But they are not of the last 30 days nor 365 days! They are of the last 30*24*60*60 seconds and 365*24*60*60 seconds (roughly)!

So you've only somewhat reduced the inaccuracy. And you don't care about weeks?? Everyone should have a user setting that says whether their week starts on Sunday or Monday and we'll recompute the superlative nodes lists separately for each person.

And timezones mean that we need to compute the other lists separately for each user as well.

Or, we could just realize that from Jan 18th 2004 through Jan 17th 2005 is a duration of one year and so listing the best nodes of the year "as of X date" and not "the best nodes of 2005 so far", is just fine.

Worst Nodes of last 365 days

I don't think so...

This is the kind of usability problem that drives non-computer people crazy. Yes, of course the nodes in question are from the last 365 days, that doesn't mean you have to say so. I think "in the past month, "within the last year" or "up to a year ago" are quite sufficient to allow people to understand, without sounding like a dork.

I also wish to register my dislike for the idea of best/worst nodes of the year starting from the beginning of the year/month. I'm not so fussed about what this means for Worst nodes, but for Best nodes, a brilliant node that scores on the Best nodes of the year in December will get wiped out at the end of month, when it could have been showcased for eleven more months. That would suck.

Agreed. For the most part, it sounds like a gratuitious change request to me.

Makeshifts last the longest.

As gaal mentioned a Hebrew term, there is a German term "Kalenderjahr", meaning things like 2004, 2005, or even 5702, 532 and the likes, covering roughly 365 days with a fixed start and end day like, in most cases, 1 January.

But since at any anniversary people supposedly remember the year that's passed since the last one, a year is any about 365-dayish span and need not be a specific calendar-centric year bosting a name like 2004 or 2005.

Cheers, Sören

Well, in English, there is the (remarkably similar) term "calender year", having exactly the same definition as "Kalenderjahr", ie. to differentiate between the period of a year (2 points in time roughly 365 days apart) and an actual year, eg. 2005.

There is also the "fiscal year"/"calendar year" difference, which has nothing to do with a duration... Gotta love English? Hence I avoid the "calendar year" phrase and just refer to fiscal years when needed. When something "takes a year", calendar year is implicit.

Well, we could alter the titles I suppose. Not sure there is much point, but if folks feel it would be clearer I'm ok with it. Id rather see someone take the time to do a "best nodes of random date" instead tho. I think folks would find that more interesting.

I'm reminded of arranging to meet someone for brunch on New Year's Day, and her cheery sign-off .. "See you next year!" .. when it was only three days away.

As has already been discussed (and I imagine that you know this already), these lists have to do with a relative length of time, not an absolute length of time. A month ago was December 10. If I think about how many times I've had a glass of beer in the last month, I don't consider all of December, or the part of January that's gone by so far -- I consider the period from December 10 to the present day (or maybe I start from December 11 if I'm being a little picky).

And under your suggested definitions, the Best Nodes of the Year wouldn't mean much at noon on January 1 -- in fact, it would be identical to the Best Nodes of Day and Month.

So leave things the way they are. And have a nice glass of beer. :)

Can we agree that "the (last | past) 12 months" unambiguously refers to the "last 365 days" without the defects/issues mentioned by grinder and tye?