Finally a date with no confusion: 11.11.11

[Coby Foden]

Once again a rare occasion without confusion of date. Woot :smileyhappy:

Europe:  11.11.11 => dd.mm.yy (11 November 2011)
USA:  11.11.11 => mm.dd.yy (November 11, 2011)

Yes! We all agree.

 

Unfortunately tomorrow (12 November 2011 / November 12, 2011) the confusion is back again. :smileysad:

Europe: 12 November 2011 => 12.11.11 (For Americans 12.11.11 is: December 11, 2011)
USA:  November 12, 2011 => 11.12.11 (For Europeans 11.12.11 is: 11 December 2011))

Aargghhh... :matte-motes-sour:

It would be great if all marked the date according to international standard (ISO 8061):
YYYY-MM-DD => 2011-11-12 (reads: 12 November 2011)
Even date sorting for computer programs, without any extra steps, is very easy with ISO notation due to it's logical order (big, smaller, smallest).

Was it so that in parts of USA even that ISO standard notation was not respected, but got all mixed up? Like:
yyyy-dd-mm :smileysurprised:

 

[Tex Nasworthy]

I always preferred this method: 11NOV11

This worked great up until 2001. Now, once a month there is still the chance of confusion, at least until 2032.

 

[Void Singer]

only one problem.... if you want to be literal, that date occurred ~2k years ago... and more than 500 years before it would have been labeled as such =X

[wiked Anton]

Actually, the standard should be the european way ( as it is in Australia). why should everything be the American way, just because you all think backwards. for instance, if a friend came u to you in November and asked you the date, would you saw "why, it;'s the year 2011, the month of November and its the 11th day"?...well, maybe you would, but most normal people would just say "It's the 11th" because the month and year are already known. Another example is armistous day which is proclaimed that in the 11th hour of the 11th month ----------- (get it dd/mm/yy). As in the case of metric, the US really needs to get with the rest of the world, not the other way around. ( as your arrogance usually demands) It is a natural progression  starting with the immediate (the day,) then the next progression ( the month) and finally the last ( the year) The International stand may be backwards, but Europe and Australia ( two very large contintents containing  a large portion of the WORLDS developed economies) do it dd/mm/yy as it should be and always will be. And the logical order is in red above, not as you suggest (largest to smallest)

[Canoro Philipp]

i like the scale arrangement too, day/month/year, altought in mexico we have the scale backwards in the divisions of the day, hour/minute/second, it should be from the smallest to the biggest, just like rules.

[Void Singer]

of course you also logically answer the question "what time is it" with how many second past the current minute, followed by the current hour.... right?

 

I do really find the big/little endian debate to be amusing

[Coby Foden]

---

wiked Anton wrote:

And the logical order is in red above, not as you suggest (largest to smallest)

---

What are logical orders? Surely they are from most to least [YYYY-MM-DD] and from least to most [DD.MM.YYYY]. The American way [MM/DD/YYYY] has no logic in it at all, I wonder how it got invented?

In international communication date marked as 12.11.2011 is always confusing. For some it means 12 November 2011 and for some it means December 11, 2011. Therefore in ISO 8016 standard the numerical order format [YYYY-MM-DD] was chosen. In Europe this format has been officially used a long time in some countries. The format DD.MM.YYYY is also widely used in Europe, but in international communication it is confusing.

 

Why ISO 8601 standard was created:

The purpose of this standard is to provide an unambiguous and well-defined method of representing dates and times, so as to avoid misinterpretation of numeric representations of dates and times, particularly when data is transferred between countries with different conventions for writing numeric dates and times.

 

Date and time values are organized from the most to the least significant: year, month (or week), day, hour, minute, second, and fraction of second. The lexicographical order of the representation thus corresponds to chronological order, except for date representations involving negative years. This allows dates to be naturally sorted by, for example, file systems. [uNQUOTE]

What is ISO?

"The International Organization for Standardization widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards. It has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland."

[Void Singer]

I would like to add (as an american) that I use two date orders depending on format.

pure numeric formats I use Y#-M#-D#, or Y###-M#-D#, as both these formats fit the numerical print order (smallest unit to the right)

however if the format is conversational, or letter writing, I tend to use Mmm D#, Y###: which translates to the casually spoken "November the 11th, 2011" where the year is often omitted, and sometimes the month if it can be reasonably assumed. however when using this format, it is never acceptable to use a number for the month, although abreviations are allowable, and the whole thing can be prefixed with the weekday if it matters.

following those rules, there is never any confusion as to a dates meaning, since the numerical format follows numerical rules, and the text format follows grammatical rules.

please feel free to smack anyone that uses text order, in a numerical format, or numerical order in a text format, as they've violated expectation and introduced ambiguity. similarly people using D#-M#-Y# formats may think they're cleverly offering an intermediate that's passably acceptable to both formats, automatically violate expectation as to time within the day, and in most languages, mathematical ordering as well.

and don't even get me started on the people that use 12hr time keeping but can't be bothered to append whether it's am or pm

[Maryanne Solo]

---

Coby Foden wrote:

 

W

hat is ISO?

"The International Organization for Standardization

widely known as

ISO

, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947, the organization promulgates worldwide proprietary, industrial and commercial standards. It has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland."

---

Yes but wouldnt it be the International Standardisation Organisation? ^.^

*wonders...

don't mind me, I'm just carrying on lol

[Void Singer]

I just noticed that the quote on the ISO lists it's founding date in text format order =D

[Tristizia Demonista]

---

Void Singer wrote:

......

and don't even get me started on the people that use 12hr time keeping but can't be bothered to append whether it's am or pm

---

Which of course raises the question, why use an 12hr timeformat at all. There are 24 Hours after all :smileywink:

ps.: As a Continental-European i stick to our use of DD-MM-YYYY  

[Coby Foden]

---

Void Singer wrote:

I just noticed that the quote on the ISO lists it's founding date in text format order =D

---

What the ....! :smileysurprised: :matte-motes-confused:

 

"... widely known as ISO, is an international standard-setting body composed of representatives from various national standards organizations. Founded on February 23, 1947"

As the ISO is composed of various national standard organizations, the American members in the organization must have mixed the Europeans' heads :smileywink:. Most European countries would write the date as: 23 February 1947. And in speech we definitely use that order too (twenty third of February...), at least here where I live in the old continent.

Dear American friends, please stop mixing our heads. Thank you. :smileyvery-happy:

 

PS.

Naturally if a date is written as 23 February 1947 or February 23, 1947 there is no confusion. It's only in plain numerical format that we do need some international rule to follow. And ISO style YYYY-MM-DD serves that purpose well.

[Void Singer]

---

Tristizia Demonista wrote:

Which of course raises the question, why use an 12hr timeformat at all. There are 24 Hours after all :smileywink:

ps.: As a Continental-European i stick to our use of DD-MM-YYYY

 

---

 because analog/mechanical clocks (which are still common) use 12 hour faces? their continuing popularity is probably twofold... they more clearly separate the natural morning and evening schedules, and visually, 24hr mechanical faces are a bit crowded.

PS

I forgive you since you use a 4 place year which makes the logical order clear, even if you have to reverse standards to tell me what time it is =D