[whatwg] <time> element feedback

[Smylers]

Aryeh Gregor writes:

> On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 3:53 PM, Ashley Sheridan
> <ash at ashleysheridan.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > I think localisation does have a valid use though. Consider a page
> > written in English with the date 01/12/2010. Is that date the 1st
> > December, or the 12th January? The only clue might be the spelling
> > of certain words in the document, but even then, the most popular
> > office software in use at the moment defaults to American spelling
> > for its spell-check feature, even if bought in England, which leads
> > to words being spelt wrong and giving the reader no good clue as to
> > what the date might be.
> >
> > Localisation in this case would mean that I could read the document
> > and easily figure out what the date was.
> 
> What do expect the browser to do in this case?  Flip it to 12/01/2010
> if appropriate, ... would make things much worse, because now rather
> than having to guess whether the *page* is using American or British
> convention (usually not too hard), you have to guess what convention
> your *browser* thinks is right (and it might be someone else's
> computer, a public computer, . . .).

Even so, that still doesn't help. You _also_ have to know whether the
author just wrote the date in text or used the <time> element, in order
to know whether your browser has already localized the date for you.

Which, in general, an author will have no way of knowing.

Smylers
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