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X minutes ago vs time posted

Gmash

Gmash

Extreme Android User
I prefered the time/date posted. I don't like having to do math to figure out when somebody posted something. What do you guys think?
 
Yeah I recently changed the system:

OLD: Posted June 7th, 2011 at 7:14pm
NEW: Posted 1 week ago

It also will do "20 minutes ago" or "2 hours ago" or whatever. It's much more relative but more importantly, IMO, it takes up a lot less space/clutter which always leaves more room for things like the thread title.

The more detail in the date, the wider that row was getting. And since we just rolled out our new prefix system which uses a bit more width in another column, I was trying to conserve space.

If a lot of people hate this I can change it back... but I have a feeling many will like it more.

Thoughts?
 
Usta said:
I don't like it, because it messes up my "stop points". For example, I knew I was reading posts around 10am this morning and I stopped there. Now I can't quickly locate the posts exactly after that.

If possible, please switch it back.
Click to expand...

I agree with Usta. I like knowing that someone posted 3 times in a 5 min span (so i can merge them) but now an entire page of posts just show '8 hours ago'. Posts before that show '9 hours ago' and posts after that show '7 hours ago'.

I MUCH prefer knowing exactly when posts come in....
 
Is it possible to keep the relative time on the search results/index pages and show an accurate time on the actual threads where it's not robbing valuable real estate? Maybe a happy medium?

However if it came down to a vote for one or the other, I'm partial to the new system myself. ;)
 
I hate the new way! I too use the time stamp as a quick visual for where i was and how much has happened since my last visit.

I should add, having this thread way down in "Suggestion Box" probably won't get a lot of feedback from the majority of forum users. When I first noticed this change and wanted to find out what happened and why I went searching for an announcement under "site news" or something to that effect. As you know, there was nothing there at all not even in the announcement regarding the prefix and since apparently it is related you may want to mention it there. The next time i came to the site i found myself even more annoyed so took additional time to look for something, anything that would discuss the board change and just happened to look in here out of desperation.
 
I see that posting from the app you still get the time stamp, from here, it's 'two hours ago' - I think Xyro's compromise is worth looking into.
 
I just noticed that the last post time has changed to *** hours/minutes ago rather than the time of the post. I honestly hate this. Anyone else feel this way or am I just weird?
 
I also preferred the old way. When I visit here - I keep in mind what time I did so that the next time I come back, I can stop reading after x:xx am/pm. But now I get confused and end up reading past the time I've already seen (10x harder since I'm a mod versus a normal member since I have to look through several forums; so I can't always remember what thread I stopped at)

Instead of cutting down the time, why not widen the forum margin? Theres alot of dead blue space on the left and right that can be used.
 
Definitely prefer the old way. As someone mentioned before, I keep this tab open and know where I left off (time wise), and now I have no point of reference. It takes me far longer to go through a forum than it did before, and to be honest, I've been coming and refreshing a lot less often out of frustration. It's not as though I'll completely stop visiting or anything like that, but it's a frustration all the same.
 
lunatic59 said:
Is it possible to have both? Something like:


[COLOR="Blue"]06/24/2011 23:31:07 (7 hours ago)[/COLOR]

There seems to be enough room in the header for it.
Click to expand...

I believe the change was implemented to save space. Though that was on the main page and in the sections, not IN threads.

Let me be clear, I HATE it IN thread only, am fine with it on main page
 
Maybe as an alternative it would be possible to define the members preference for this in User CP. That way the individual member could dictate which format they see on the forum?

In terms of the size of the field, maybe dropping the year from the longer format would conserve enough space to make both formats a bit more comparable.

As an example:

OLD 0: Posted June 7th, 2011 at 7:14pm
NEW 1: Posted 1 week ago
NEW 2: Posted June 7th @ 7:14pm
 
Only thing about dropping the year would be if someone bumped an older thread (which happens alot)- that might confuse people
 
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