Webmaster -- did you do a "fix"??

Laura, If someone goes back and edits a post (you can only edit your own posts) it updates the timestamp on a the thread, and goes to the top of the category list, but the time of the particular entry does not change. I have done this in the past when I have noticed typos or spelling mistakes in my post.

I posted the above paragraph at "12/24/14 03:36 PM" (I hate the way this forum does confusing back-to-front times and dates, should be "15:36 24/12/14", or so I learnt at school).
I have now gone back in to edit the post and in and on https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/general-europe it nows shows the later time of the second edit.

All above is my time zone, it will show times in your time zone.

Chris, the 24-hour clock is no problem for me, but the European date format is pretty hard and requires a surprising amount of effort to sort out. The temperature difference in high elevations in the northern latitudes between January 8 and August 1 is significant, so when I see 1/8/2015 on a hotel reservation and I know it's supposed to be during air-conditioning time, I have to look really hard and think about it for a while to realize the reservation is, in fact, referring to a date in early August and not early January. Switching to a 24-hour time format would allow eliminating the "AM" and "PM" from the time-stamps of posts, but I vote for keeping the date format as is. Merry Christmas!

Ah Cyn, you've just summed up the problem I have in trying to work out back-to front US dates. I have the same problem to you in the opposite direction.
You said "January 8 and August 1". That is the problem, you are saying it back-to-front, it should be 8th January and 1st August ☺

Some time ago I was in a street near here talking to a couple from the US, and he looked up at one of those large 7-segment displays on the side of the building. The display was alternating between displaying
"17:45", "25 11" and "+14°". He asked me what it was.
To me it was obvious, time, date and temperature, 14°C being mild for late afternoon on the 25th of November, but I had to explain it to him. It is the same order in every language in Europe I have come across, including English.

Merry Christmas to you all.

The European (and Canadian, eh.?) way of dating makes such sense. From the smallest (day) to the largest (year). Hence 24.12.14

Working in international banking, the computer gurus figured out how to minimize the problem -- we could only input dates as day number, month name, year -- so no confusion between 1/8 and 8/1. (Without discussion of which way is "right")

Guess that someone did a lot of edits earlier today!

Webmaster - at the time I am writing this, I see about 21 posts in order from "phred" that were all posted a long time ago, and all showing the same time stamp of 10:42 (CST) Dec 24.. He couldn't have edited all his posts at once, or is this from a change in profile?

looking further It seems that almost every thread to which "phred" posted, has been updated with a time stamp of 10:41 or 10:40. Nothing against phred but this seems odd, and probably a glitch.

I am also curious about this. They all seem to be threads that 'phred' has either posted or participated in. Did phred figure out how to do something to accomplish this? It appeared to happen in the middle of the night so not sure if webmaster was at work then.

This is something I wanted to mention for some time. Let's say I am looking for new posts. Then I click and find out that it is not a new one but someone wanting to get that post ahead again uses this trick with editing (my strong suspicion).
Webmaster, would it be possible to change this feature so mere editing (better said fake editing) would not change a date of the last post when you are looking under the country? It's a little annoying when you look and see a fresh date, click and find out that it is not fresh, only somebody played that trick with editing.
I don't care if we are using american traditional units and time and date or european ones as long as I know which units we are using. Nevertheless I hope that America wakes up soon. We are the last country in the world not using metric.
And there is another thing I wanted to mention: some contributors are double or even triple posting. Is that some hunt for a badge? I know, sometimes a double post happens accidentally. But then you see two options: edit and delete on the side under your name then click on delete under those additional posts and leave just one. Merry Christmas to all.

It's true that editing your post makes it move to the top but, as far as I know, there's no way to edit multiple posts at the same time which is what appears to have happened. Either phred found the secret or it was a program glitch. I'm sure we'll hear as soon as the team is available to answer this question. Right now I hope they're all home with their families for the holiday.

Hi everyone: good catch. An automated script didn't properly modify the timestamps for some topics when they were modified. The times are in the process of being corrected.

Thanks, Nikky -- and why don't you go home now and enjoy the holiday? Best wishes to all the RS people!

To add to Nikky's comment and answer the OP, yes, we implemented a fix. As some discovered, it related to phred's account. It looks like all is well now.

Back to my time off! :)

Sincerely,
Me

Great job "me" The website was starting to look like the ghost of travels past. May your Christmas be merry and your New Year bright.

I was wondering the same thing, Laura! There are still quite a number of threads on the Italy forum which show as being replied to yesterday but have been "dead" since October.