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Relative timestamps really are more user-friendly than ISO 8601 for 90% of the use-cases of 90% of users. I share your sentiments about them but objectively spe

by fwlr 3y ago

Relative timestamps really are more user-friendly than ISO 8601 for 90% of the use-cases of 90% of users. I share your sentiments about them but objectively speaking we are in the minority, even for ostensibly technical-focused sites like GitHub.

mlyle 3y ago
I'm much happier with relative timestamps-- as long as I can hover over and get a real timestamp (preferably '8601) I'm good. 70%+ of the time-- and 100% of the time when I'm most in a rush-- I just want an order-of-magnitude relative time: is this seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years? If I'm going to be looking at a timestamp, I'm going to be thinking. Often times what I'll be comparing to is-- (or might be, because of ambiguity)-- a local time. Hovering my mouse is not a dealbreaker.
- fwlr 3y ago
  I’ll admit, “Last commit X days ago” is super useful for quickly evaluating GitHub repos.
nitwit005 3y ago
But you trade being slightly more useful, in exchange for creating real problems for the people who need to know the real time. At least let people mouse over, or click on the time, and get a real timestamp. Some of these tools seem to be copying from designs intended for social media websites, instead of something work related.
mvdtnz 3y ago
"Two weeks ago" and "ISO 8601" are not the only options. I prefer a user-readable date-time like "June 26, 9:35am" or "Yesterday at 2:12pm". They are best much more precise than "Yesterday" or "1 hour ago".
- drekipus 3y ago
  "1 hour ago" As an Australian this is actually a lot better for me. If there's a time like "10:43am" I have no idea whether that's UTC , my timezone, or some American timezone. You could argue that they should put the timezone there, but they don't, or they will but only for American TZ. and I don't want to dig around my profile settings to find it. Even hacker News is relative. I know that I am responding 34 minutes after your post.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    I assume if you're displaying a time to me with no timezone specified then my system timezone is being used. If I find a system that's displaying a timezone-less time that's not my system time zone I won't be using that system much longer. But nowadays this is exceedingly rare. I am in New Zealand so I understand your perspective, I just don't think it's a major problem.
xg15 3y ago
> Relative timestamps really are more user-friendly than ISO 8601 for 90% of the use-cases of 90% of users. Do you have data to back that up?
qwery 3y ago
I assume that that is a factor (although I'm not sure about the significance), and I'm more or less tolerant of these things depending on context. That Github was the particular instance that motivated the post was not a coincidence. I'm not calling for ISO 8601 by force (not seriously anyway) and it's not just relative vs. absolute. Relative timestamps must be a better choice for some use cases. But the horrors I'm describing are not just relative timestamps, they're non-linearly quantised (probably not a strictly correct term), obfuscated, and relative.
greatgib 3y ago
You just dropped a random number that is not backed by any research, no? Because most people I know, even en especially older persons, if you say 2 weeks ago, they will look at their calendar and count days to see what day it was exactly. Let's suppose I tell you: you will have a free concert in 3 weeks. First you will want to know the exact day, then you will still want the correct date because otherwise you don't know if it is in may or in June, Beginning or end of the month,...
- fwlr 3y ago
  Not backed by research, but the number isn’t random. I based it on the time I was building a site for a company. There was a discussion about relative vs absolute timestamps, so for about a week I was asking people (friends, family, friends’ families, cab drivers, baristas, etc) which they found more useful. I’ll see if I can find the notebook where I tallied up the results because as I recall it was indeed very close to 90%.

by fwlr 3y ago

mlyle 3y ago

I'm much happier with relative timestamps-- as long as I can hover over and get a real timestamp (preferably '8601) I'm good. 70%+ of the time-- and 100% of the time when I'm most in a rush-- I just want an order-of-magnitude relative time: is this seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, or years? If I'm going to be looking at a timestamp, I'm going to be thinking. Often times what I'll be comparing to is-- (or might be, because of ambiguity)-- a local time. Hovering my mouse is not a dealbreaker.

fwlr 3y ago
I’ll admit, “Last commit X days ago” is super useful for quickly evaluating GitHub repos.

nitwit005 3y ago

But you trade being slightly more useful, in exchange for creating real problems for the people who need to know the real time. At least let people mouse over, or click on the time, and get a real timestamp. Some of these tools seem to be copying from designs intended for social media websites, instead of something work related.

mvdtnz 3y ago

"Two weeks ago" and "ISO 8601" are not the only options. I prefer a user-readable date-time like "June 26, 9:35am" or "Yesterday at 2:12pm". They are best much more precise than "Yesterday" or "1 hour ago".

drekipus 3y ago
"1 hour ago" As an Australian this is actually a lot better for me. If there's a time like "10:43am" I have no idea whether that's UTC , my timezone, or some American timezone. You could argue that they should put the timezone there, but they don't, or they will but only for American TZ. and I don't want to dig around my profile settings to find it. Even hacker News is relative. I know that I am responding 34 minutes after your post.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  I assume if you're displaying a time to me with no timezone specified then my system timezone is being used. If I find a system that's displaying a timezone-less time that's not my system time zone I won't be using that system much longer. But nowadays this is exceedingly rare. I am in New Zealand so I understand your perspective, I just don't think it's a major problem.

xg15 3y ago

> Relative timestamps really are more user-friendly than ISO 8601 for 90% of the use-cases of 90% of users. Do you have data to back that up?

qwery 3y ago

I assume that that is a factor (although I'm not sure about the significance), and I'm more or less tolerant of these things depending on context. That Github was the particular instance that motivated the post was not a coincidence. I'm not calling for ISO 8601 by force (not seriously anyway) and it's not just relative vs. absolute. Relative timestamps must be a better choice for some use cases. But the horrors I'm describing are not just relative timestamps, they're non-linearly quantised (probably not a strictly correct term), obfuscated, and relative.

greatgib 3y ago

You just dropped a random number that is not backed by any research, no? Because most people I know, even en especially older persons, if you say 2 weeks ago, they will look at their calendar and count days to see what day it was exactly. Let's suppose I tell you: you will have a free concert in 3 weeks. First you will want to know the exact day, then you will still want the correct date because otherwise you don't know if it is in may or in June, Beginning or end of the month,...

fwlr 3y ago
Not backed by research, but the number isn’t random. I based it on the time I was building a site for a company. There was a discussion about relative vs absolute timestamps, so for about a week I was asking people (friends, family, friends’ families, cab drivers, baristas, etc) which they found more useful. I’ll see if I can find the notebook where I tallied up the results because as I recall it was indeed very close to 90%.