ISO Date Formats

Hexanon

Please for the love of all that is holy STOP using American date formats in your posts. (Especially the server posts).

This is an international game. Use an ISO standard (look it up - ISO 8601). Sadly this is only an International standard and NOT an American one but hey - you can try and be 'International'.

And while you are at it - use UTC. We're intelligent enough to know what UTC is and how to use it.

Mod edit: We appreciate feedback but we request everyone to post in a constructive way.

Harkrider

What is UTC and how do I use it? Plz.

Hexanon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time

Guizan

UTC is the the "same" as GMT actually. The problem with using GMT instead of UTC is that people who live in countries that use GMT as a normal time thinks that they are still in GMT why the daylight saving time is applied. The BST timezone is GMT with DST.

Another name for UTC is Zulu time which is used mostly in the military. (as well as in some TV series I used to follow like JAG where they always expressed times as Zulu)

But yes I have to think very carefully when reading US dates especially if the day of the month is equal or below 12. Like is 9/11 really 11th of September or 9th of November.

Saerydoth

For all practical purposes, UTC is the same as Greenwich Mean Time. Technically they are not the same, but in practice they are. Unix machines run their hardware clocks on UTC, and the OS does translation to display local time. Unlike Windows.

Even though I'm American, I *strongly* support metric and celsius over what we use here. :P But I do not like the European date format, it just does NOT make any sense to me. When we write dates out, we right April 30, 2014. We don't write 30 April 2014. So it makes sense that the abbreviation should be written the same way.

Sakiri

American company. If youre as intelligent as you say(and I know you are) you can do the math.

I use CEST currently a lot myself.

Hexanon

Guizan wrote: »

UTC is the the "same" as GMT actually. The problem with using GMT instead of UTC is that people who live in countries that use GMT as a normal time thinks that they are still in GMT why the daylight saving time is applied. The BST timezone is GMT with DST.

Another name for UTC is Zulu time which is used mostly in the military. (as well as in some TV series I used to follow like JAG where they always expressed times as Zulu)

But yes I have to think very carefully when reading US dates especially if the day of the month is below 12. Like is 9/11 really 11th of September or 9th of November.
13.

If we all try and encourage Americans to be international the world will be a better place. Use UTC for times - it's a standard. Use ISO formats for dates - it's a standard.


And actually windows also uses a time offset - Take a look at the timezones: UTC+/- x.

Saerydoth

Hexanon wrote: »

Guizan wrote: »

UTC is the the "same" as GMT actually. The problem with using GMT instead of UTC is that people who live in countries that use GMT as a normal time thinks that they are still in GMT why the daylight saving time is applied. The BST timezone is GMT with DST.

Another name for UTC is Zulu time which is used mostly in the military. (as well as in some TV series I used to follow like JAG where they always expressed times as Zulu)

But yes I have to think very carefully when reading US dates especially if the day of the month is below 12. Like is 9/11 really 11th of September or 9th of November.
13.

If we all try and encourage Americans to be international the world will be a better place. Use UTC for times - it's a standard. Use ISO formats for dates - it's a standard.


And actually windows also uses a time offset - Take a look at the timezones: UTC+/- x.

Windows does not have the ability to run the hardware clock on a different time zone than local time though. Running the hardware clock on UTC, and setting the local time to EDT for example, no way to do it unless there is a complicated hack or something that I'm unaware of.

Syntse

Best solution would be that they write the month to avoid confusion. Yes in a way April 30, 2014 makes more sense than 30. April, 2014. However then again DD/MM/YYYY makes more sense than MM/DD/YYYY.

Saerydoth

Syntse wrote: »

Best solution would be that they write the month to avoid confusion. Yes in a way April 30, 2014 makes more sense than 30. April, 2014. However then again DD/MM/YYYY makes more sense than MM/DD/YYYY.

Personally, I find those two statements to be contradictory. April 30, 2014 makes more sense. But the abbreviation shouldn't be in a different format just because you change the month to a number.

DD/MM/YYYY is an abbreviation for 30 April 2014.

Kosetzu

Saerydoth wrote: »

But I do not like the European date format, it just does NOT make any sense to me. When we write dates out, we right April 30, 2014. We don't write 30 April 2014. So it makes sense that the abbreviation should be written the same way.

There's a difference between actually writing the name of the month and just the number. We also would write it as 30th of April 2014. The 'th' is very important there, but American English tends to abbreviate a lot of things so not really strange you didn't think of it.

Frankly the whole calender system is a bit borked imo, having to add a day every 4th year...

Saerydoth

Kosetzu wrote: »

Saerydoth wrote: »

But I do not like the European date format, it just does NOT make any sense to me. When we write dates out, we right April 30, 2014. We don't write 30 April 2014. So it makes sense that the abbreviation should be written the same way.

There's a difference between actually writing the name of the month and just the number. We also would write it as 30th of April 2014. The 'th' is very important there, but American English tends to abbreviate a lot of things so not really strange you didn't think of it.

Frankly the whole calender system is a bit borked imo, having to add a day every 4th year...

Maybe we can get the real world to use Tamriel's dating system. It sure makes sense, and had a lot more thought put into it, than what we use in the real world. Scary, but true.

seneferab16_ESO

Guizan wrote: »

UTC is the the "same" as GMT actually. The problem with using GMT instead of UTC is that people who live in countries that use GMT as a normal time thinks that they are still in GMT why the daylight saving time is applied. The BST timezone is GMT with DST.

Another name for UTC is Zulu time which is used mostly in the military. (as well as in some TV series I used to follow like JAG where they always expressed times as Zulu)

But yes I have to think very carefully when reading US dates especially if the day of the month is equal or below 12. Like is 9/11 really 11th of September or 9th of November.

I agree with what you said, and is also very thankful for explaining to me what "Zulu" from JAG ment. I used to follow that show while younger and totally forgot how I never really got why they called it "Zulu". One more thing crossed off my checklist.


I am used to GMT in games, but I see your point. Yes, UTC should be used in Europe and I can't understand why it isn't. I am sure American players would feel a slight hint of feeling like a lesser customer if Zeni was a EU company and stated everything in GMT/CET (although their math would be very simple :P ).

As for dates; maybe write 30 April 2014. Doesn't take that long and yes, it really does save a lot of people some headaches and is a pretty failsafe way of avoiding missunderstandings.

Thalmar

Saerydoth wrote: »

For all practical purposes, UTC is the same as Greenwich Mean Time. Technically they are not the same, but in practice they are. Unix machines run their hardware clocks on UTC, and the OS does translation to display local time. Unlike Windows.

Even though I'm American, I *strongly* support metric and celsius over what we use here. :P But I do not like the European date format, it just does NOT make any sense to me. When we write dates out, we right April 30, 2014. We don't write 30 April 2014. So it makes sense that the abbreviation should be written the same way.

The logic behind European date format is the numbers goes with ascending order
day < month < year
same as time formats
sec < min < hour

DanteYoda

Yes Aussies use GMT still but we also have Day/Month/Year here

I'm not sure why America must not conform but i'm sure its an ego thing.

Syntse

Saerydoth wrote: »

Syntse wrote: »

Best solution would be that they write the month to avoid confusion. Yes in a way April 30, 2014 makes more sense than 30. April, 2014. However then again DD/MM/YYYY makes more sense than MM/DD/YYYY.

Personally, I find those two statements to be contradictory. April 30, 2014 makes more sense. But the abbreviation shouldn't be in a different format just because you change the month to a number.

DD/MM/YYYY is an abbreviation for 30 April 2014.

When you look it at that way yes you are right. But when writing you do not have to guess which month it is. When numbers it's more logical that days become months become years.

I think in most cases in Europe the writing also is 30th of April, 2014 even in their country native language. Anyway it's just the way these 2 continents are different and best would be for global stuff to try to present things so that everyone understands and doesn't have to guess what 04/08/2015 really is.

Hexanon

Even the American Military are actually just using metric and iso standards.
They use a 24 hour clock like the rest of the world, UTC like the rest of the world and kilometres like the rest of the world.

They just use stupid words to fool the American population into thinking it's special military terms instead of an international standard that they did not start. ('click', 'Zulu' time and the concept that the 24 hour clock is 'Military Time' ).

As long as the dates aren't Month\Day I don't care. After all this date format is idiotic.

Any of these will work:

30 April 2014
April 30 2014

2014-04-30 (ISO 8601 standard)
2014/04/30

Moderator edit: removed insulting comment.

Guizan

To add to the confusion from us Swedes. When we write dates including the year we use yyyy-mm-dd. But when we omit the year it is generally written as dd/mm. This is the reason for me having to think when I see 9/11

Hexanon

Guizan wrote: »

To add to the confusion from us Swedes. When we write dates including the year we use yyyy-mm-dd. But when we omit the year it is generally written as dd/mm. This is the reason for me having to think when I see 9/11

You're not the only one. Everyone except Americans see the date as dd/mm.

There is America and then there is 'rest of the world'.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

DanteYoda wrote: »

Yes Aussies use GMT still but we also have Day/Month/Year here

I'm not sure why America must not conform but i'm sure its an ego thing.

We don't conform because it pisses all of you off. FEED ME YOUR TEARS!!!! nom nom nom.

BenjaminKacher_ESO

As a side note, can you guys (All of Europe) decide on one name for it? GMT, UTC and Zulu are all the same thing... talk about not wanting to conform to a standard.

Hexanon

BenjaminKacher_ESO wrote: »

As a side note, can you guys (All of Europe) decide on one name for it? GMT, UTC and Zulu are all the same thing... talk about not wanting to conform to a standard.

Actually UTC is the international standard that replaced GMT. For this conversation they are actually synonymous.

Zulu is only used by Americans because even when they do use a standard they don't actually do it correctly.

seneferab16_ESO

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coordinated_Universal_Time

Quoting Uses since clicking links is hard:

Time zones around the world are expressed as positive or negative offsets from UTC, as in the list of time zones by UTC offset.

UTC is used in many Internet and World Wide Web standards. The Network Time Protocol, designed to synchronise the clocks of computers over the Internet, encodes times using the UTC system.

Computer servers, online services and other entities that rely on having a universally accepted time use UTC as it is more specific than GMT. If only limited precision is needed, clients can obtain the current UTC time from a number of official Internet UTC servers. For sub-microsecond precision, clients can obtain the time from satellite signals.

UTC is also the time standard used in aviation, e.g., for flight plans and air traffic control clearances. Weather forecasts and maps all use UTC to avoid confusion about time zones and daylight saving time.

Amateur radio operators often schedule their radio contacts in UTC, because transmissions on some frequencies can be picked up by many timezones.

UTC is also used in digital tachographs used on large goods vehicles (LGV) under EU and AETR rules.

Starnes

I always used the ISO standard for dates in both continents, many companies do, especially those that care about maintaining their ISO standards.