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  • LenHyperlynx@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 9:35 AM

    Wait, why does KDE/Plasma think Monday is the first day of the week in Australia?

    Wait... is it? When did that happen?

    Fellow Australians! What day does the week start on?

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  • Brialastatic@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 10:36 AM

    @Hyperlynx A lot of Aussies use US-based or originating services (e.g. Google) that default to Monday = start of the week.

    Some of them are surprisingly difficult to change, too. I happen to remember changing Outlook for me at my place of employment and still it didn't change the date widgets it used. Quite frustrating.

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  • Brialastatic@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 10:47 AM

    @futzle @Hyperlynx I thought the US would have been strongly Sunday-based, too. IME, popular technology shows otherwise. Maybe the US population lets their online calendars say one thing but when talking say another. Or something.

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  • Deborah Pickettfutzle@old.mermaid.town
    Aug 10, 2026, 10:52 AM

    @static @Hyperlynx I think that a lot of modern software handles locale preferences for start of week pretty well, and using en_AU will default to Monday. If you set your locale to en_US I bet a lot of it will start to offer you a week starting on Sunday.

    I’ve certainly got a lot of old US software that hardcodes Sunday along with M/D/Y format.

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  • Peter Hollofrogworth@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:02 AM

    @futzle @static @Hyperlynx Yeah, agree. I have to say from years of experience, the US is strongly biased to Sunday as the start of the week, and US-designed interfaces & OSes always default to that. And it's always been insane to me (Australian).

    I don't know anyone in Australia who thinks the week starts on a Sunday, although I do know people who maybe don't bother to change it from the US default.

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  • Peter Hollofrogworth@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:13 AM

    @Hyperlynx @futzle @static I believe you! But I've never encountered it before.

    But I also just don't understand it. If Sunday's the start of the week, what's Monday? "Oh damn, it's Monday, that ol' second day of the week where I have to get up and go to work!"
    How does the week end on Saturday, and then on Sunday the next week starts but it's still the weekend?
    My brain just can't wrap itself around this conundrum!

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  • Brialastatic@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:30 AM

    @frogworth @Hyperlynx @futzle I must be partially in some alternate universe.

    Printed calendars here in Australia have almost always had Sunday as the first* day of the week as long as I can remember, and still do. And I seem to recall computers did it too for many decades, too. It seems something happened in the last 20 years that meant there was a gradual change to show Monday as the first day.

    This may be what was mentioned with EU and ISO rules. I have changed multiple services over the years, an unknown number of which may have been recognising a local locale. I am not in a position to easily check some of the big players, but I did just checked the calendar add-on to the email service I use (Fastmail) and it defaulted to Monday. There was not an option to set my locale, but I could change it to Sunday. And I have already mentioned having to change Outlook on a work PC.

    Curiously, the calendar in my browser (Vivaldi) which I also do not use, uses Sunday as the start of the week. And does not have an option I can find to change it!

    This is all quite confusing.

    * First day of the week and first day of the _working_ week are separate things! Maybe it's an unusually early type of 0-based counting?

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  • Karin!nirak@carhenge.club
    Aug 10, 2026, 12:29 PM

    @static I also have fastmail (in the US) and it defaults to Sunday start here

    This is all fascinating!

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  • Karen E. Lund 💙💛Karen5Lund@mastodon.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 1:45 PM

    @frogworth @futzle @static @Hyperlynx I live in the US and digital calendars usually start the week on Sunday, but I always change it to Monday if I can. This is especially useful when a calendar gives a week view; I want to see the adjacent Saturday and Sunday together in the same week.

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  • Charles HarperChaHarper@mastodon.scot
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:24 AM

    @Hyperlynx It's always been Monday. Saturday and Sunday are the weekend. Even from the bible - "...and on the seventh day he rested." Sunday = Day of Rest, therefore Monday is the first day of the week. On every calendar too...

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  • LenHyperlynx@aus.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:31 AM

    @ChaHarper ah, but which day is the seventh day? :)

    In the original Hebrew, the days of the week are simply "first day, second day, third day", and in the Jewish reckoning that day of rest is Saturday.

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  • D Ingramingram@mastodon.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 11:53 AM

    @Hyperlynx Sat & Sun are the week_end_ not the week_end_and_start.

    Now only if more calendar makers understood this.

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  • ·J Moppjmopp@masto.ai
    Aug 10, 2026, 12:52 PM

    @ingram @Hyperlynx They're the week_end_ because they're at either _ends_ of the week *runs away before getting pelted with tomatoes*

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  • Karen E. Lund 💙💛Karen5Lund@mastodon.social
    Aug 10, 2026, 1:39 PM

    @ingram @Hyperlynx I started to really believe that weekEND logic when I was working full-time. (It's possible, depending on your work schedule, that your personal weekend is Wednesday and Thursday.)

    According to the book of Genesis, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, which we call Sunday. So God and/or the author of Genesis think Sunday is the last day of the week.

    P.S.: I didn't respond to the poll, as I'm not Australian.

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