[jhasse]

> I can't afford to give full support to all locales (translation costs are ridiculous)

Even if your page isn't translated I would still want the dates to be localized. I understand English, but not the US time and date formatting.

[Hussell]

That's a problem we already deal with by having labels for the date inputs which explain the expected format. This is especially necessary in Canada, where until recently there was no recommended format, and the government recommendation isn't even well known yet much less universally used. So, depending on what part of the country you live in, you'll expect a different date format, even though you're technically using the same locale.

So, to do what you want, I'd have to make different versions of all the supporting documentation for each possible date format, and then get each version translated.

Also, displaying the dates the user just entered in a different format is a usability problem. (Users will complain. A lot.) So, if I did what you want, I'd likely be asked to display all dates, everywhere on the site, in the format the browser happened to be compiled with. This is possible for dates in the database, but not so much for dates in static content like news releases.

Just to be clear: I have no objection to making it easy for a website to have date input widgets which use the user's locale. I just want it to be equally easy for a website to have date input widgets in a specific locale. For example, how am I to make a website comparing date input widgets for different locales?

[jhasse]

> So, to do what you want, I'd have to make different versions of all the supporting documentation for each possible date format, and then get each version translated.

??? I'd never said that I wanted a label explaining the date format for me.

> For example, how am I to make a website comparing date input widgets for different locales?

The input widgets return ISO 8601 regardless of the locale. Or what do you mean?