Today's Birthdays feature

[HWI]

Hi folks,

I would like to ask for your opinion on the Today's Birthdays feature of this forum.

Should we get rid of it, or should we keep it?

It has been suggested that such a feature is not necessary and, in fact, is not in keeping with the forum.

Personally, I view all the people on the forum as my friends and feel that such a feature gives members the opportunity to wish others happy birthday if they want to. If it is not there, they cannot do so, even if they wanted to. it is, I believe, another element which helps to build and cement friendships among our members.

So, over to you. Vote in the poll first, and then post your thoughts on this thread.

Many thanks,
Keith.

p.s. For those who have not seen it, the Today's Birthdays feature is in the info center at the bottom of the main page of the forum.

p.p.s. Thanks for putting me right, Roger. I have scrapped the old poll and replaced it with this one. Silly me.

[Richard]

Hello Keith!

I certainly feel we should keep this feature. I also regard other members as friends, so it would be nice to wish them a happy birthday at the appropriate time.

Bye for now,

Richard

[Joe]

Hi all,

I do like the feature; although after this week I'm not sure that the dates are correct. I suggest that members take a look on the calendar and ensure that their birthday is correctly listed. I gave Lothar his birthday cake too early!

[roger]

Of course, the confusuion arose because of the diferent way we denote a date numerically around the world. To use today's date as an example, it is 12/8 or 8/12?

In the case of my birthday, it makes no difference because I was born on the 10th day of the 10th month. You see the trouble I go to in order to avoid confusion?! Also, whenever it is written as 10/10, it looks as if I get full marks! lol

Roger

[emmettb]

Hi,

We should definitkly keep this feature. I think its great to give and recieve greetings on birthdays, especially here amongst friends.

Roger, you are just 2 days after Lothars birthday he's 08/10. There are now a few librans here including myself 30/09.


Emmett

[HWI]

I could never understand why they denote the date like that in the USA. It doesn't come out as logical to me.

The three figures define measurements of periods of time. It makes sense to start with the smallest, followed by the middle one and finishing with the biggest. When we count, we do not say 2, 1, 3. It really throws me when the second figure is over 12. Take my birthday, it would be written as 1/15.

Perhaps someone could explain why it is done that way.

Seriously though, if someone over there knows the answer to that, I really would be very interested to know.

Oh well, that spent another few minutes whilst I wait impatiently for my copy of Odyssey to arrive.

keith.

[Lothar]

I want to suggest to change the notation if possible like
13 August 2005
or
2005-08-13
cu Lothar

[HWI]

Sorry Lothar. Once you have entered your DOB, no one can change it. There is absolutely nothing can be done about the fact that the month and date have registered the wrong way around for you. It is, unfortunately, a fact we must live with that the Americans put the date the other way around to us.

Keith.

[Joe]

Hi Keith,
I've found that the different date formats are a hot topic on the web! From what I've learned, there is no set international format regarding the writing of dates. Needless to say this has caused confusion; especially in computer-related data. I've always spelt out the month whenever possible. Here's a little article that might be of interest:

[black]The European date format -- which reverses the order of the day/month/year -- is justifiable, since it allows the reader's eye to quickly pick out the day-of-month (which is what people are probably most interested in) while still specifying the month and year. The American date format of "month/day/year, hour:minute:second am|pm", tries to mimic speech patterns (which is a slightly different mode of thought), but in practice this just ends up hopelessly muddling everything. [/black]

And Lothar...sorry about the confusion. There's NO way that we're going to forget your birthday!

[Richard]

Hello again everybody!

In case anybody is unaware, if you view your profile and then click on "Modify Profile", there is an option near the bottom that allows you to change the date format to Day/Month/Year. I've chosen this option, so all the dates on the Forum show in the British format for me when I'm logged in.

The layout of the options is slightly confusing. Select Date Format first, which gives you the option to show the month by name or number. Then select Month Format to put the day before the month.

Bye for now,

Richard