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I would like to report a bug. This post was apparently closed 2 years ago, but it has only existed for 1 year and 3 months. See a screenshot of the problem below.

enter image description here

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    Was the question merged? I’ve seen that wreak havoc on timelines (e.g. answer posted before question).
    – Alex
    Mar 3, 2020 at 23:56
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    When you hover the closing date, it says 2018-11-26, so not really two years ago and later than the question has been asked (2018-11-13). I guess there is some rounding going on here.
    – Tom
    Mar 4, 2020 at 0:14
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    Thanks for reporting - agree this is confusing. Adding this to our backlog to address in the future, and when we have more updates, will post here.
    – Jon Chan StaffMod
    Aug 5, 2020 at 21:21
  • It wasn't time travel? Meddling in the space time causality? Am dissapoint.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Oct 15, 2020 at 18:12
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    @JonChan Are you sure that this issue is status-completed? I am facing a similar issue even now. Read this: meta.askubuntu.com/q/19738
    – Random Person
    Sep 14, 2021 at 17:40

2 Answers 2

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If you hover over "2 years ago" you'll see the date: 2018-11-26. So it was closed after it was asked, and this is just a confusing use of two date relativisers.

It would definitely be best for the same date relativiser to be used for both when the question was asked and when it was closed.

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This will be fixed in the next build.

I'm just doing a minimal fix here so that things closed more than 1 year ago and less than 2 years ago are considered "1 year ago" instead of 2.

Both the Asked date and the Closed date at the top of the page use their own bespoke date formatters that are different from the standard one used on things like comments. Each has specific strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, and merging the two is a much more complex discussion.

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  • Brian, are you considering using one date formatter at some point in the future? When for whatever reason more work on any of them is needed for example?
    – Luuklag
    Oct 15, 2020 at 17:30
  • Will this fix also resolve this previously reported bug?
    – Rand al'Thor
    Oct 15, 2020 at 20:01
  • How many regression tests were added?
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Oct 16, 2020 at 15:12
  • @Luuklag We most likely won't converge on a single formatter, but I would hope to get down to 2 since there are really should just be two ways we want to represent long-ago dates. (I actually just found another slightly different implementation of "years, months" in "Member for")
    – Brian Nickel
    Oct 16, 2020 at 16:25
  • @Randal'Thor It does not. I just spotted the code that is causing that difference and now I'm quite sad.
    – Brian Nickel
    Oct 16, 2020 at 16:26
  • @P.Mort.-forgotClayShirky_q It depends on how you measure. I did throw three cases into the existing test to check that we render "last year", "1 year ago", and "2 years ago" at the correct scenarios.
    – Brian Nickel
    Oct 16, 2020 at 16:28

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