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

[snowfox]

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?

[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.

[minimaxir]

It depends on context of information and amount of design space available. There's no one right answer.

[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.

[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.

[chc]

Obviously it isn't difficult to implement, but it does make the date take up a potentially unreasonable amount of design real estate.