I've pointed this out on many a website, and generally been shot down, but I figured I'd throw it in here too. Users in the United States have their locations formatted like 'Grand Forks, ND', while everyone else in the world has a location like 'Winnipeg, Canada'. Why the difference? Canadians, for example, certainly don't say we're from 'Winnipeg, Canada'. We say 'Winnipeg, Manitoba'. I just think it should be consistent across all locations (either make it more specific for everyone or change the American ones to 'Grand Forks, USA'). The way it is seems awfully USA-centric.

Thanks,
Lianne

Agreed.

Part of that is that we have US state codes from our US Postal Code database, and we haven't had the time to find postal code databases outside the US.

But I agree there is no point in showing the country name to other users from the same country - we will remove that!

If you wish to expand "Grand Forks, ND" to "Grand Forks, ND, USA", that's fine, but certainly don't drop useful information. Many U.S. city names are repeated. For example "Lancaster, CA" and "Lancaster, PA" are very different locations. "Lancaster, USA" is not unique. You could never send a letter without specifying the state.

On the other hand, isn't Winnipeg unique enough that it could stand on it's own, like New York, Paris, or London?

Add information to international cities, if you like. But don't corrupt the US data just to make things look "fair". It's a US site. Naturally it's going to be US-centric.

mlady_rebecca wrote: "If you wish to expand "Grand Forks, ND" to "Grand Forks, ND, USA", that's fine, but certainly don't drop useful information."

Agreed!

We're not changing the US view. All I changed was that if you are Canadian and look at another Canadian's profile it will now say "Vancouver" instead of "Vancouver, Canada". For users outside of Canada it will still say the latter. I also added state/region for non-US users, so you can now change it to "Vancouver, BC"

That sounds pretty cool.

That's a good solution.

Greetings from Berlin, Europe

mlady_rebecca wrote: "It's a US site. Naturally it's going to be US-centric. "

It's a website on the Internet. It may have been made by Americans but unless a website is country-specific it doesn't make sense to call it a US site.

And while Winnipeg may be unique within Canada, this is not true of all cities in Canada, or in other countries.

On a more positive note, thanks Otis. I think that's a great solution. :)

I still don't see a province (or region or whatever) option in my edit profile page, though.

What about books with few locations/settings?

This change is now up.

What I think was meant by "US-Centric" is that 70% of our audience is US. That means we often cater to the US more, as it's the biggest audience. Please don't interpret that to mean that we think only people in the US it however - we want people from all over the world to be able to use Goodreads!

Otis, A long time ago you posted a list that showed number of members by country. I'd love for you to do that again, or to have it available somewhere on the site. I'd be interested to see the current membership stats.

Otis wrote: "What I think was meant by "US-Centric" is that 70% of our audience is US. That means we often cater to the US more, as it's the biggest audience."

Yes, that's part of it. But it's also the fact that you (the staff) are all living in the U.S. Naturally you will instinctively pick the American way of doing things. Like dates being month/day/year instead of day/month/year. Or the fact that you have ready access to the American postal system, so you started the book swap out being U.S. only.

Being US-centric (as I meant it) is not like a "boys only" sign on a tree house. It's saying where a site originated. Where the servers are. Where the staff is. What perspective the site was created from.

Which brings up the issue of the formatting of dates... This, however, isn't an issue I care much about. However, the month/day/year system is confusing to everyone else in the world. Using year/month/day is really the best system, because everyone will understand it, including, presumably, Americans.

Lianne wrote: "Using year/month/day is really the best system, because everyone will understand it, including, presumably, Americans."

Nope. Most Americans will find it very confusing.

But month/day/year makes no sense... computers can't even understand that. It's pretty much the worst date format you could possibly use. No one who thinks about it for more than a second could be confused by year/month/day, because it would make no sense to say year/day/month. So basically the choices are: cater to Americans, or make sense to the rest of the world. Though it seems that decision has already been made.

I thought about it and I strongly dislike year/month/day - the info you want is at the end. But I think we could easily do "Nov 5, 2009 01:57PM" which isn't much longer than "11/05/2009 01:57PM". Would that work?

Month/day/year makes perfect sense, if that's the system one is used to. Just as year/month/day makes sense, if that's the notation that is familiar.

I, for one, am usually 100% in the camp of making GR accessible for all users worldwide, and generally don't have a lot of sympathy for the "it's an American website" argument, which strikes me as ungracious and unwelcoming. I am so glad to see Otis' clarifying remarks, making it clear that although 70% of GR users are American, this is, in fact, an international website meant for everyone.

That said, respect is a two-way street. I think there's enough to criticize, Lianne, without going overboard. Our way of doing things may not be the most common, but it is as entitled to respect as any other. It does, in fact, "make sense." Phrases such as "cater to Americans, or make sense to the rest of the world" strike me as deliberately provocative. Satisfying, no doubt, but counter-productive in the long run.

Lianne wrote: "But month/day/year makes no sense... computers can't even understand that. It's pretty much the worst date format you could possibly use. No one who thinks about it for more than a second could be ..."

Because it makes no sense to you? It makes perfect sense to a lot of people.

I personally found your comments to be very rude and insulting. Imagine how others might feel about them?
All because you find one way of seeing the date easier then another way? Or more appropriately, *your way* isnt the one being used.

I personally find year/month/day very confusing, but that doesnt mean I am going to be rude to Otis if he decides thats what he is going to use on the site!

I agree with Abigail in that your comments to me seemed to deliberately provoke people. Which I do believe there are rules in place to prevent such things from happening so that ALL of us can participate in a *friendly* environment without fear of being attacked.

I commend Otis for dealing with your comments in a friendly manner and trying his best to accommodate all countries so they can participate in this site.

rivka wrote: "Lianne wrote: "Using year/month/day is really the best system, because everyone will understand it, including, presumably, Americans."

Nope. Most Americans will find it very confusing."

I'm pretty sure everyone can figure out dates when it's past the 12th of the month... ;) What would be REALLY nice is if each user could pick how the dates are formatted on their account. I could see that being a tedious change from a programming point of view, though..

Lianne wrote: "But month/day/year makes no sense... computers can't even understand that."

Well, I'm not going to argue about how Americans do things pretty backward sometimes, but "computers can't even understand that"? What?!? Computers handle dates however you program them to. I thought that was a strange statement coming from a person who has so many computer programming textbooks on her bookshelves...

Otis wrote: "I thought about it and I strongly dislike year/month/day - the info you want is at the end. But I think we could easily do "Nov 5, 2009 01:57PM" ..."

The month/day/year format is very confusing for me too, it requires a little moment of thinking each time.
The solution you propose would be great, it's really a lot more readable.

Like Lisa, I'm also interested in knowing how international goodreads is, the stats are a good idea.

Another way to see how far are other people on goodreads would be to know what time it is for them, on their profile for example. I'm just curious.

I'm also curious about the US postal codes. I can only guess a few states, but most are unknown to me. It could be interesting to see the full state name for people outside the US.

Thanks, Abigail. I'm all for making all our members feel welcome, including international ones. But it's hard to keep that attitude when folks start pulling out the "but OUR way is best!" card.

I think using Nov. instead of 11 is a good compromise.

Cecile wrote: "I'm also curious about the US postal codes. I can only guess a few states, but most are unknown to me. It could be interesting to see the full state name for people outside the US."

I wonder what percentage of AMERICANS know all the 2-letter state abbreviations! There are so many A, M, and N states, it can get pretty confusing! That being said, I ALWAYS type out the state in the book settings... I know not everyone does. I wonder if there should be a note there to tell American GR librarians to type out state names....

rivka wrote: "I think using Nov. instead of 11 is a good compromise. "

Agreed! It's hard to be clearer than Nov 5, 2009. For English speakers, anyway...

Sara ♥ wrote: "Cecile wrote: I wonder what percentage of AMERICANS know all the 2-letter state abbreviations!"

Most of us had to learn them in school. I think I still know all of them.

rivka wrote: "Sara ♥ wrote: "Cecile wrote: I wonder what percentage of AMERICANS know all the 2-letter state abbreviations!"

Most of us had to learn them in school. I think I still know all of them."

Yep, along with the state capitals in third grade. I definitely remember the two-letter abbreviations, and can usually come up with the capitals, if pressed. I assume that people on goodreads are, on average, more intelligent than the general population, on average. Since we're the bookish types, and all! :)

New timestamps are in effect if you scroll up :) Though there might be other places I missed - let me know if you find any.

Cool. Edit stamps don't have the new format, if that matters.

Good catch. Caught a few others too for the next release.

Otis wrote: "New timestamps are in effect if you scroll up :) Though there might be other places I missed - let me know if you find any. "

Sounds like a valuable change. Although I apologize that my attempt to clarify myself brought up another source of contention.

I'm sorry that some people seem to think I was trying to be provocative. That wasn't my intent. I wasn't saying that my way is the "right" way. I just think things should be done in a way that makes equal sense to everyone. I am perfectly happy with Otis' solutions. Using Nov instead of 11 is a great idea. :)

Sara ♥ wrote: Well, I'm not going to argue about how Americans do things pretty backward sometimes, but "computers can't even understand that"? What?!? Computers handle dates however you program them to. I thought that was a strange statement coming from a person who has so many computer programming textbooks on her bookshelves...

What I meant by computers not understanding that is that if you put a date like 6/11/2009 into a database or something, it will interpret it as d/m/y, because that is how computers deal with dates. It won't know that you prefer m/d/y. Of course you can write a program to deal with them differently, but d/m/y is the default. And I have so many computer books on my shelves because I am a computer scientist, so yeah, I actually do know what I'm talking about there, and I don't think that little attack was necessary.

Now as I've said, I wasn't trying to start any arguments here. I think Otis has made some excellent decisions, and this forum doesn't need to become the site of a big debate.

Thanks Otis!

First, I didn't mean to attack you—sorry if it came across that way. I was just surprised at your statement. I don't remember ever having an issue inputting dates as m/d/y into databases back in my days as a computer programmer... Maybe the programs I've used are US versions?

I guess they must have been configured to accept US date formats.

But yeah, didn't mean for this to turn into an argument... Americans and the rest of us (perhaps especially Canadians) have a lot of disagreements, but I think they can all be discussed in a friendly manner. :)

In any case, I think the three letter format for months is perfect.

Lianne wrote: "In any case, I think the three letter format for months is perfect. "

Agreed.

I did not see that as an attack, but I can see how you might take it that way. However, I do not know what programming you are speaking of but I have dealt with computers for quite some time myself, as well as a few programming languages and d/m/y has never been the default in anything I have dealt with.

I do not know it all, and I am sure we live in different areas of the world and that probably has something to do with it.
Point is, neither of us has the *right way* of doing things. Its all personal preference.

I am glad Otis found a way to make the majority happy on this matter.

Glad you all cleared that up :)

Sara ♥ wrote: "I wonder what percentage of AMERICANS know all the 2-letter state abbreviations...
rivka wrote: "Most of us had to learn them in school. I think I still know all of them."
Yep, along with the state capitals in third grade..."

With my poor memory, I was hopeless at geography, so I won't blame anyone for that. I was never able to learn all the French departments (a hundred names to remember is too much for me).

Otis wrote: "New timestamps are in effect if you scroll up :) Though there might be other places I missed - let me know if you find any. "

Thanks Otis, it really makes a difference.
Maybe you've already seen it, but the date of the reviews is still in the old format.

(Wikipedia – French departments...) 100 of them? Holy cow. How often are those used? In addresses, like US states? (Sorry, I am totally ignorant about postal systems everywhere in the world except the US, Canada, and South Korea...)

But that makes me really grateful that the US Postal Service doesn't require COUNTY/parish/other-equivalent names in addresses... That would be AWFUL! There are 254 counties in Texas alone!

Well, the department codes (not the names) are used in addresses and on license plates.
The names are mostly useful in a conversation, when someone talks about his holidays, and then you feel a bit ignorant not really knowing in which area it is.

I see! Well, as long as you know which one you are in... because it could be a bit awkward in conversation if you had mistakes about your OWN area... ;)

rivka wrote: "Thanks, Abigail. I'm all for making all our members feel welcome, including international ones. But it's hard to keep that attitude when folks start pulling out the "but OUR way is best!" card.

I ..."

The Nov 7 would be a good alternative of the notation of a date with only numbers in my opinion. That way everyone understands what is being written, without having to puzzle.

And I agree on the respect and politeness thing: people may have different opionions on a lot of things, but should be *discussing* things instead of getting rude. It makes no sense to do that and being rude and disrespectful only makes people turn away from you, even if the point you bring forward makes sense.
But, that's just me speaking ;-)

Almost all computer languages have localization mechanisms which render dates in the appropriate format for the user's browser's locale as long as the date is encoded as a DATE or DATETIME. DBMS's handle it by encoding the date as a number not a day, month, year and then computing the month, day, year... The numbers are usually the number of seconds or mSecs or days since 1 Jan 1970. That's why each person thinks what they've experienced is the standard and right way. The program's presented to each according to each's need.

Ah ha! THAT is why if you type the date into Excel and then change the format to "general" (or similar), it displays the date as something like 40124 (today)... That just clicked in my brain.

Oooh I thought something about the dates was different. I think the new format is perfect and much easier to understand for me now. Thanks Otis!

Sometimes I find confusing writing date in format month/day/year, especially when the day is between 1 and 12. I'm from Poland and I use date format day/month/year.

Localization of timestamps is another story, but one I'd like us to get to.

The new format of dates is nice and - for me - not confusing. I know that November 7, not July 11.

Lisa wrote: "Otis, A long time ago you posted a list that showed number of members by country. I'd love for you to do that again, or to have it available somewhere on the site. I'd be interested to see the curr..."

That's a good idea!

Greetings from Paris, Europe.

Anna wrote: "Sometimes I find confusing writing date in format month/day/year, especially when the day is between 1 and 12. I'm from Poland and I use date format day/month/year. "

I am from France and I use date format day/month/year but when you learn English or American language, you learn the writing's date format month/day/year.

Michelle: when you learn English or American language, you learn the writing's date format month/day/year.

But I still have to make some corrections while writing dates in English.