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Daylight Saving Time

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Fibonacci
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15 Jun 2011, 4:33 pm

Hello.

I live in a place without DST, so the timezone is GMT -5 the whole year. That's how I've set it on my WP profile.
The timestamps, though, appear as one hour later than they should. E.g. this message has been posted at 16:33 (GMT -5), but it appears as having been posted at 17:33.

Could it be that GMT is interpreted as "London time" on this forum?
Because London time is currently GMT +1, due to DST.



TenPencePiece
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15 Jun 2011, 7:35 pm

That's strange. As far as I can see GMT shouldn't be interpreted as BST (GMT +1) as the time zones are all in relation to GMT itself :?
In any case, if it's bothering you, just take it back to -6 until London reverts to GMT later this year.


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Fibonacci
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15 Jun 2011, 9:22 pm

TenPencePiece wrote:
That's strange. As far as I can see GMT shouldn't be interpreted as BST (GMT +1) as the time zones are all in relation to GMT itself :?
In any case, if it's bothering you, just take it back to -6 until London reverts to GMT later this year.


I could do that, but why do I have to change timezones on this forum every six months when I'm on the same timezone the whole year?
That's just a workaround, but the bug should be fixed.



Mysty
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16 Jun 2011, 7:54 am

Yup, it's definitely an hour off. Well, in my case, the times show right, but that's because I didn't ever adjust for daylight savings time, making my winter setting still correct, which it shouldn't be.

I'm guessing it's not as simple as using London time instead of GMT. I suspect that the forum is adjusting to Daylight Savings time on the U.S. schedule, not the London schedule, since it's U.S. based.

I'll admit that, on other message boards with this software, I don't like having to change my time zone twice a year if I want the time to be accurate. It's a little annoying, though nothing I can't live with. Still, it doesn't make sense to instead make the people who don't have DST change it twice a year. And the people who have DST on a different schedule have to change it four times a year if they want the time to remain accurate.


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Fibonacci
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17 Jun 2011, 1:25 am

Mysty wrote:
Yup, it's definitely an hour off. Well, in my case, the times show right, but that's because I didn't ever adjust for daylight savings time, making my winter setting still correct, which it shouldn't be.

I'm guessing it's not as simple as using London time instead of GMT. I suspect that the forum is adjusting to Daylight Savings time on the U.S. schedule, not the London schedule, since it's U.S. based.

I'll admit that, on other message boards with this software, I don't like having to change my time zone twice a year if I want the time to be accurate. It's a little annoying, though nothing I can't live with. Still, it doesn't make sense to instead make the people who don't have DST change it twice a year. And the people who have DST on a different schedule have to change it four times a year if they want the time to remain accurate.


Are you saying that the server calculates GMT as e.g. EST +5, regardless of DST?



Mysty
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17 Jun 2011, 9:51 am

Fibonacci wrote:
Are you saying that the server calculates GMT as e.g. EST +5, regardless of DST?


Well, I really wasn't so much commenting on what the server is doing as the effect.

But, yeah, what you're saying, except for one issue of labeling.

EST is always GMT -5. So, if it was calculating GMT as EST +5, it would always be right.

Rather, it's using local time. EST (Eastern Standard time, GMT -5) in the winter, and EDT (Easter Daylight-saving Time, GMT -4) in the summer. But always calculating as if on EST. (Or whichever time zone the server is in.)


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DW_a_mom
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17 Jun 2011, 11:01 am

The site's default time follows the US daylight savings time schedule.


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TallyMan
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17 Jun 2011, 12:08 pm

This site's software doesn't cope with daylight savings time. It is a pain. It is necessary for everyone not in America to change their time zone to the wrong one whenever America changes its daylight savings because it makes the times wrong in the rest of the world.


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Fibonacci
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17 Jun 2011, 1:05 pm

TallyMan wrote:
This site's software doesn't cope with daylight savings time. It is a pain. It is necessary for everyone not in America to change their time zone to the wrong one whenever America changes its daylight savings because it makes the times wrong in the rest of the world.


I see. Are there plans to fix it?



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17 Jun 2011, 1:53 pm

Nope. I raised the problem 3 years ago.

More modern forum software has features to handle daylight saving time.


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Mysty
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17 Jun 2011, 5:38 pm

Seems to me it should be able to me manually adjusted twice a year, instead of making other people adjust.

Of course, it makes more work for some users, but less for others not doing that, so maybe they figure it's not worth the trouble. (Not that there's more than one person in this "they", but that's beside the point. Sort of.)


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20 Jun 2011, 5:12 pm

Mysty wrote:
Seems to me it should be able to me manually adjusted twice a year, instead of making other people adjust.


It's not that simple. The system time on the server follows UTC (which, for the purposes of this discussion, is the same as GMT), and each piece of software installed has to use it's own calculations for daylight savings. So, the underlying software is hard coded to use a specific daylight savings rule and can't be changed without modifying that specific piece of code.

It's one of many of the short-sighted decisions that were made with this software a long time ago.