Here's a Greasemonkey / Tampermonkey script that'll run a stop watch until an edit reaches 5 minutes of age. Give it a try and see what you think. It might have bugs, but it's close enough for government work I think. (That's a United States idiom meaning it's poor quality, but it works well enough.) Bear in mind that it only works on new posts and post edits, not on comments. // ==UserScript== // @name SE realtime dates // @namespace http://stackapps.com/ // @description show Stack Exchange timestamps as realtime counters // @include /^https?:\/\/(\w+\.)?(stack(overflow|exchange|apps)|serverfault|superuser|askubuntu|onstartups|mathoverflow|mso)\.com\/.+/ // @version 1 // @grant none // ==/UserScript== function setIntervalWithContext(code, delay, context) { return setInterval(function() { code.call(context); }, delay); } function startTimer(el) { if (!el.title) return; this.el = el; this.interval = setIntervalWithContext(function() { if (!this.el) return clearInterval(this.interval); var x = Math.round((new Date() - new Date(this.el.title.replace(' ','T'))) / 1000); if (x>299&&x<360) this.el.innerHTML = '5 mins ago'; if (isNaN(x) || x > 299) return clearInterval(this.interval); var m = Math.floor(x / 60) % 60, s = Math.floor(x % 60), s = (s < 10) ? '0' + s : s; this.el.innerHTML = m+':'+s+' ago'; }, 250, this); timers.push(this.interval); } function addTimers() { while (timers.length) { if (timers[0]) clearInterval(timers[0]); timers.splice(0,1); }; var timestamps = document.getElementsByClassName('relativetime'); for (var i=0; i<timestamps.length; i++) { var stopwatch = new startTimer(timestamps[i]); } } var timers = []; addTimers(); addEventListener('click', function() { setTimeout(addTimers, 1000) }, true);