h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This is also the wrong place for this post, but by being advised it should be ok.
A1081009

I will moderate myself as /if reply

Hello, I'm going to post your suggestion here, to save the click weary another page to open and to focus comment in one area.

*****************************************************


One way to reduce serverload could be removing the week time-stamps, as they are vague anyway it would be no factual information loss for users, instead I would appreciate it.

Time stamps grow from just now for < ~1 minute concidered all caching and collecting tasks required to build a page.
Until the first hour, then they become even less accurate hourly numbered, nothing wrong with that.

Time stamps grow in number of days for the first week, fun later they dim, that is, they become number of weeks.

After n weeks 3..4 they become fixed dates, lets shift this one forward to replace the week numbering, and stop showing them by default in user space from this point.

current date/times
# minutes
# hours
# days
# weeks
( > 1 month ?)date

proposed
# minutes
# hours
# days
( > 1 week ?)date

Perhaps it is an idea to set
"Click here to be notified of new Conversations about this Guide Entry"
By default "on" for any of your own pages, it should help newusers to get informed.



It appears not correct to me that,
when I not have identified myself (not used login) I still can edituserpage or test

I am not going to experiment this exhaustively though I have ready stumbled on more.

You know, I realy have that deja vu feeling overhere?

Ashley!

Traveller in Time,

As I understand it, removing the relative time of posting wouldn't reduce the server load. This is because, as far as I know, pages in threads aren't cached. You can tell this as online eyes appear on the pages and the link at the bottom of every page switches between a 'subscribe' link and an 'unsubscribe' link depending on whether the person is currently subscribed to the thread.

However, I do agree with the suggestion of having more accurate times on the posts. I'd quite like to see "Posted x minutes/hours/days/weeks ago by y. dd/mm/yy hh:mm:ss" or similar, just out of curiosity (and to time simulposts). I'm not sure how easy/difficult this would be to implement.

RhoMuNuQ

Vote for motion!

If this would decrease the server-load, that's one thing. However, I've always been a little bit annoyed with the "n weeks ago" timestamps anyway, as I don't think in terms of weeks, only days or actual dates.

The only use I can think of for the "week" timestamps is for <./>subeditors</.>. Subs usually try to get their entries back within four weeks, and this timestamp is a good way to check whether the copied entry was created more than four weeks ago (get it back soon!!) or not (phew).

Therefore, I propose that for recommended entries only, there is an extra symbol (a * or something) next to the date if it is more than 4 weeks old (this is just me being picky, and I don't think it's that much of a big deal).

All in all, a very good idea.

~

Talking of simulposts, Rho...

Um, I think the italics have always been cautious of adding a dd/mm/yy hh:mm:ss timestamp to things as it would have to show favouritism for a specific timezone (that or extra code to allow users to set their timezone). This is the Earth edition of the Guide, not the UK edition, as many non-UK researchers seem to have pointed out before.

And there is a good example of a simulpost.

RhoMuNuQ

A simulpost between two people who simulposted earlier in the thread, talking about that simulpost.

Simulposts everywhere!

I don't think there would be a problem if the timestamp was in the form "dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm:ss [GMT]". From analysing the 'My Conversations' popup, it's possible to tell that the server's set to GMT (not to BST).

RhoMuNuQ

And now a simulpost about a simulpost describing about the original simulpost.

RhoMuNuQ

I suppose, but GMT does confuse a lot of British people, as I discovered when I had my own forums - people complaining about everything being an hour behind in the summer.

Hopefully the servers are actually set to UTC not GMT.

Have a look at BOTF for an example of where a full timestamp has been used: F109814?thread=284772 but they avoid the problem by not including the %H:%M:%S bit.

spelugx -- a deliberate simpost

In that case, what about just showing the timestamp in 'Expert' mode? Hopefully that will stop the majority of people from being confused by the difference between GMT and BST.

I'm willing to bet that this is a simulpost, by the way.

RhoMuNuQ

Pity, I used the link to be able to remove the last lines.
And to enable a "Society of Weekless Users" in the entry.
However, another point of this is the effect, this will have on the evergrowing count of threads monitored by user pages.

And then also having a box in your preferences for entering your time offset so that dates can be adjusted is just a small bit of XSLT away (depending on how many templates do date stuff [should really be only one or two for two different styles of date in the same document]).

One idea I've also toyed with for my own sites is having relative times like h2g2 but then having the accurate timestamp appear as a tooltip.

spelugx

how about simul I started writing previous after post2

Nephew Who has found the time to involve in this

"I can not keep up with this I will have to read all the posts in their respective order som other time. I have to collect furniture for my mothers restaurent ( A1079822 ) instead of playing Simulpost time tricks."

Nephew Who searching in piles of images and other furniture

"the server's set to GMT (not to BST)"

... and quite right too! Yay Jim! I never approved of BST. It may have been a convenient device (cunningly marketed by the name) to fool people into going to work/school earlier to exploit more of the daylight but with flexitime and a 24-hour society it really ought to be on its way out again now.

I also find the date in "weeks" annoying and would prefer time-stamps but it ought to be possible to do this with skins and even enable time-zones if people want them. I can't see it being a high priority for Jim though as the current system is functional for many and this isn't a bug.

I think it's fine as it is...

There wouldn't be any difference on server load as the same data is pulled from the database regardless, it's only the skin which would change.

I also think it is fine as it is. Keep our weeks.

I know absolutely nothing about server loads but I always think in weeks. I can't believe people don't think in weeks.

I think that it would be too much work for little benefit to set up automatic timezone conversions. However, I don't think it would be too difficult to add timestamps to posts, and I'd quite like them to be there.

RhoMuNuQ