you're completely right when it comes to timestamps exceeding a certain age. That's why in my own projects I use a mixed approach: display recently changed things in relative time and all others in absolute terms. I also advocate to display more detailed information when the user mouses over a timestamp, just so the data is there if needed - as it is in this case.
- thebigspacefuck 6y ago
  Slack does this too and it’s pretty annoying if I’m trying to figure out the exact time someone messaged me. It would even take less space: 4 hours ago 04:12AM

Off-topic but I love that the timestamp on that says "1 decade ago"

pmiller2 6y ago

Hah, yes. It sort of assumes the page will be around for more than 1 decade, doesn't it?

zild3d 6y ago
hm how so? I just assumed they're using something like moment for relative time https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/ https://momentjs.com/docs/#/displaying/fromnow/
- pmiller2 6y ago
  If not, you lose resolution for no reason.

myself248 6y ago

Ugh, I haaaaaaaaaate this habit of masking real timestamps and making them progressively worse. It _completely_ changes the meaning, if someone asked a question about airplanes on September 10th, 2001 or one day later. Just saying "two decades ago" with no way to reveal the original timestamp removes that context. It's just one of a whole lot of ways the modern web goes out of its way to get in my way.

mkr-hn 6y ago
They at least put the real time and date the question was posted in the headers. <meta property="og:question:published_time" content="2009-02-26T17:04:37Z">
- hunter2_ 6y ago
  Many sites also put it in the title text (tooltip, i.e., hover / long press). When that fails, I often find it by inspecting the element and looking at every attribute of the elements within 1 level on the tree. Horrible experience.
- hnick 6y ago
  Revealing it on hover would be the desktop UI answer and perfectly achievable on the web if they wanted to. Facebook does this on post times. I think it's a decent tradeoff. Unfortunately mobile doesn't always work nicely with hover semantics.
m463 6y ago
I now remember a bunch of text clocks years ago... "It's about half past two." "It's a little before quarter to three."
Igelau 6y ago
I would prefer Yahoo Answers to have fuzzy timestamps. On a site where the information is somewhat reliable it would be really annoying, but on Yahoo Answers when you see "decade" you know its not even worth opening the lid to smell it. Just chuck it.
- canjobear 6y ago
  The point of Yahoo Answers isn't to find useful information. It's to find hysterically dumb questions and even worse answers
ud_0 6y ago
With recent content, I prefer to know how many hours/days ago it was posted. I find that exponentially more helpful than guessing timezones and things like that. However, you're completely right when it comes to timestamps exceeding a certain age. That's why in my own projects I use a mixed approach: display recently changed things in relative time and all others in absolute terms. I also advocate to display more detailed information when the user mouses over a timestamp, just so the data is there if needed - as it is in this case.
thebigspacefuck 6y ago
Slack does this too and it’s pretty annoying if I’m trying to figure out the exact time someone messaged me. It would even take less space: 4 hours ago 04:12AM