4 ms·

I find that having an up to date year on a copyright line (pref a range from first pub to now) is a "remove the brown m&ms" signal (https://www.thewrap.com/van

I find that having an up to date year on a copyright line (pref a range from first pub to now) is a "remove the brown m&ms" signal (https://www.thewrap.com/van-halen-brown-mms-remove-concert-rider/amp/ https://www.thewrap.com/van-halen-brown-mms-remove-concert-r... or a zillion others). If a person or team didn't catch this, what other details did they miss? So, sure, not required, but helpful to show someone either a) sweats the details or b) knows how to put the year in a generated text line... but at least they took the time to care, once. (Edited to mention range. Seeing other folks mention hassles of code history just to change year will temper my use of this signal)

twixfel 4y ago
Alternatively they "sweat the details" to such an extent that they even understand this aspect of the law and therefore know that it isn't necessary and don't do it. The m&m thing isn't relevant here, the situation is different.
- mwexler 4y ago
  Maybe. But we use "last updated" as a useful signal in many, many places, across code, documents and books, and entertainment. We like recent, new, updated stuff, and we like "authentically old" stuff. As a signal, the date provides value. Having it as "copyright" or simply "last updated" has similar impact in this case. Sure, no one in the US __needs__ to do this, and there is a cost to it. But the benefit of the signal could outweigh. Having no date or an old date may send the signal that "the dev team has good legal support", but I wonder how common that perception is. We see from the comments and the parent post that at least the HN crowd has a good chunk of folks who didn't know that date isn't needed. It's an empirical question to test: does date presence affect evaluation of the object? It would be fun to see. (I would want to try "no date", "last year", "3 years ago", "current year" to see if user perception of the object changes based on presence and time passed).
  - leereeves 4y ago
    Now, having no copyright date may simply send the signal that the team reads HN.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    In general, a post or article should have a posted or updated date. If I just read your undated 2015 article about how to do $X on a Mac, you've probably just wasted my time. It's probably reasonable to expect a current copyright date on the home page of an active site to indicate that it's current. It probably doesn't need to be everywhere unless it can happen automagically through a template.
  - twic 4y ago
    The signal it send is that the people who maintain the file do things without understanding them.
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Haha yeah. This is the Jedi meme.
cma 4y ago
If it isn't required it just pollutes the version control history when viewing change summary statistics etc.
icedchai 4y ago
You could also look at it as a "wastes time on bullshit" signal. If a company is spending time updating copyright dates for no other reason, what other pointless nonsense are they spending time on?
cxr 4y ago
> I find that having an up to date year on a copyright line [...] is a "remove the brown m&ms" signal [...] If a person or team didn't catch this, what other details did they miss? The difference being the brown M&M's test is an excellent one whereas when it comes to "having an up to date year on a copyright line", it's not about someone "missing" these "details", since there are good (i.e. deliberate) reasons not to update the year (and only bad reasons to actually do it). So something rather like the reverse of what you meant is actually true: if you notice people adhere to some bizarre and misguided practice like trying to make sure the copyright year is "up to date", then what other totally unnecessary (and maybe even potentially harmful) bullshit might they be cargo culting into their work practices—and should you worry about trusting their judgement in other areas that actually matter?

twixfel 4y ago

Alternatively they "sweat the details" to such an extent that they even understand this aspect of the law and therefore know that it isn't necessary and don't do it. The m&m thing isn't relevant here, the situation is different.

mwexler 4y ago
Maybe. But we use "last updated" as a useful signal in many, many places, across code, documents and books, and entertainment. We like recent, new, updated stuff, and we like "authentically old" stuff. As a signal, the date provides value. Having it as "copyright" or simply "last updated" has similar impact in this case. Sure, no one in the US __needs__ to do this, and there is a cost to it. But the benefit of the signal could outweigh. Having no date or an old date may send the signal that "the dev team has good legal support", but I wonder how common that perception is. We see from the comments and the parent post that at least the HN crowd has a good chunk of folks who didn't know that date isn't needed. It's an empirical question to test: does date presence affect evaluation of the object? It would be fun to see. (I would want to try "no date", "last year", "3 years ago", "current year" to see if user perception of the object changes based on presence and time passed).
- leereeves 4y ago
  Now, having no copyright date may simply send the signal that the team reads HN.
- ghaff 4y ago
  In general, a post or article should have a posted or updated date. If I just read your undated 2015 article about how to do $X on a Mac, you've probably just wasted my time. It's probably reasonable to expect a current copyright date on the home page of an active site to indicate that it's current. It probably doesn't need to be everywhere unless it can happen automagically through a template.
- twic 4y ago
  The signal it send is that the people who maintain the file do things without understanding them.
renewiltord 4y ago
Haha yeah. This is the Jedi meme.

cma 4y ago

If it isn't required it just pollutes the version control history when viewing change summary statistics etc.

icedchai 4y ago

You could also look at it as a "wastes time on bullshit" signal. If a company is spending time updating copyright dates for no other reason, what other pointless nonsense are they spending time on?

cxr 4y ago

> I find that having an up to date year on a copyright line [...] is a "remove the brown m&ms" signal [...] If a person or team didn't catch this, what other details did they miss? The difference being the brown M&M's test is an excellent one whereas when it comes to "having an up to date year on a copyright line", it's not about someone "missing" these "details", since there are good (i.e. deliberate) reasons not to update the year (and only bad reasons to actually do it). So something rather like the reverse of what you meant is actually true: if you notice people adhere to some bizarre and misguided practice like trying to make sure the copyright year is "up to date", then what other totally unnecessary (and maybe even potentially harmful) bullshit might they be cargo culting into their work practices—and should you worry about trusting their judgement in other areas that actually matter?