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ArthurM
2684
Jul 10, 2015
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rgomes
1
Jul 10, 2015
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ArthurMPlease remember that international audience requires international standards.
When you are talking to people around the globe, please employ date formatting which can be understood internationally without redundances, doubts or misleading people.
When you say 8/12 I understand 08-DEZ-2015. Was that what you meant?
I remember that it was said it would be shipped by some point in August. In this case, your international audience should have heard from you: 12-AUG-2015. Was that what you meant?
Thanks.
When you say 8/12 I understand 08-DEZ-2015. Was that what you meant?
I remember that it was said it would be shipped by some point in August. In this case, your international audience should have heard from you: 12-AUG-2015. Was that what you meant?
Thanks.
therobbstory
50
Jul 10, 2015
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rgomesHere in the US, we have a little saying. Something like "You'll get it when you get it."
Makami
4237
Jul 10, 2015
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rgomesDont know where you live, havn't you had some english lessons in school?
No, this isn't meant sarcastic!!!
polymeth
43
Jul 10, 2015
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rgomesI know that bashing the US for not adhering to SI standards is low-hanging fruit at all times, but this is a bit much. It's a US website, and the people writing it are not robots, but rather, are (usually) Americans who are used to writing things in a certain way. At any rate, you should also have problems with the fact that AurthurM mentioned Pacific Time. Should it be GMT (why is GMT, a British standard, an international standard)? Should the price be in "international money units" or "gold-pressed latinum?"
Davron
18
Jul 10, 2015
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rgomesDang, you are right. He should have used a date/time format that leaves nothing to doubt. I suggest either Ephemeris Time or Terrestrial Dynamical Time. So the update should have read that they will ship by 2457247.505275721 ET and will have an update by 2457220.503189450 ET or sooner. That made it much clearer for you didn't it?
polymeth
43
Jul 11, 2015
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Davron"The keyboard will ship after the Daffodils start blooming."
richard.gomes
9
Jul 13, 2015
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MakamiI'm brazilian. I live in the UK for 10 years now and before I had customers in the US.
We speak English in the UK (not being sarcastic!) and we adopt ISO standards here. So, the argument of learning English in school does not work very well... because a lot of people in the world come to the UK to learn English, not the US.
The point of communication is communicating clearly.
And communicating dates clearly is about avoiding confusion if there's room for confusion. Obviously if you say 4/13 there's no room for confusion. But if you say 4/5 there is. Not for you guys. But for all the rest of the world there is. And no! ... the rest of the world does not necessarily share your culture and habits.
The internation convention for dates is the ISO standard. Simple as that.
When I talk to Brits I can say 4/5 and they clearly understand it's 4th of May. Is that what you understand? Certainly not. Because I know that it's not the case, I should say 04-MAY-2015 when I talk to an international audience. No room for doubts about the day, the month and the year. Simple as that.
The point of communication is communicating clearly.
And communicating dates clearly is about avoiding confusion if there's room for confusion. Obviously if you say 4/13 there's no room for confusion. But if you say 4/5 there is. Not for you guys. But for all the rest of the world there is. And no! ... the rest of the world does not necessarily share your culture and habits.
The internation convention for dates is the ISO standard. Simple as that.
When I talk to Brits I can say 4/5 and they clearly understand it's 4th of May. Is that what you understand? Certainly not. Because I know that it's not the case, I should say 04-MAY-2015 when I talk to an international audience. No room for doubts about the day, the month and the year. Simple as that.
richard.gomes
9
Jul 13, 2015
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polymethThe point is not bashing anyone. If you say 7:30 CST it's inconvenient to me... I admit... but it's not redundant. I can find a website which does the conversion to me and problem solved.
GMT is a standard because Britain overcomed France is this sort of battle for the most important meridian and also overcomed in other battles. There are historic reasons for that. But this is red herring.
If you say that something costs USD 100.00 I can visit a FX website and convert to all currencies around the world. Again... it's not redundant.
But it is redundant to say 4/5 when you are talking to an international audience. I do not know the origin of the person communicating. If that person is British, 4/5 means 4th of May. The same for Brazilians. And the same for the majority of the world.
And it does not matter whether Massdrop is American or not. There are no firewalls blocking Massdrop to the world. And Massdrop delivers virtually to the entire world. We live in a global economy and global standards must be employed when there's room for redundancy.
GMT is a standard because Britain overcomed France is this sort of battle for the most important meridian and also overcomed in other battles. There are historic reasons for that. But this is red herring.
If you say that something costs USD 100.00 I can visit a FX website and convert to all currencies around the world. Again... it's not redundant.
But it is redundant to say 4/5 when you are talking to an international audience. I do not know the origin of the person communicating. If that person is British, 4/5 means 4th of May. The same for Brazilians. And the same for the majority of the world.
And it does not matter whether Massdrop is American or not. There are no firewalls blocking Massdrop to the world. And Massdrop delivers virtually to the entire world. We live in a global economy and global standards must be employed when there's room for redundancy.
richard.gomes
9
Jul 13, 2015
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DavronThere's already a well stablished standard for commercial communications.
Your irony is not appreciated. And it is irrelevant.
Makami
4237
Jul 13, 2015
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richard.gomesHi,
ty for your answer and explanation. I'm from Germany and was threated with "Oxford English" in school more than 40 years ago and found it very pleasing to learn the "real deal" later in the USA, because it wasn't so "stiff (with a stick in the butt), but i honestly cant remember having had problems with understanding the date at all.
I did ask, because i know some people which havn't had any english lessons in school, which might be hard to understand for some folks.
Cheers
ty for your answer and explanation. I'm from Germany and was threated with "Oxford English" in school more than 40 years ago and found it very pleasing to learn the "real deal" later in the USA, because it wasn't so "stiff (with a stick in the butt), but i honestly cant remember having had problems with understanding the date at all.
I did ask, because i know some people which havn't had any english lessons in school, which might be hard to understand for some folks.
Cheers
abjr
16
Jul 14, 2015
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richard.gomesSo if you've adopted ISO standards, why are you not formatting your dates as YYYY-MM-DD? That is the ISO 8601 Standard for dates ... just saying.
rgomes
1
Jul 14, 2015
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abjrThe point of clear communication is avoiding ambiguities.
I can understand both DD-MMM-YYYY and YYYY-MMM-DD. I don't care.
If you say February 4 it's OK to me. If you say 4/feb it's OK to me.
But if you say 4/2 I cannot really tell because I don't know your origin and I don't really know if you meant 4/2 or 2/4 (I mean: 4/feb or 2/apr).
polymeth
43
Jul 14, 2015
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rgomes"International standards" in weights and measures are arbitrarily chosen by the French. They have no basis in human scale (are not anthropometric) and cannot be used without employing measuring devices.
Expecting everyone else to use it just because you want them to is absurd. People are free to use the Mayan calendar if they wish, as long as they are willing to deal with its consequences (Someone complaining about choice of calendars does not count as a consequence. Losing a sale does, perhaps).
You can inform yourself at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism ;)
At any rate, 4/2 is more natural than 2/4 because actually in written and spoken English (not machine read, since we are not machines here), preferred date usage is "April 2, YYYY" and not "2 April, YYYY."
Edit: I am not sure if this thread is hilarious or useless. Perhaps both :D
Expecting everyone else to use it just because you want them to is absurd. People are free to use the Mayan calendar if they wish, as long as they are willing to deal with its consequences (Someone complaining about choice of calendars does not count as a consequence. Losing a sale does, perhaps).
You can inform yourself at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_imperialism ;)
At any rate, 4/2 is more natural than 2/4 because actually in written and spoken English (not machine read, since we are not machines here), preferred date usage is "April 2, YYYY" and not "2 April, YYYY."
Edit: I am not sure if this thread is hilarious or useless. Perhaps both :D
Nixin
95
Jul 14, 2015
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rgomesThe easy way to handle this issue is to remember the source. Massdrop is a US site, so you can safely assume it will use US date formatting. At an Italian site, we expect things to be done the way Italians do it; at a Japanese site, we expect Japanese standards.
Davron
18
Jul 14, 2015
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richard.gomesAstronomers are far more international than any other community, even the web, and have been since long prior to the invention of the internet. Look up both Julian Date and Julian Calendar Date. They are both far more clear linear systems than the Gregorian Calendar system ISO-8201 uses, which actually has a different length months early on to fix things.
Given that the drop had the ship date listed on the drop as a written month, two-digit day and four-digit year, and that the 8/12 date mentioned is precisely the same and that the 7/16 date can't be mistaken as there aren't 16 months in even an ISO year, there shouldn't have been a complaint to contend with in the beginning.
And by the way, that was sarcasm, not irony.
Oh and the word wouldn't be "redundant" from your other post, as that according to the Oxford Dictionary means, "Not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous". "Unclear" or "potentially misleading" would have been more appropriate.
To be honest, with all of the drops where people whine and complain about international shipping, I'm surprised that there are any international orders at all.
I'm surprised you didn't also complain about the reversed use of commas and periods in numbers.
Given that the drop had the ship date listed on the drop as a written month, two-digit day and four-digit year, and that the 8/12 date mentioned is precisely the same and that the 7/16 date can't be mistaken as there aren't 16 months in even an ISO year, there shouldn't have been a complaint to contend with in the beginning.
And by the way, that was sarcasm, not irony.
Oh and the word wouldn't be "redundant" from your other post, as that according to the Oxford Dictionary means, "Not or no longer needed or useful; superfluous". "Unclear" or "potentially misleading" would have been more appropriate.
To be honest, with all of the drops where people whine and complain about international shipping, I'm surprised that there are any international orders at all.
I'm surprised you didn't also complain about the reversed use of commas and periods in numbers.
neithercreatedordestroyed
10
Jul 18, 2015
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DavronJust to further clarify - 28th day of 6th Lunar Month in the Year of Yi-Wei
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