Another small step in a journey that started in 1973.
Are you sure that wasn’t 7319?
Do you agree that the American standard is Month/Day/Year?
Do you also agree that putting the month in words instead of numbers doesn’t actually change the American standard it is just another form of the same standard?
Do you now see that you objection is stupid?
Even supposing Ellis Dee is right and it is only 5%. Is it too much to ask to show a little courtesy to those 5% and type out the month name or abbreviation? Are you seriously put out that much?
I just don’t get the idea that it’s okay to confuse people just because they are a small minority.
Well at least now I understand why all discussion of network shows uses spoiler boxes until the episodes air in Hawaii.
Do you comprehend that the mods are asking the vast majority of dopers to change what they’re doing? Do you understand why that makes this quoted post of yours stupid?
Social interaction and courtesy are not based on statistics. I dunno what else to tell you.
You don’t have to do it. You don’t have to change what you’re doing.
You are not being asked to do anything that is contrary to the American standard. Your complaint about having to change from the American standard is baseless. You’re being asked to do the equivalent of adding an “F” to a temperature so we all know it’s fahrenheit. And as mentioned, it’s not a rule, you don’t have to do it.
I think it’s more helpful to think of it as a suggested guidline for avoiding ambiguity.
Never mind minority/majority, if anyone says “The long-awaited reboot of The Beachcombers premieres 04/05/10,” there’s going to be some confusion.
The Straight Dope is “an American board” in some sense, but it’s an international board in a more significant sense. Your suggested alternative of having every non-US poster conform to the American standard while here is not the best solution, because even if this were a “rule,” there’d be know way to tell if any particular instance of an all-numeric date conformed to the rule or was the product of someone who was unaware of the rule suffering a momemtary lapse into a lifelong habit.
The suggestion offered by TPTB is quite simply the best way to avoid any ambiguity, and I have a hard time fathoming why it would bunch anyone’s pants up.
FWIW, what I actually asked was if people could, where possibly, include the episode title or number (like S3/E20 - season 3, episode 20) if possible.
Not that people should stop using the air date, because I appreciate that that’s the most convenient way for the majority US-users of this board, but that they should add something else in, if it doesn’t make the title unweildy, to help people in different time zones identify which episode it was.
The reason for this is I don’t usually even know the air date in the US so it sometimes makes it hard to know which episode they’re talking about. Writing the date out in words would mean that I don’t assume it’s a series/episode number, but wouldn’t actually help me identify the episode. I know for certain I’m not alone in this.
It’d be like if I started a thread about a Dr Who or Torchwood or Being Human episode and expected all of you to know which one I meant just by the date it was aired in the UK, even if there are two episodes aired in one week, reaired again on another BBC channel a day or two later and then aired a couple of weeks later over your end - which has happened (the last couple of Dr Who episodes, for example). In that case dates alone would be confusing even for me, and I’m in the home country of that show.
So, TBH, I’m not sure why the new guidelines have been set out in this way.
I’m not playing junior moderator and am not trying to set out a guideline or anything - I just like discussing TV shows (sometimes even just reading about them) and would like to be able to identify those threads, so I’d respectfully ask people, as one SDMB member to another, to include a little bit more info in their thread titles, please. And I’ll do the same for you if I ever get in first with starting a thread. 
The reason that the emphasis has been on air date rather than episode number is that the episode number is something that you’d need to look up, and there is, as far as I know, no standard place to get the info. TV listings, e.g., don’t necessarily give that information; I’m not sure if it’s always, or even often, given on the network site. The air date, however, is usually more or less obvious – broadcast channels in the U.S. generally show a show once during the main run of the show (later reruns are much less likely to evoke discussion), and even cable shows have a primary airing during which the most rabid fans will catch the show, even if there are additional airings over the following week.
So the air date is generally pretty clear – Or would be, if people would spell out the name of the month.
The IMDB always lists episode numbers and titles (even before broadcast). It also usually lists dates, but gets them wrong sometimes too, and they’re harder to look up. It’s true that knowing it’s March 2nd rather than February 3rd will help with that.
Honestly, the US air date generally isn’t pretty clear to people outside the US, or to people watching the show later on boxed sets or whatever. But, whatever! It’s not exactly an issue of universal importance. 