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Forums » Suggestions & Development Discussion » Very minor: make the footer dynamic

It's that time of the year, and looking at the footer, it still says only "2010" for the copyright year. I bring this up because I came across this the other day: updateyourfooter.com

It won't help anyone or improve any RPing experiences, but I thought I'd raise it.
Sanne Moderator

I know that Kim hasn't updated the year in the footer deliberately for a very specific reason, but I can't quite remember why exactly!

After some Googling I found this:
Quote:
The copyright year in the footer is supposed to be the original year that the content was created and does not need an end-year or to be updated as you maintain copyright into the future.

I remember reading information on why not to update the year (if your copyright says 2009 even though you created the content in 2007 then someone could come back and say that they've had the content on their site since 2008 which was before you claimed copyright on the materials or the such).

https://www.sitepoint.com/community/t/copyright-year-rules-please/4594/4

I'm going to guess Kim's reasoning is similar, but now I'm curious all over again for the official answer!
kawasakijames Topic Starter

Thanks for the googling!

Just to clarify, in case Kim does look in, I’m arguing it should say © 2010-2017 (or © 2010-2018 in a couple of weeks). It’s a policy I keep to on my own websites at work, and it’s a fairly trivial piece of enter and forget code.
Sanne Moderator

kawasakijames wrote:
Thanks for the googling!

Just to clarify, in case Kim does look in, I’m arguing it should say © 2010-2017 (or © 2010-2018 in a couple of weeks). It’s a policy I keep to on my own websites at work, and it’s a fairly trivial piece of enter and forget code.

I'm curious, what is the reasoning behind this? It doesn't make any difference for the legitimacy of the copyright as far as I'm aware (it's also not even a requirement to my knowledge, the copyright is in effect as it stands with or without a date in the footer).
kawasakijames Topic Starter

Convention? It’s definitely neither necessary nor legally binding, it’s just something that is done to show the operational length of the site and gives an idea of any lapse of updates.
Kim Site Admin

I typically don't update my footers because my understanding is that it really doesn't help in any way, and most people don't look at it. However, I've also seen that a small minority of people really, really, really like to see the current year, so I suppose I could add a dynamic end date.

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