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<syntax err#346> NEWS!!
The halfbakery revealed in July 2011 a new html tag to
auto-update defunct references to recent dates in online
news articles.
Many newswires find writing the entire date of an event
into their copy too formal, detracting from the flow of
the
piece. But words
like "today", "yesterday", "Wednesday",
"last week", and "last month", etc, become outdated all
too
quickly.
Boffins at think-tank halfbakery.com have come up with
an
automatic html tag that converts a date in code to an
appropriate phrase.
For example: <date>20/07/11</date> would, on the day
it
is posted, read "today", but once the day is over, it will
automatically update to read "yesterday", and the
following day to "on Wednesday", culminating years later
with "in July 2011".
Copywriters and online editors have hailed the
advancement as the greatest thing in html since
line breaks.
wc3schools: <time> tag
http://www.w3school.../html5/tag_time.asp
Used to describe a date - either of publication, or for (presumably) the purposes outlined in the idea. [zen_tom, Jul 20 2011]
html5doctor.com: The Time Tag
http://html5doctor.com/the-time-element/
More info on the time-tag. [zen_tom, Jul 20 2011]
Example
http://www.guardian...caire-phone-hacking
Roy Gleenslade – WRONG [theleopard, Jul 21 2011]
Shameless elf-promotion
ICML
"different audiences get different synonyms or idioms." said [pocmloc] [angel, Jul 22 2011]
Whynotime HTML5 time rant
http://whynotime.com/
[Dub, Nov 10 2011]
For [Dub]: HTML5 Time Tag Dropped then Restored
http://www.i-progra...-then-restored.html
[swimswim, Nov 10 2011]
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Annotation:
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The entire article could be similarly parsed, so that different audiences get different synonyms or idioms. So, for example, //boffins// is a good word for a certain readership, but a shite one for others. |
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Funny, because, on *my* screen it reads
"Innovators". You must have your web browser set to
"Tabloid". |
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On my screen it reads "Beardy overweight geeks with nothing better to do". |
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I must have my browser set to "Cynical sarcasm". |
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Mine says... err... nevermind; must've accidentally set it to "Porn" again. |
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I'd settle for requiring articles to have a mouseover date so you could tell how recent it is. |
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//<date>20/07/11</date>// Presumably, it'd be sensitive to locale (or USians here will be confused by that date)
<vote> |
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It could be programmed into a publishing house's
content management system, so would be bespoke
programming anyway. So yeah. The Americans can
get it wrong as much as they like and they'll STILL
get it right. |
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Check out the HTML5 standards, which allows for dates to be represented pretty much exactly like this (though they only provide the markup, actual usage and implementation - i.e. any actual bespokage - is up to you) - as a means of winning a development argument, W3C is always your friend. |
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Can you stick a link on? I wonder if I could
implement it at work... |
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There you go Bubs - I'm still unsure what the actual status of HTML5 is these days - whether it's in wide usage or not seems to depend on who you're talking to. I think the general concensus is that it's going to be standard sometime in the next 10-50 years - either that, or at least until the majoriy of Windows users move off from Windows XP - whichever happens first. |
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From reading that, does it have the scope to have
the web page think in the background <pubdate> + x
days to <presentdate> = "last Friday" (for instance)? |
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It seems to be just for clarifying a page's publication
date or for SEO. |
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That's the tricky thing with <html>, <xml> and all the other ml's - in of themselves, they don't actually "do" anything - they're just an agreed way of talking about stuff. |
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Once we all agree how we're going to talk about and refer to things - then developers can start thinking about clever ways to build from these solid foundations, and start doing the types of things you are talking about. |
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So if, in the future, whenever anyone uses a date, or, in an appropriate context (i.e. not this one) uses the word "today", it could be encoded into the tag form <time datetime="2011-07-20"> today</time> and so-encoded, could be recognised by whatever html parser usually decodes the raw text into the prettyness you end up reading, and in the course of doing that, substitute the appropriate text. Other use-cases might be to, on-click, google, or run a database query for any other events that happened on the same date, or to import that date into your own personal calendar, with a link to the page being read - I'm sure there are other possible (but not yet implemented) ways you could use the tag - but despite relying on the tag being there for them to function, they are not themselves the same thing as the tag. |
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So while the tag is in existence, there's not yet any implementation of the specific use-case you've identified, that would have to be written into the browser, or content delivery system, or whatever it was you wanted to exhibit this behaviour. However, before all of that can happen, we need to agree on whether we're going to embed our dates within the date tag or not. |
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[psst] And [Dub] the nice people at w3c have already thought of that and generally adopt the yyyy-mm-dd (sometimes called the "Swiss" or ISO 8601 )format that (nearly) everyone can agree on. |
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Facebook post datestamps essentially work like this (foregoing "today" for more specific durations of seconds, minutes or hours ago). It'll show things posted "yesterday" or "Sunday". Beyond that it's just dates. |
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I believe Twitter does the same. |
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//Facebook post datestamps essentially work like
this// |
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That's true, but they're specific time counters.
What I propose is for something that updates text
in an article in the same way. Take the third
[linky] as an example... Posted on 20 July,
speaking about 19 July, viewed on 21 July... |
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"Now, with James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks
yesterday admitting the fact, through gritted
teeth, to the media select committee, the
company has announced the termination of an
agreement with Mulcaire." |
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Using this date tag would have updated
"yesterday" to "on Tuesday", and next week to
"last week", keeping the article up to date. |
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Some exceptions and rules would have to be set
down by the editors of these websites, as this
method can't defend against errors in, for
instance, superlatives. For instance, if the article
reads, "Rebekah Brooks today became the highest
profile casualty of the phone hacking scandal
when a lorry full of News of the World back issues
mysteriously appeared on her cranium"; if then an
even higher-profile casualty is suffered, the
article, though the date stamp is correct, will be
erroneous. |
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<rebuttle>^H^H^Hal>
<humerous comment and optionally comical link>
<potentially modified vote>
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<ProseStyle spellcheck="on"> rebuttal </ProseStyle> |
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<sheepishly corrects typo> |
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[+] But I like reading a book written by my great
great grandfather six generation back, where he
tells me what he's doing TODAY. It gives me the
feeling I'm with him although he wrote this in the
1780's. |
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It takes the wind out of the text. I HEREBY
DECREE THAT NO ONE HAS PERMISSION TO COPY
OR SELL THIS BOOK WITHOUT THE WRITER'S
PERMISSION, FROM 300 YEARS AGO AND UNTIL 290
YEARS AGO. GRAND P. ASHUTE. |
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Nice idea [spotty] but isn't every date a <pubdate>? |
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//isn't every date a <pubdate>?// |
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When you work in the media, yes. Exhaustingly so. |
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The Betty Botha Rebuttle: |
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Betty Botha bought a bottle, but said she the
bottle's brittle. If I bat it with a paddle it may rebut
bitterly. So 'twas that Betty Botha bought a better
bottle for butter beer with pickles in brine, briefly bereaving the Bronfmans of anything better to bicker
about. (The second bottle is the rebuttle one). |
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you would remove important historical context: how
long after the event the article was published. Better
keep the date. |
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[Voice] The idea, as proposed, reformats the date in
the copy. Is the dateline considered part of the
copy? |
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Yes, the date of the article would still be at the top. |
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Seems things like "Breaking News!" might have to be
omitted from the outset, or placed in a separate tag
that self-destructs once the news has been deemed
"fixed". |
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{Another one to animate on the Way Back Machine} |
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