Maybe we'll have to change the terminology, anyway.

Here in England, we use 'BST' for British Summer Time. But this year, there's no summer, and precious little daylight filtering through the clouds, either. Alternatives, anyone?

British Stupid Time?

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

I believe there is a large crater forming at the spatial
coordinates of the horse's demise.

I have no problem accepting it, when there is a meaningful reason to use it.

There is a meaningful reason. It's been pointed out many times in many ways. You just don't seem to get it.

---

The Universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine.

SETI@home classic workunits 1,405 CPU time 57,318 hours

I have no problem accepting it, when there is a meaningful reason to use it.

There is a meaningful reason. It's been pointed out many times in many ways. You just don't seem to get it.

Not quite. Reasons have been pointed out. None of them have been meaningful. The amusing thought that UTC time has any significant meaning to anyone not involved in the actual science of the project is silly. The idea that the status of the servers as reported in a timeframe where the viewer isn't, and the servers aren't, is pretty darn amusing too.

Frame of reference makes sense to me. When I look at a post and wonder what time it was written, I want to know in reference to my time where I am, and counter to the apparent confusion of someone upthread, forums throughout the internet almost always allow one to timestamp based on the user's local time.

When I connect to the server status page and it looks as if there might be an issue, when I look at the timestamp on the last status report, I want to see it in my local time, so I actually know how much time has passed without having to juggle timezones in my head.

Now, if you want to do science and track time sensitive stuff for computing credit? Yes, UTC makes sense.

If I wanted to do everyday things by UTC time, I'd set my watch to UTC so I could make a UTC to EST calculation for everything I do. I don't, so I won't, and it's somewhat irritating that I'm expected to here.

I have to admit that I'm chuckling here trying to imagine the contortions of logic that people are trying to go through to justify the choice of an arbitrary timezone to for forum and service status pages. If I hadn't given up on that stuff about 25 years ago, I'd ask for some of what's being smoked :)

It's not important enough to get upset about, but it's fun enough to see if anyone can actually come up with not just a "reason" but an actual, meaningful reason for the UTC usage.

What time is your watch set to? What about your alarm clock? Your cellphone? What about the timeclock at work, or the clock at the local pizza joint or bank that they go by while doing business where you live?

My take on this:

The first thing to note is that this isn't about you. It's about 150,000 active users, in 200 countries around the world (source: BOINCstats).

The first question to be settled is: does BOINC implement a mechanism whereby each user can set their own local time, and see time information in that frame of reference? That might well be ideal, but it's extra programming work for the developers, and for whatever reason, it didn't make the final cut. You could lobby for an implementation of customisable time displays if you like, but given what tends to happen round here when they try to change unbroken parts of the system, I think people might prefer it if you didn't.

Anyway - for the time being at least - we have a system where the same time is displayed to all those 150,000 users in 200 countries. Which one should we use for that purpose? From that point of view, I think the choice of UTC is a no-brainer. It would be the use of any other zone which would be arbitrary, at least while the majority of forum readers are based on Planet Earth.

[BTW, the location of the servers is irrelevant to this discussion. The servers don't need to read the forums.]

My take on this:

The first thing to note is that this isn't about you. It's about 150,000 active users, in 200 countries around the world (source: BOINCstats).

The first question to be settled is: does BOINC implement a mechanism whereby each user can set their own local time, and see time information in that frame of reference? That might well be ideal, but it's extra programming work for the developers, and for whatever reason, it didn't make the final cut. You could lobby for an implementation of customisable time displays if you like, but given what tends to happen round here when they try to change unbroken parts of the system, I think people might prefer it if you didn't.

Anyway - for the time being at least - we have a system where the same time is displayed to all those 150,000 users in 200 countries. Which one should we use for that purpose? From that point of view, I think the choice of UTC is a no-brainer. It would be the use of any other zone which would be arbitrary, at least while the majority of forum readers are based on Planet Earth.

[BTW, the location of the servers is irrelevant to this discussion. The servers don't need to read the forums.]

Nah it's not about me, it's about the 150,000 people that must do UTC time conversions to their local time rather than the web page simply displaying the time where they are.

How many people actually know the time conversion from their own time to UTC? If those people do not work in server-related IT, Finance, Science, or Military sectors, my guess would be less than 10%, and most of those would likely have to do the mental equivalent of counting their fingers and toes to be sure.

Most people honestly don't care. I am mostly continuing to respond here not because it's all that important, but because I find it terribly amusing that people think that it's more appropriate to force 150,000 people to do mental timezone conversions in their head, rather than allow our web browsers to do it for us. I've yet to see any reason why it's better to make all the users do time zone conversions in their heads rather than simply displaying an adjusted time.

Making data user-friendly is one of the reasons that we have computers, right?

I will say, again, that I do NOT think this is worth someone actually dropping what they are doing to "fix". But the next time someone tinkers with the web pages, enabling a time zone converter should really not be that hard. That might be next year, or five years from now. It's by no means critical.

Richard and everyone else here have been giving polite and well-reasoned responses to your display of self-centredness. Or perhaps, responses that are well-reasoned and meaningful to everyone except you. It really is a terrible pity that none of it seems to be sinking in.

Once again you point out that people set their watch, alarm clocks, mobile phones, etc, to their local time as a reason against using an international standard. Well, of course, all of those things are only meant to serve people locally, not the Internet.

As for times on forums, it is true that many forum software have features to allow a user to select a time-zone for their local time. For whatever reason, the forum admins have chosen not to have such a feature here - or perhaps, just not chosen to include it. You say you find it irritating to do time-zone conversions, well, you'll have to convince the forum admins to implement such a feature, or just learn to get used to it - UTC is the standard by which the international community operates. Chuckle all you like, but calling that standard 'arbitrary' (there's that word again) isn't going to make it go away.

As for people knowing their UTC offset, anyone who's sensible about working with people around the world (that includes every Internet user) should already know this, or at the very least, know how to find it. It's so much simpler to have one single point of reference to work with (UTC) rather than deal with people who think that their local time-zone is the only one in the world that counts.

You say 'most people honestly don't care' [about using UTC], then perhaps the statement would be more accurately rephrased as 'most people who think as you do honestly don't care'. Which you are entitled to do so, as you are obviously taking advantage of here. But complaining to everyone in the world that they should be using your time-zone is not justified by such a self-centred sentiment.

People from the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Sweden, Bulgaria, Argentina and even your own fellow Americans all seem to agree here that UTC is the standard reference when discussing time with people around the world. If you find that 'irritating', then that's just something you'll have to accept, even if it's in your misguided belief that it's 'arbitrary' and 'random'. On the other hand, you could be deliberately stirring everyone up in which you're undoubtedly having a very good time. Either way, it doesn't reflect very well on you.

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Soli Deo Gloria

For me beeing a german i have to accept that my frinds in the US live in a different time zone.
Thats simply the fact.

New Hampshire -6
California - 9
UTC -2
UK -1
Russia +2

I dont see a problem here.

I totally agree with your statement Wedge009.

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With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Personally I never had a problem figuring out time based on my offset. Even back when I was a little kid in the 80's. I grew up in UTC -6/-5 and now I live in UTC -5/-4. Subtracting 4 or 5 from the displayed time doesn't cause me any grief.

If you feel really strongly about it. You can make your case to the project admins. A command could be added to display time using the browsers UTC off-set. I'm not sure about PHP, but there are a few javascript command I know of that could be used for such a purpose.

However, that could play hell with the people that track the status page information as well as everyone else.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

I work for a Swiss company.
I'm based in the UK.
I am working on projects in three continents, and five or six time zones (I can never remember which, and it does vary depending on who has silly local time shifts in action)
One of the projects has staff on all three continents.
We schedule everything to UTC.
(Strangely I try to schedule all my phone/web meetings when I'm "wide awake"...)

And you have an issue with having to work out a single time difference? - GROW UP AND GET REAL

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

Some forums do display times in the user's current time zone, probably having the browser do the conversion in Javascript. Some forum registration forms ask for the user's time zone, so may do a conversion server side. However done, it is definitely possible, but costs some small amount of CPU cycles to implement.

My preference is to have CPU cycles dedicated to more important things.

                                                                   Joe

If you feel really strongly about it. You can make your case to the project admins. A command could be added to display time using the browsers UTC off-set.

No need. The option is already there in the forum software, and has been there since 8 weeks ago, where the project can choose to set TIMEZONE in /boinc/html/inc/util.inc which then shows all times in the TIMEZONE's time. And when not set, the time is UTC.

As for why the original forum software shows all times in UTC, here's what David Anderson has to say about it: If each project showed times in its own timezone,
volunteers wanting to convert times to their own timezone would have a hard time - there would be different offsets for different projects. By showing times in UTC, the offset is always the same.

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If you feel really strongly about it. You can make your case to the project admins. A command could be added to display time using the browsers UTC off-set.

No need. The option is already there in the forum software, and has been there since 8 weeks ago, where the project can choose to set TIMEZONE in /boinc/html/inc/util.inc which then shows all times in the TIMEZONE's time. And when not set, the time is UTC.

As for why the original forum software shows all times in UTC, here's what David Anderson has to say about it: If each project showed times in its own timezone,
volunteers wanting to convert times to their own timezone would have a hard time - there would be different offsets for different projects. By showing times in UTC, the offset is always the same.

That is actually not what I was referring to at all. That sets the time displayed on web pages based whatever the admin sets.

I was referring to dynamic code that takes the off-set supplied by the browser and then adds it to the UTC value to display the user's set time. Which Joe also mentioned and added another good reason not to such a feature.

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SETI@home classic workunits: 93,865 CPU time: 863,447 hours
Join the [url=http://tinyurl.com/8y46zvu]BP6/VP6 User Group[

That sets the time displayed on web pages based whatever the admin sets.

Arbitrary random Californian timezone. :P

I do wonder now what he expects to see for times at the Einstein, Climateprediction and Milkyway projects... As those are the others he ran.

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I have no problem accepting it, when there is a meaningful reason to use it.

There is a meaningful reason. It's been pointed out many times in many ways. You just don't seem to get it.

Not quite. Reasons have been pointed out. None of them have been meaningful. The amusing thought that UTC time has any significant meaning to anyone not involved in the actual science of the project is silly. The idea that the status of the servers as reported in a timeframe where the viewer isn't, and the servers aren't, is pretty darn amusing too.

Frame of reference makes sense to me. When I look at a post and wonder what time it was written, I want to know in reference to my time where I am, and counter to the apparent confusion of someone upthread, forums throughout the internet almost always allow one to timestamp based on the user's local time.

When I connect to the server status page and it looks as if there might be an issue, when I look at the timestamp on the last status report, I want to see it in my local time, so I actually know how much time has passed without having to juggle timezones in my head.

Now, if you want to do science and track time sensitive stuff for computing credit? Yes, UTC makes sense.

If I wanted to do everyday things by UTC time, I'd set my watch to UTC so I could make a UTC to EST calculation for everything I do. I don't, so I won't, and it's somewhat irritating that I'm expected to here.

I have to admit that I'm chuckling here trying to imagine the contortions of logic that people are trying to go through to justify the choice of an arbitrary timezone to for forum and service status pages. If I hadn't given up on that stuff about 25 years ago, I'd ask for some of what's being smoked :)

It's not important enough to get upset about, but it's fun enough to see if anyone can actually come up with not just a "reason" but an actual, meaningful reason for the UTC usage.

What time is your watch set to? What about your alarm clock? Your cellphone? What about the timeclock at work, or the clock at the local pizza joint or bank that they go by while doing business where you live?

So this is "Fun" for you? I think I'll stop feeding the troll

---

The Universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine.

SETI@home classic workunits 1,405 CPU time 57,318 hours

"So this is "Fun" for you? I think I'll stop feeding the troll"

I suspected this from the git go.

The way this thread has gone a better place for it would be "Politics", where folks argue all day about topics like this.

Can I suggest that if you are serious about wanting the project to shift from UTC to some other time frame you put a request into the wish list.

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Bob Smith
Member of Seti PIPPS (Pluto is a Planet Protest Society)
Somewhere in the (un)known Universe?

"So this is "Fun" for you? I think I'll stop feeding the troll"

I suspected this from the git go.

One can both have fun, and discuss something. I've done it a few times in my life other than in this thread. I find it highly amusing that this forum community is considering labeling me as a troll for simply enjoying an argument, which is very normal in the forum community, while at the same time they are light years away from understanding the basic concept of displaying time based on where the user is, for those conversations that the user is interested in.

The science side of SETI needs UTC. The user side (forums, server status) most certainly does not. If the ivory tower intellectuals with no concept of the usability don't understand why forums throughout the world allow people to view things in their own timezone, then the argument here is hopeless. If you are a person who actually prefers UTC in forums, the same forum code which would allow others to see a time which they wish to see would allow you to use a time that you wish to use.

It's also a minor concern, honestly, so between the people who want our discussions with one another monitored based on a timezone in some arbitrary part of the world (and it IS arbitrary since there is no meaningful reason for it), and the relative importance of the problem, I'm done here. I'm tired of people pointing at a pile of oranges in the corner and screaming "Apple, Apple, Apple!" It was fun for a while, like arguing about something relatively unimportant with a pack of four-year-olds can be, but it gets old really fast. Please let this thread die. I'm not walking away entirely though. I'll still watch the thread for signs that someone with common sense shows up with a good argument against me.

The English were the first to use any sort of standard time and that was in 1842 and at Greenwich thus Greenwich Mean Time thus 0 meridian and since they ruled the oceans that became the standard it's not arbitrary they were the first to use it so it is today. I am sure if Germany or any other country were the first to standardize time it would be with them any way the English started it all and that is way Greenwich is the standard and we adjust our time with Greenwich 0 meridian.

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As this thread is on its way to a flame fest it will be locked for 24 hours.

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[/quote]

Old James