Times wrong in IFAS

The YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm Date and Time format is already the defacto Internet Standard as well as being the one that astronomers have always used (for at least 200 years) anyway.

The big problem is that 06/05/04 has always been June 5th in the US, and 6th May in Europe, and May 4th of a different year in the Far-East.

Changing the year to 4-digits does not solve the UK - US ambiguity, but using YYYY-MM-DD does solve it.

I realise that writing YYYY-MM-DD may be initially confusing, but since no-one anywhere on the planet ever uses yyyy-dd-mm then all dates in 2004-05-06 format are always YYYY-MM-DD. Using the same order, but with the Month as a word, may help in a transition period.

There is a LOT of precedent already set in Year-Month-Day date usage on the Internet. It is widely used. You have seen it on lots of sites without even thinking about it.

Link: More Info

The IAU already recommends that all astronomical images be stamped with an ISO format Date and Time. They did that back in 1999.



>> GMT obsolete

Links: More Info / More Info

In Ireland: look for IS/EN 28601:1993 and the 2000/2001 revision of it.

GMT is only obsolete in the very specialised usage of time recording that you refer to. Most people understand GMT, but would be confused by UTC. The average person who trips upon this site could be confused by 2004-06-11-22-58 UTC, but would understand 22:58 11-06-2004 GMT.

It ain't broke; it's just slow. Don't fix it; kick it!

>> The average person who trips upon this site could be confused by 2004-06-11-22-58 UTC <<

There would not be a hyphen between the 11 and 22 digits, and the time would have a colon in it i]2004-06-11 22:58[/i!


>> but would understand 22:58 11-06-2004 GMT. <<

Yeah. That's November 6th if you are from the US.


Actually I saw a really good comet image the other day. It was marked as something like 5/11/98 and I still have no idea whether that picture was taken in May or November. There is no clue as to the nationality of the photographer, and no contact details to find out either. Using either 1998-05-11 or 1998-11-05, as appropriate, would have cleared that one up (because it is always YYYY-MM-DD). The month in words would be no good in any order, as it might be in a language that I don't understand.

>> The average person who trips upon this site could be confused by 2004-06-11-22-58 UTC <<

There would not be a hyphen between the 11 and 22 digits, and the time would have a colon in it i]2004-06-11 22:58[/i!


>> but would understand 22:58 11-06-2004 GMT. <<

Yeah. That's November 6th if you are from the US.


Actually I saw a really good comet image the other day. It was marked as something like 5/11/98 and I still have no idea whether that picture was taken in May or November. There is no clue as to the nationality of the photographer, and no contact details to find out either. Using either 1998-05-11 or 1998-11-05, as appropriate, would have cleared that one up (because it is always YYYY-MM-DD). The month in words would be no good in any order, as it might be in a language that I don't understand.

i suppose it would make sense on an astronomical board to use astronomical time but to the average irish person that this board is aimed at would use the format day month year so i suppose it is best to leave the
way it is. it may confuse our american friends but seeing that the aim is primarily at irish amatuers and people interested in astronomy in ireland there should be no reason at the moment to change, not that our american friends or people from any other country are unwelcome i think it is just the house rules and bart may agree with me on this point. but it is a good suggestion and maybe something to look at in the future. it would be a good way to show the different dating systems in use.
stephen.

not that our american friends or people from any other country are unwelcome .

Dates for me get displayed as <b>Tue Jul 13, 2004 12:03 pm</b>, unambiguous.

The other formats may be appropriate for image timestams, observation recordings etc, but the board needs to worry more about useability. (and having summer time recorded!)

Cheers,
~Al

I'd be surprised if people were majorly confused by it; there is much precedent like www.ncc.com/oldnews/2003-Nov-news.html and www.google.com/search?&q=2004-07-04&num=100 for example.