5 ms·
Ask HN: '2 weeks ago' vs 'July 12, 2013 1:46pm'
When you see postings or comments with a timestamp, would you prefer to see xx seconds/minutes/days/weeks/etc ago or the exact time stamp? Why?
- tokenadult 13y agoIs it hard to implement showing both? I like seeing both.
- snowfox 13y agoBoth are not hard to implement. But exact timestamp has a timezone problem, while 'xx ago' is universal.
- dragonwriter 13y ago> Both are not hard to implement. But exact timestamp has a timezone problem Specify a timezone in the timestamp. UTC is probably fine, especially if you are doing both, in which case, the main value of timestamps (AFAICT) is to compare the relative times of other posts that are hard to determine from the prose descriptions.
- benologist 13y agoMake the timestamp relative to the viewer?
- seiji 13y ago(serious question) How?
- ElongatedTowel 13y agoMoment.js is pretty useful if you do it client side.
- seiji 13y agoBrilliant! I've been using timeago (http://timeago.yarp.com http://timeago.yarp.com), but Moment.js (especially with its timezone support) may solve some of my problems better.
- chc 13y agoObviously it isn't difficult to implement, but it does make the date take up a potentially unreasonable amount of design real estate.
- malandrew 13y agoSet it up so the date is clickable and clicking it toggles the mode. Also save the current mode to a preferences json object in localstorage for persistence.
- minimaxir 13y agoIt depends on context of information and amount of design space available. There's no one right answer.
- MattBearman 13y agoI prefer an actual date, simply because when looking at a screenshot 'X days ago' becomes meaningless unless you know when the screenshot was taken.
- snowfox 13y agoThat's a good point. 'X days ago' becomes meaningless once the page is stale.
- keefe 13y agoI prefer to see absolute time - if I'm commenting somewhere online, I'm probably not in tip-top cognitive shape and I usually check only every so often.