ietf-nntp Mime-Version: 1.0

[Lee Kindness]

Ade Lovett writes:
 > On 12/12/2001 08:34, "Clive D.W. Feather" <clive at demon.net> wrote:
 > > (1) not everybody in the world intuitively knows what "CST" (or "IST", for
 > > that matter) means, let alone "12/11/2001";
 > Well, since both CNN and the BBC, along with other news networks,
 > constantly refer to {Pacific,Mountain,Central,Eastern}

These are normally localised - for example I nearly always see GMT. I
can work out other zones with a minimal amount of hassle, but there is
already a common reference - why not use UTC and give a conversion in
your zone of choice?

 > As well as the 'standard US' date notation of mm/dd/yyyy.

The problem with this is that it is obviously misleading and is not
immediately apparent if it's mm/dd or dd/mm. It's wrong for Americans
to assume everyone else is going to pick up on their
idiosyncrasies. Simply saying the 11th would have been better or
spelling out 'December'. It's not a hard thing to do and will help a
lot for people who are going to hassle of reading this group in a
language which is not their native one!

And personally i'd always use a date format like 20011212155523
(yyyymmddhhMMss) but that's just be being stupid and technically
minded in non-technical world!

Regards, Lee Kindness.