A Hint For NEW Contest/Freebie Posters *Please Read*

[remarker]

French put day then the month, English is month then day. Sounds trivial, until you read a date like 10/06/07
Is it October 6 or June 10? Hmmm...

Course the international way is YYYY/MM/DD, so 20070630.

Then there's the problem with punctuation, since some folks use dashes, and others use a slash, and some folks don't use any punctuation at all.

Agreed that a standard date format would make things a lot easier to search. We just have to agree on what that standard is. If there was a way to select from a scroll-down menu, then the expiry date entries would all be standard - and easier to search.

Maybe Boo can come up with something. (hint, hint)

Yes, I meant like a message under "How to Post a contest" that reads - for everyone's convenience the agreed on date format is......"

It's easy to enter dates when actually entering most contests because database entry leaves no room for individuality.
They ask you to enter date a certain way and ballot will not be accepted unless it is entered how they like it. Nice sites state what they want
ex: (birthdate:ddmmyy, no spaces or mm-dd-yyyy) but sometimes I've had to try 2-3 different ways before acceptance when it wasn't noted!

I understand that french, english, Intl have different ways of doing things but hey, we can adapt, right, as long as we can agree to try?
(I have the same problem trying to read best before dates on products. One company writes one way and one another - expires: 09-06-07)

I still think it would be better to try and ask that people use a certain format than how it is right now with people entering the closing date in even more different variations since alphabet's involved too.

I like the scroll and click idea but can that work on this type of site? (newbie question)

[alajen]

Let's see what Boo has to say.... Boooo! Oh, BOOOOOOO!

[WandaJean]

Starting chant..
Stick it...stick it.. stick it....make it a sticky!!!

that should do it

[bcteagirl]

Even if dates were in a standardized formats, if you searched June 5th for example, all of June would come up... so it does not really help with searching sadly.

[remarker]

Even if dates were in a standardized formats, if you searched June 5th for example, all of June would come up... so it does not really help with searching sadly.

Yes, but if when you standardize you decided to use #'s joined (06/05) or exclude the space in the written form
(June5) then you'd just get those (usually but nothings perfect), wouldn't you?

If someone comes up with a solution here for contests it would even help in deals and coupons I'd guess?

[bcteagirl]

If people go by numbers, I will no longer be able to search by month to clean out the contest section... so NO NUMBERS FOR MONTHS!!

and no, it would not search well by numbers, sorry.. it has problems with shortness when searching...

[alajen]

Ok, settled and added to post!

[remarker]

If people go by numbers, I will no longer be able to search by month to clean out the contest section... so NO NUMBERS FOR MONTHS!!

and no, it would not search well by numbers, sorry.. it has problems with shortness when searching...

There sure is a lot to know around here. thanks for letting me know!

[bcteagirl]

no problem

[bcteagirl]

Bump!

[alajen]

Ok...updated the Contest Tracking part of the tips, so that should be it for this draft.

Comments and constructive criticisms are welcome.

[alajen]

Can everyone see the picture attachments? Want to make sure I did them correctly...

[bcteagirl]

I can't, but it may be my version of firefox? How about others?

[contester]

I can see the pictures. Thanks for doing this. I need help in tracking my single entry contests.

[Prue]

Nope can't see any pictures