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I've noticed this before, but I'm curious, so I'll ask a question.

Close vote, flag, comment vote, vote, etc counts and review queues reset at UTC 0:00. If someone runs out of any of these before the reset, a message will pop up telling the user how much time until the reset.

The thing I've noticed is that this time left estimate seems to floor-round: for example, if there are 2:55 hours left, messages will say 2:00 hours left. It seems a little inaccurate to floor-round like that, since it can show 59 minutes less than it should.

I took this screenshot at 4:05PM Eastern (7:00PM is the reset here):

enter image description here

Is there a reason for this? Should it be changed?

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  • 2
    Everytime you see a "xxx ago" or "in xxx hours" on this site, the number is always floor-rounded. This post is over 8 minutes old but it still shows as "8 minutes ago". Nov 28, 2016 at 21:24
  • @NathanOsman - But he's asking why is it that way. Nov 28, 2016 at 22:32
  • Ayyy, does it really bother you that much?
    – edwinksl
    Nov 28, 2016 at 23:47
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    @edwinksl yes, I am absolutely obsessed.... Nov 28, 2016 at 23:53
  • @edwinksl (no, obviously not. I just want to know, and it'd be nice if it's mutable). Nov 28, 2016 at 23:54

1 Answer 1

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Would you think it a problem if this were rounded up (2:01 hours => 3 hours, for example)? If you wouldn't, someone would.

We had to pick something (given limited screen real-estate), so that's what we picked.

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  • So it's not possible to do a rounding system that would round down below x.5 and up otherwise? Nov 30, 2016 at 11:24
  • 3
    @Zacharee1 - anything is possible. And some people will disagree with whatever we choose.
    – Oded
    Nov 30, 2016 at 11:25
  • makes sense. Thanks for explaining. Nov 30, 2016 at 11:26
  • Ah, the "Kobayashi Maru", 'no win' rule of UI design strikes again. :)
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Dec 1, 2016 at 15:23

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