Okay, this is one of those nitpicky things that has to be done, and I can’t think of a good way to do it. So I’m asking you.
When I put up the Working Wednesday and Good Book Thursday posts, I add the dates. Because of the website re-design (yes, that is happening still), the dates have to go. But if I just take the dates off, I’ll have 418 posts labeled “This is a Good Book Thursday.” So that doesn’t work.
Mollie suggested I add something to them to indicate what I’m talking about in that post but since the posts are basically “Hey, whatcha doin’?” and “Hey, whatcha reading?” that won’t work. The dates never did anything but differentiate the titles, nobody was ever going to search by date, so losing the dates is not a problem. Replacing them is the problem. We could just number them so (if I’ve counted right) the last one would be This is a Good Book Thursday 418, but that seems cold. I could try to use a theme on each one, but that would just be limiting and annoying. “So what books about carrots did you read this week, Argh People?” “This week we’re reading Hentai. Whatcha got?” “Books about dogs: what have you read?” (Okay, that last one would probably go over here.)
So I’m stumped. Working Wednesday and GBT are not going anywhere and they’re not changing, we’re just talking about the labels we put on them. I suppose I could do a post for each one every week, but I think I’m better off writing books.
Any suggestions?
50 Responses
If you can number them, can you do the date using numbers and spaces? E.g., “This Is a Good Book Thursday 3 20 25”
When I do a Google search (using the site: function to limit results), it’s really helpful to scan the results and see when the posts ran. So if there can’t be a date, I’d appreciate a number.
I’ll ask Mollie if that would work.
The problem on the website (not the blog) is that the date appears under the post automatically, so it’s just awkward. And the posts are on the home page as links back to here, so there’s no way to stop that.
I’ll see what she says.
The only way that helps is if you remember the number of the last post you read. I might remember the date or the subject, but the number of the post? Not for someone like me who checks the blog at bedtime.
But surely the highest number would be the most recent? In fact, all I look for on the website (if Newsify doesn’t have the post I’m expecting) is ‘Good Book Thursday’.
So what if it’s awkward? It’s easy, allowing you to go on to other delights.
What she said
So what if it’s awkward? It’s easy, allowing you to go on to other delights.
I like MJ’s date idea, and failing that, I am fine with the number idea.
Me too.
I don’t think numbers are cold. They’re practical.
The best suggestion I’ve heard for using dates as a reference, which I’ve used for years, is to append it with YYYY/MM/DD (but not using slashes) (or spaces). That format makes them show up in order, great for different versions of rough drafts: TITLE-YYYYMMDD
For brevity, you could skip the first two digits of the year — as much as we might wish otherwise, I doubt we’re going to be concerned with ordering dates beyond this century like we were when we went from 1999 to 2000. So yesterday’s post would be: This is a Good Book Thursday 250320.
Oh. But you’re going back a ways, so maybe use the entire year? 20250320. The key is to be consistent.
So if someone wanted to re-visit a really interesting discussion with great suggestions that happened sometime last winter or a year ago in May, they’d be able to narrow down the search a bit.
Hope that helps!
Numbers don’t seem cold to me, but if they do to you you could try warming them up by adding something like a volume or issue number. “This is a good book Thursday, issue 418” or whatever.
That’s what Mollie suggested.
I am in total agreement with those espousing the ISO 8601 Universal Date as part of the title.
Current date and time expressed according to ISO 8601
Date in UTC 2025-03-22
Anyone examining my blog (click on my name above) would see that I date my posts iaw ISO 8601 on the first line following the title. One of the advantages of ISO 8601 is that it is alphabetical.
Blockquote>March 2025 Farm Report
2025-03-01 MARCH 2025 FARM REPORT There is little new to report. Thirty or so cherry tomatoes ripened and were harvested and eaten. Some…Failing the universal date, a number is adequate. You could even use abbreviations such as GBT418.
Trying again:
I think numbers would be simple and not cold at all. It is cool to see how many Thursdays we have spent discussing good books!
Personally, I rarely look back more than a couple of posts. Usually it is to credit someone who recommended a book I loved.
I agree with others’ posts.
Also, if the issue is redundancy, I don’t see it as a problem. Not a problem at all. At all.
Fine with numbers. Actually I kinda like its sense of continuity and longevity. Maybe I’m just craving stability just now.
I think the numbers are cool, not cold. I see other bloggers using that format – pretty frequently, now that I think about it.
Numbers are fine. Are you saying that because the website automatically adds the date, it would be there twice? Because that would be fine too.
It’s already there twice (see this week’s GBT), so I guess it must be to do with the layout of the new site. The automatic date must be much more prominent?
It’s right under the post title.
Numbers are fine. Or if including a year would be helpful for some, possibly something like 2025.16 (the number of the week, seeing as how there’s 52 weeks/yr).
Just another alternative is using Julian calendar numbers.
The Julian calendar is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year. Today is 25081.
We used it in production line dates in my food business years.
*It might save space.
Numbers please. I can figure those out just as easily as a date. Other phrasings could confuse me.
In this scenario, are simplicity, not coldness. And simplicity is so appreciated , especially if the goal is to include new readers. They need an easy way into the group.
Numbers here also. I don’t search by date anyway, just go back ‘a few weeks’ or so to jog my memory.
I think numbers would be more friendly than military-style dates. Especially since non-US readers use day/month/year format in everyday use.
Phases of the moon? Today is gbt, strawberry moon waxing gibbous?
Or astrological signs? Working Wednesday, why is mercury in my retrograde?
Why is Mercury always in retrograde? Sigh.
Or ecclesiastical-second Wednesday in Ordinary time, St Lucy’s Day, etc.
I’m used to seeing the date in the title and it doesn’t bother me that the date is also automatically inserted below the title. My mind just ignores it. Plus, I’m going straight to the comments to read them, not focusing on the post title.
I seriously didn’t even see it.
I am apparently less anal than I thought, b/c I don’t care, so long as it gets solved and doesn’t take you from writing books!
I’m pretty sure that I’ve sometimes searched on the date. It’s also how I label my draft GBTh comments and I’ve occasionally wanted to compare the draft version with the posted one (with minor wording changes, etc.). The KD James suggestion is the most compact way of presenting the date with conventional format (astronomical Julian day or one-up numbering inside year, also loosely called Julian day sometimes, are more compact but require looking up) and has the advantage of being equally foreign in all countries. I don’t know why Jane calls it military-style. 22 March 2025 is military style (in the US anyhow). 20250322 is just the style used everywhere to easily keep dates in order on computer.
It just looks machine-generated/super official. I daresay I’m maligning the military.
Our election board always has discussions about date format on ballot envelopes. Is the date within range (signed date between date mail-in ballots issued and election day)? Is 10/4/2023 valid for a 4/18/23 primary? Well, they could be using military/European dating.
I like the dates, because sometimes I forget to make a note of something, but I will remember that the discussion happened around the time I had a parent teacher conference, or that I read it while at the dentist, and because those are easy to find in my calendar, dates help me find the post.
Dates please. Apparently Lu’s brain and mine work the same way — I attach an event to a time I am trying to recall.
I like dates because if I thought I missed one or looking to see if I listed a book last week or whenever, I do look for the date. But numbers would work too.
I’m usually not a numbers person but here it makes a lot of sense – I agree with Lu and Helen, I usually remember certain dates as stepstones. Personally, I like Gary’s ISO numbers best, eg 2025-03-22 for today, but I can live with 20250322, too.
And two dates are better than none 🙂
I frequently read the archives as Argh is one of the few safe and sane sites on the internet. And interesting.
I will search by the week starting back in 2018, such as the third Thursday of March, moving forward to 2019, etc. I don’t know if my type of search would be affected or not.
As long as we have GBT, I will adapt.
I think you can search by date in the database regardless of the post title, but I’m not sure.
I think you should number them. It’s not cold. Actually, it’s kind of cool because there are so many of them.
I do like the dates rather than the numbers.
The dates don’t distract from the posts. I don’t usually notice them.
Just keep writing, please.
I like the dates, makes the conversations follow in order.
Skimmed the responses so far. I like Good Book Thursday 418. The simpler things are the better as far as I’m concerned.
I have been converted to numbering them and using “Issue.” Good Book Thursday Issue 418.
I think leaving the dates the way they are makes the most sense, even if they show twice. No need to reinvent the wheel and make it more complicated for yourself!
I’m happy with numbers too.
What if you put the year in front of the number, and the number is the week of the year, maybe even in brackets? So the first post of 2025 would look like “This is Good Book Thursday (2025-1).” Or I like Gary’s use of Issue, so it could be “This is Good Book Thursday (Issue 2025-1).”
Dates and numbers are fine with me, but if you hate them and want to use something you won’t run out of, didn’t Carl Sagan always tell us there are “billions and billions of stars”? You could use star names. Or, I guess just pick up a baby name book and work your way through those.