Standardized Date Format in Titles [23 Feb 2016]

[Kerbart]

33 minutes ago, nightingale said:

Personally, I see no need for the extra zeros - there's no reason that these version numbers need to sort, and it looks odd to me.  More importantly, the KSP version is 1.0.5 - not 1.0.05, 1.05 or anything else.  Squad gets to decide that.  I don't agree with a lot of the version numbering choices that they've made (0.25 => 0.90, 1.0.1 should've been 1.1, 1.0.3 should've been 1.2, and so forth), but that doesn't mean I'm going to go and add to the confusion by trying to change it.

Now, if we're talking standards, then lets talk standards.  Most of the version numbers used either loosely or explicitly follow Semantic Versioning.  From the linked page, emphasis mine:

2.  A normal version number MUST take the form X.Y.Z where X, Y, and Z are non-negative integers, and MUST NOT contain leading zeroes. X is the major version, Y is the minor version, and Z is the patch version. Each element MUST increase numerically. For instance: 1.9.0 -> 1.10.0 -> 1.11.0.

Again, the dashes are hardly arbitrary, they are part of the standard.  See ISO 8601.  The format is YYYY-MM-DD.

If your point is to have a format that allows sorting, sticking to the "official" standard that requires no leading zeroes is going to miss the point completely.
You might as well add "you don't have to put the items in this specific order, we don't care about sorting anyway. Put the date in any format you want as well"

[nightingale]

26 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

If your point is to have a format that allows sorting, sticking to the "official" standard that requires no leading zeroes is going to miss the point completely.

Ah, but my point isn't to allow sorting.  My point is to have version numbering that adheres to a common general understanding, so that people intuitively "know" the implications of a new release.

31 minutes ago, Kerbart said:

You might as well add "you don't have to put the items in this specific order, we don't care about sorting anyway. Put the date in any format you want as well"

Straw-man argument.  Just because I don't place high value on being able to sort the different version numbers of a software release has no bearings on date format.  The "sortability" of ISO 8601 is a nice thing, but the main benefit is in removing the ambiguity present when using either the MM/DD/YYYY or DD/MM/YYYY formats.

[Superfluous J]

I didn't think of mod version numbers when I posted my proposed standard. I like @nightingale's but still think date before mod name is better, because this:

[1.0.5] [2016-02-27] HyperJeb [v0.5.2]
[1.0.4] [2015-08-30] MechEditor Extensions [v1.1.17]
[1.0.5] [2016-01-15] Contract Visual Enhancements [v18.7.1] "Mogadishu"
[1.0.5] [2016-01-01] Ferram Hydrosphere Dynamics [v0.99.999]

looks better to me than:

[1.0.5] HyperJeb [2016-02-27] [v0.5.2]
[1.0.4] MechEditor Extensions [2015-08-30] [v1.1.17]
[1.0.5] Contract Visual Enhancements [2016-01-15] [v18.7.1] "Mogadishu"
[1.0.5] Ferram Hydrosphere Dynamics [2016-01-01] [v0.99.999]

Also, vim is clearly better than emacs. And Android is better than iPhone while we're at it. And don't even get me started on Xbox vs Playstation...

EDIT:

But really, FAR FAR FAR more important than ANY of this is just that I want the dates in the titles SOMEWHERE. Putting "NEWLY UPGRADED!" doesn't tell me anything, because it could have been NEWLY UPGRADED in 2013...

Edited February 26, 2016 by 5thHorseman

[nightingale]

25 minutes ago, 5thHorseman said:

[1.0.5] [2016-02-27] HyperJeb [v0.5.2]
[1.0.4] [2015-08-30] MechEditor Extensions [v1.1.17]
[1.0.5] [2016-01-15] Contract Visual Enhancements [v18.7.1] "Mogadishu"
[1.0.5] [2016-01-01] Ferram Hydrosphere Dynamics [v0.99.999]

Huh, I didn't think I'd like that, but seeing it all together does look nice.  Problem is, it would look terrible unless everyone is doing it, and the only way to get more than 25% of the thread titles to look like this is to have it baked into the forum software somehow or other (ie. have fields where people put the mod name, KSP version, date and mod version).  I suspect it's possible given the level of configurability we've seen with IPS, but no idea whether "possible" means download a plugin and spending 5 minutes setting it up, or @KasperVld spending a week of time that he likely doesn't have.

[Poodmund]

Not necessarily, if the community comes together and a lot of the "Active" mods start using a standardized format I would expect that after half a year or so the majority of the thread authors would come around to using it. Almost all threads at this time put the KSP Version at the start of the title in square brackets, this is only because it makes sense and is useful, a lot of people do it and its been done for some time now. Its the sheep mentality.

Also I posted a thread about this EXACT thing way back on 14th Nov. 2014 and got no response which was sad at the time but it is so great to see this getting the notice it deserves because the forums at the moment are a mess to look at. I'll post what I said back then being:

Quote

 

Something along the lines of: [Version Number] Modification/Add-On Name (Version Number) [Date of Last Update YYYY-MM-DD]

An example title would be: [0.25] Modification/Add-On Name (0.5) [2014-11-30]

 

 

Edited February 26, 2016 by Poodmund

[Probus]

On 2/25/2016 at 1:52 PM, Poodmund said:

Not necessarily, if the community comes together and a lot of the "Active" mods start using a standardized format I would expect that after half a year or so the majority of the thread authors would come around to using it. Almost all threads at this time put the KSP Version at the start of the title in square brackets, this is only because it makes sense and is useful, a lot of people do it and its been done for some time now. Its the sheep mentality.

Also I posted a thread about this EXACT thing way back on 14th Nov. 2014 and got no response which was sad at the time but it is so great to see this getting the notice it deserves because the forums at the moment are a mess to look at. I'll post what I said back then being:

 

Sorry @Poodmund for stealing your idea (unintentionally).  It looks to me like the forum has, for the most part, adopted a version of this now, with slight aberrations.

[dewin]

I'm a fan of @5thHorseman's suggestion -- in fact, I came here to suggest it myself.  

This would mean that sorting threads by title descending would provide a list of all updated mods by KSP version and then date -- despite the fact that it's an alphabetical sort.  In fact, one of the advantages of using ISO dates is that they will sort correctly regardless of whether they're being treated as dates, numbers, or just plain strings.

Edited to add: Half of this would be moot if there was a way to sort by date of last edit of the first post.

Edited April 25, 2016 by dewin

[sarbian]

13 minutes ago, dewin said:

This would mean that sorting threads by title descending would provide a list of all updated mods by KSP version and then date -- despite the fact that it's an alphabetical sort.

It would work if all the thread are like that, but the old one are not. If the sort by "start date" used the last OP edit date that would be better...

[Diazo]

Heh, and here I just did want seemed to make sense.

Quote

[1.0.5](Mar17/16) Action Groups Extended: 250 Action Groups, in-flight editing. Now kOS/RemoteTech

One thing I will note is that I like to do a short description of the mod in the thread name if possible so I used the 3 letter abbreviation for the month even though it only saved me 2 characters as that was a big deal on the old forum. (I think the new forum allows for longer thread titles but haven't actually checked.)

In terms of actually defining what a thread title should be? Well, this is what makes sense to me.

KSP Version first: The most important bit, especially after an update. There is a lot of chatter in the Releases sub-forum, if you are after mods that have updated to actually install them this is what you look at.

Date second: Almost as important, this tells you if a mod has updated recently while between releases of KSP. Also important that the month uses letters, not numbers, with the many standards out there this is the only way to make sure the date is clearly understandable.

Mod name/description third: And the most important bit, the remainder of the space available is free for this.

Note that Mod Version is not present anywhere. With several mods installed I have no hope of keeping track of which version of a specific mod I currently have so that information would just clutter up the thread title for no purpose.

D.

 

Edited April 25, 2016 by Diazo

[Poodmund]

4 hours ago, Probus said:

Sorry @Poodmund for stealing your idea (unintentionally).  It looks to me like the forum has, for the most part, adopted a version of this now, with slight aberrations.

Stealing! God no... I'm just so glad that thing issue has finally got the attention it deserved because the forums were an absolute mess a while back.

[Guest]

On 2/24/2016 at 11:01 PM, nightingale said:

vim is better than emacs.

It is known.

[Stone Blue]

2 hours ago, Diazo said:

Mod name/description third: And the most important bit, the remainder of the space available is free for this.

Note that Mod Version is not present anywhere. With several mods installed I have no hope of keeping track of which version of a specific mod I currently have so that information would just clutter up the thread title for no purpose.

D.

I agree totally with you, up to this point, Diazo ^^

I like having the mod version in the title, as I DO keep old versions, and a spreadsheet... i can quickly look at the title, then check my mods folder to see if I have that version, without having to open the thread and search thru the OP...

But then, I'm not a modder (yet), and thats just my worthless opinion...

[Poodmund]

On 2/25/2016 at 3:12 AM, 5thHorseman said:

[1.0.5] [2016-02-27] HyperJeb [v0.5.2]
[1.0.4] [2015-08-30] MechEditor Extensions [v1.1.17]
[1.0.5] [2016-01-15] Contract Visual Enhancements [v18.7.1] "Mogadishu"
[1.0.5] [2016-01-01] Ferram Hydrosphere Dynamics [v0.99.999]

If nothing more than a thread bump to get this back into the public eye, I have adopted the above standard for reference.