How should the date be formatted (dd-mm-yyyy vs yyyy-mm-dd, etc)?

[Frodo]

Month/Day/Year. Why fix what isn't broken?

MDY is broken.

Oh?  Why do you say that? 

[Hatman]

Just like everything else, we Canadians like to take the best of both worlds (American & European). I am more used to the American format, but I always have to make sure I know what format I'm reading because it varies from person to person.

My grade 7&8 science teacher made us write the date as one number eg "20120529"

[True Federalist]

Month/Day/Year. Why fix what isn't broken?

MDY is broken.

Oh?  Why do you say that? 

Because it is not consistently Big Endian or Little Endian.  Would you want time expressed as mm:ss:hh?

By themselves either DD-MM-YYYY vs YYYY-MM-DD are good, but the latter is the slightly better date format simply because time is consistently written in Big Endian format, so it makes some sense to be Big Endian there as well.

(It would be nice if internet addresses were also consistently big endian.  This site really should be org.uselectionatlas not uselectionatlas.org but that ain't gonna happen now, even tho some early computer network schemes did use such an idea.)

[freefair]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

[Angel of Death]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO 8601

[Emperor SJoyce]

Month/Day/Year. Why fix what isn't broken?

MDY is broken.

Oh?  Why do you say that? 

Because it is not consistently Big Endian or Little Endian.  Would you want time expressed as mm:ss:hh?

No, because I am not accustomed to time being such. However, I am accustomed to MDY, and making any kind of switch would not be necessary, because people are accustomed to it, know it, and can use it proficiently, unlike your time proposal.

[The Mikado]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

I've always heard, "9/11 changed everything.  November 9th, 1989."

[True Federalist]

Month/Day/Year. Why fix what isn't broken?

MDY is broken.

Oh?  Why do you say that? 

Because it is not consistently Big Endian or Little Endian.  Would you want time expressed as mm:ss:hh?

No, because I am not accustomed to time being such. However, I am accustomed to MDY, and making any kind of switch would not be necessary, because people are accustomed to it, know it, and can use it proficiently, unlike your time proposal.

Some people are accustomed to MDY while many others are accustomed to DMY.  Indeed, North America is about the only place MDY is used.  DMY and YMD have the advantages of being consistent in its ordering and YMD (in the form YYYY-MM-DD) has the advantage that it cannot be mistaken for MDY as DMY can.

[So the Heroes Fall]

I always figured the reason months come first here is they have names while the days and years don't, and May 30, 2012 thus aesthetically puts the word first and looks better than 2011 May 30, or 30 May 2011 (though yeah as shua and dead0man have pointed this is the best all around option perhaps). Xahar's explanation makes sense too. The other reason is that when people refer to dates in every day use and not historical events, they rarely use the year, like I wouldn't ever say my high school reunion begins on July 13, 2012, just July 13, and the month is perhaps more important in this type of context as there's only one July in the year but 12 days of. So while it's quirky, it has its reasons.

But formally, better to just go with the year first, or using the month's abbreviation.

[Simfan34]

Most to least specific/useful: dd-mm-yyyy.

[Vasall des Midas]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

I was told that my grandfather had died the day before.

[dialectical fetishist]

day-month-year

[Simfan34]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

That's not funny.

[Californian Tony]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

That's not funny.

Oh yes it is.

[I Can't Get That Sound You Make, Out Of My Head]

The European one makes the most sense, and is the one I'm most used to.

[white trash heroes]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

That's not funny.

Oh yes it is.

no, its literally unfunny. and it has nothing to do with 9/11.

[Senator Napoleon]

A joke i have heard a few times!
"Please, Americans, tell us what happened on the 9th of November 2001. We'd love to know!"

That's not funny.

Oh yes it is.

no, its literally unfunny. and it has nothing to do with 9/11.

Its relatively humorous that they actually find it funny when its not.

[politicus]

What is and isnt funny is always subjective.

[Rockefeller]

dd-mmmm-yyyy (01 January 2012) preferred for scholarly publications and periodicals because it comes of as professional (a comma in a written date is to "extraneous").

mmmm-dd-yyyy (January 1, 2012) preferred for fiction writing and personal correspondence because this format most resembles the way that dates are spoken.

yyyy-mmmm-dd (2012 January 1) preferred for official forms and documents that may need to be classified according to the year. 

That being said I voted for mmmm-dd-yyyy because its what I'm use to in the good ol' US of A.

[AkSaber]

Month-Day-Year, like it is done now in the United States. 

Same here. I"ve gotten used to it, so I'm not gonna change.

[Platypus]

I'm also voting for what I'm used to, I just don't need to use that as the only potential argument.

[Benwah [why on Earth do I post something] Courseyay]

18 Juin 2012

[ChanDan]

dd-mmmm-yyyy (01 January 2012) preferred for scholarly publications and periodicals because it comes of as professional (a comma in a written date is to "extraneous").

mmmm-dd-yyyy (January 1, 2012) preferred for fiction writing and personal correspondence because this format most resembles the way that dates are spoken.

yyyy-mmmm-dd (2012 January 1) preferred for official forms and documents that may need to be classified according to the year. 

That being said I voted for mmmm-dd-yyyy because its what I'm use to in the good ol' US of A.

Bingo.

[Holmes]

I like mm/dd/yyyy because that's how so many people (here) say it verbally (it's July 13th, 2012 - 07/13/2012). dd/mm/yyyy makes sense because it goes from smallest, to bigger, to biggest. But whatever. It's not really something I care about.

[Win32]

I believe yyyy-mm-dd should be the format as it is the only one that makes sense for filing purposes.

I've often had the same thought. The British put the least important number first, which makes some sense if you're always dealing with items from a narrow span of time, but otherwise seems silly in the extreme. The American alternative is at least an improvement on that.