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Site difficulties with time zones?Is anyone having difficulty with timezones, their computers and this site? There is a complex mix of time technology at work. First this site is told it is working four hours in the future because the server it is housed on is in LA. But it was originally built on a server in the UK. The site also has a small piece of code that reads each individual's computer clock as they log-in and the site then reorganises times on the fly to fit in with the individual. But I suspect that there may be a clash with this and the hard-wired times of the events. If anyone is having a problem, please comment below giving details. If not then it must all be working fine. Admin By drupadmin at 2 Dec 2006 - 14:14 | drupadmin's blog | login to post comments
That's not the point thoughI don't see that it really matters when it says a page was created, or even if an event says which time zone it is working in. The whole point is for people - wherever they are in the world - to be able to click on an event and it tell them in their own time when the event is taking place. So if you are in Japan and you want to know when, say, the IDN Workshop is happening, you click on it and it tells you it is taking place at, for example, 10pm your time, so you can check out the video/audio that evening when the actual event is being held in the afternoon in Brazil. I was just trying to figure out whether this was working for people across the globe. Your answer hasn't shed any light unfortunately. Admin By drupadmin at 4 Dec 2006 - 07:18 | login to post comments
timezone notation.Unfortunately, some of the confusion is arising from the pull-down list of local times on the account setup page. There is an absolutely standard notation, used all over the Internet as well as elsewhere, that says that Yet, when I go there to set things up, I see combinations such as (for the present) And using the +NNNN location to show an offset from Sao Paulo (which has been suggested to be the case elsewhere) would just create more confusion. One can argue about how important it is to have times at all, but, if one is going to do it, please do it in a way that minimizes, rather than adds, confusion. thanks. By Klensin at 5 Dec 2006 - 13:36 | login to post comments
Time is on my side, yes it isThe different pieces of timing code have one main function: that when people click on events they can grasp immediately and precisely when the meeting is taking place. This site's intent is to increase online participation and so it is vital that people dotted across the world can know when the meetings are taking place. And the simplest way to do that is to present them with the time of the event in their own time. The reason for this post was to see if there were any confusing clashes across different time zones. The comments so far appear to be concerned with the notation shown on the page rather than with the actual timing not working. I haven't been able to hide this notation (will have to dig into the code), so I have turned off the automated code timing for the moment as it appears to be causing unnecessary confusion. If people then complain that it has made it more difficult for them to figure out when a meeting is happening, I'll turn it back on. Admin By drupadmin at 5 Dec 2006 - 14:09 | login to post comments
No, it is not workingFor example, I'm seeing the "upcoming events" box on the web page at about five hours off. E.g., at the moment, I've got "GAC Plenary" as "now" and "GAC Session with ICANN Board" at "5 hours". And, for reference, this is being written at 1337 US ET, 1637 Sao Paulo time, 1837 UTC. By Klensin at 5 Dec 2006 - 16:35 | login to post comments
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time zone ambiguity and problems
Its' hard to know with certainty if the times are correct or not, because sometimes the site shows a time without showing a time zone. it looks like sometimes times without a time zone label are supposed to be GMT, sometimes Sao Paulo time, and sometimes I think they are supposed to be what the site thinks is my local time. But without time zone labels, I can't be sure. This is a problem on the main ICANN Web site as well: sometimes e.g. a deadline of "December 3rd" is used to mean 24:00 GMT, sometimes 24:00 Marina del Rey time. For clarity and unambiguousness, all times should include an explicit time zone designator.
Some of the times on this site are clearly wrong. For example, I see:
ICANN Public Forum
event-admin | 28 Nov 2006 - 14:20
ICANN
Start: 4 Dec 2006 - 10:30
End: 4 Dec 2006 - 13:00
Timezone: Etc/GMT+4
I don't know what "Etc" means (probably this is the Portugese acronym for the local time zone in Sao Paulo?), but if so it should be GMT-4. GMT+4 is neither my time zone nor Sao Paulo time. And there is no time zone for the "14:20". What time zone is this supposed to be?
A site that *attempts* to translate time zones, but fails to do so correctly, is *much* less useful than one that states times with time zone identifiers, and lets users make their own time conversions.
Hope this helps.