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Ask HN: '2 weeks ago' vs 'July 12, 2013 1:46pm'

5 points by snowfox ↗ HN
When you see postings or comments with a timestamp, would you prefer to see xx seconds/minutes/days/weeks/etc ago or the exact time stamp? Why?

13 comments

[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 49.5 ms ] thread
tokenadult
Is it hard to implement showing both? I like seeing both.
snowfox
Both are not hard to implement. But exact timestamp has a timezone problem, while 'xx ago' is universal.
dragonwriter
> Both are not hard to implement. But exact timestamp has a timezone problem

Specify a timezone in the timestamp. UTC is probably fine, especially if you are doing both, in which case, the main value of timestamps (AFAICT) is to compare the relative times of other posts that are hard to determine from the prose descriptions.

benologist
Make the timestamp relative to the viewer?
seiji
(serious question) How?
ElongatedTowel
Moment.js is pretty useful if you do it client side.
seiji
Brilliant! I've been using timeago (http://timeago.yarp.com), but Moment.js (especially with its timezone support) may solve some of my problems better.
chc
Obviously it isn't difficult to implement, but it does make the date take up a potentially unreasonable amount of design real estate.
malandrew
Set it up so the date is clickable and clicking it toggles the mode. Also save the current mode to a preferences json object in localstorage for persistence.
minimaxir
It depends on context of information and amount of design space available. There's no one right answer.
MattBearman
I prefer an actual date, simply because when looking at a screenshot 'X days ago' becomes meaningless unless you know when the screenshot was taken.
snowfox
That's a good point. 'X days ago' becomes meaningless once the page is stale.
keefe
I prefer to see absolute time - if I'm commenting somewhere online, I'm probably not in tip-top cognitive shape and I usually check only every so often.