[Meta] Askbot incorrectly abbreviating dates from 2020

[dajare]

This is the end of June(!) 2020, and I’m surprised this bug hasn’t been picked up or fixed yet.

The main page summary for posts, and the “info box” that accompanies each post, includes a date abbreviation like: Dec 25 '19

But for posts in 2020, the abbreviation looks like: Apr 22 '0.

Clearly that’s a bug — it should read: Apr 22 '20 using the last two digits of the year.

This was posted a couple weeks ago in the Askbot support forum, but without reply or action. Hopefully we’ll see a fix soon!
Update: 2020-31-07 | A month after posting here, and still NO reply or action from the Askbot developer or the AskLibO team. Disappointing.

[Lupp]

The site is misconfigured beyond hope, anyway.

Clearly that’s a bug — it should read: Apr 22 '20 using the last two digits of the year.

No! No! It shoud read 2020-04-22!
Most contributors here already wasted many hours helping users with problems they wouldn’t have if they used the reasonable date format. What was shown here before the funny “bug” accentuated the topic was basically an idiotic stubborn non-format. This site, and also LibO itself by the way locales come with bad defaults you cannot change, encourage user to do it equally silly.
By the way:
This is neither an US-American nor a Canadian nor a South-African nor a Scottish site, but an international site in English language. Very many of the most active contributors aren’t native speakers of English, and surely they aren’t bound to funny US customs.

[newbie-02]

@Lupp: you’re right!

[dajare]

@Lupp - I wholly concur with your comment! My point (of course) is that IF Askbot is using a particular date format, it should at least use that format correctly. Whether that is the best format is a different matter, and my preferences here line up entirely with your comment.

[Lupp]

@dajare: Of course, you are right.
However, there are, imo, date formats beyond every way to be “correctly applied”. They are simply idiotic.
And in this context where contributors wasted already hundreds of hours to help users to overcome bad consequences of bad formatting should everything that might encourage anybody to stick to stubborn formatting be avoided.
I’m really upset concerning the disinterest of those in charge of management and configuration of this site. I cannot remember a single caes where one of them had posted their view on the topic. Insensibility? Ignorance? Arrogance? What else?

[dajare]

@Lupp - really hard to tell, especially with demise of the “support forum” that used to be another source of help (the one that @oweng was also involved in). I would love to have the LibO Q&A on a better maintained platform - I’m active on the TopAnswers site, which is one of the more recent options… Any thoughts yourself? (Your old Q&A is still relevant!)

[ajlittoz]

When you see the number of complaints about this site ergonomy, this date bug (and silly choice) looks like a detail. With the addition that newbies don’t take time to notice this is not a forum but a Q&A site, providing useful answers here is more benevolent abnegation than simple efficiency.

Is this site really fostered by TDF as its URL suggests? Who are the administrators? Have the historical ones retired without nominating successors?

[dajare]

@ajlittoz - There is a list of names on the Document Foundation wiki. I wonder if some direct emails/agitation would get anywhere? Although I have a feeling that’s been tried in the past.

[Lupp]

@dajare: Sorry! In your second-last comment here you addressed me directly. I postponed an answer for too long a time now, but I still intended to reply.
Reasons: Since LibreOfficeForum.org died I also contribute now and then to https://forum.openoffice.org/en/ . Starting in 2007 that forum originally focused exclusively on OOo/AOO, but they also accept threads explicitly related to LibreOffice. I appreciate the structure of that forum (despite the fact that they also handle dates badly ). Since the AOO activity there is going down due to the slow (next to none at all) development and bug-fixing of AOO, the forum itself may be in danger to die one day - if not it transmutes to the next LibreOffice forum.
I considered to start a meta-discussion there concerning the idea, but didn’t feel safe insofar. I know too little about the administrative background. My English is far from being satisfactory…
Probably I pick up courage in times of plenty of time.

[dajare]

Update (2020-08-17) - and now fixed! Great to see this issue (at least) finally dealt with.

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It looks like someone from AskSage has picked this up and provided a patch. Hopefully we’ll see it rolled out here before 2021…

[Lupp]

An obviously defective format was fixed within 7.5 months. Great.
Dare I hope the fundamentally bad intended format will be changed to ISO 8601 eventually?
In addition all the “specialized variants” like “just now” should be abandoned. SheHe who isn’t able to read and interpret an ordinary date-time-stamp shouldn’t use a computer anyway.
No more than 7.5 years for that would be even greater.