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In the new comment layout experiment (2025), comments are being labelled with "Over a year ago" instead of the actual date. Why would you seek to hide this information? In my opinion it's just making the site harder to use.

Let's fix this by showing the actual date of comments instead of an unhelpful approximation.

Yes, I do realize that there is still an exact-date tooltip, but some others may not and frankly the tooltip is harder to use than just looking at the timestamp normally.

Here's a screenshot of an old comment of mine. You can see the tooltip saying that it's from 2017.

enter image description here

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  • 8
    This is related to A/B testing in this experiment, right? If yes, you could consider moving this info to an answer there. Otherwise we might need a screenshot because I'm not seeing it and I tried to find posts with enough comments: data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/query/1907507 Commented Jul 15 at 18:36
  • 4
    @rene Thanks for the pointer. Looks like this was pointed out before: meta.stackoverflow.com/a/434473/4476484 Commented Jul 15 at 18:41
  • 14
    Worse yet, in the new experiment layout, the datetime stamp is no longer a hyperlink. Regression! Commented Jul 15 at 19:56
  • 4
    @TylerH yes, noticed that as well, very annoying, you can still get the link through the "…" menu with as many clicks (assuming you'd usually just "right click" → "copy link") that being said there really isn't a reason to not also have the date hyperlinked. Commented Jul 15 at 20:32
  • 9
    Ahh yes, hide more stuff behind an area of the site that isn't accessible of touch devices... That's accessibility... Not to mention that is doesnt even respect the logic for other stuff. That "date stamp" shpuld at least say "Over 7 years ago" Commented Jul 16 at 8:04
  • 46
    Considering how old answers can, and are, updated frequently, and it's now impossible to tell if the comments are older than the revision at a glance (or all events are 1+ years ago), yes that is a problem, @Gimby . Dates might be "boring" to you, but they are far more informative. I, for one, don't give my date of birth as "more than 1 year", or the current year as "More than 1 year since the birth of Jesus", nor would I answer the qusetion "when did you join the company?" with "More than 1 year ago." It's not helpful information. Commented Jul 16 at 11:52
  • 12
    @Gimby Maybe I'm too curious for my own good, but I'd rather know whether a comment was from 15 years ago or from last year. To me, at least, that can make a difference and I can easier spot comments to potentially flag. Maybe that's not how I'm supposed to be using the information - do let me know if I'm reading and interpreting information wrong, and how I can do it right. Note that I am often browsing without using my mouse, so if the correct way is "Just hover over everything", I'm even more wrong in how I use the internet and would have to adapt. Despite my wrist discomfort. Commented Jul 17 at 10:13
  • 2
    My duplicate question but with a concrete example of dates being useful: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/434534 Commented Jul 19 at 9:47
  • 5
    Is there any way to opt out of the A/B test? I don't mind the other changes, but this change is killing my productivity Commented Aug 15 at 14:53
  • 3
    Quick plug for this blog post (from "more than a year ago" 😝) on how to make relative date displays actually useful: rwec.co.uk/q/reltime Commented Aug 15 at 15:56
  • 16
    this is the most infuriating UI change I have seen in a very long time and i am easily offended by "designers" breaking my workflow so i notice such things regularly. the date of comments on some questions/answers are the key information ffs. it's detrimental to usability to hide this behind what's basically an extra button. Commented Sep 12 at 10:19
  • 11
    Please get rid of the "Over a year ago" for the dates. It's way more than just comments now and it's really annoying. There's so much old information on Stack Overflow that you need to be able to see if what you're reading is relevant at a glance, not have to hover over the label. Commented Sep 27 at 16:06
  • 7
    SO: This comment was "Over a year ago" - Me (hovers): "2011-07-..." - That's more like over a decade ago. Commented Oct 1 at 6:31
  • 3
    See the Next Steps section of the Graduation Annoucement, @RokeJulianLockhart . Commented Nov 20 at 9:19
  • 3
    Do not think for a minute that anything less that full restoration of the time stamp is necessary. It is sometimes important to see who left what when, down to the minute. Commented Nov 27 at 3:24

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