Posting times for games - all GMs please read

[Jeremy Meredith]

Hi guys, I am sure I'm not alone in the confusion of trying to figure out what time zone differece is for what code and then you factor in daylight savings for some zones (which I don't know when they have it, etc.).

 

How about we make things simple and easy for everyone.

 

Everyone knows what time zone they are in.  The GM of the game (as opposed to everyone who shows any interest in the game) looks up what the time of the game is in GMT and posts that.  If you want to post other timezones as well (for example your own), that's great, but we should all have the first time listed so it's nice and clear as GMT.

 

Then all players, who already know the time difference (eg. I'm in GMT +8, so I just add eight hours to whatever is posted) can easily work it out without needing to look up anything, try and calculate anything or try and wonder about daylight savings or other tricky bits.

 

Doesn't this just make the most sense to do?  has no one suggested this before?

 

[Brandon]

There's a reason I always post the UTC timezone for my games.

 

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[Jonathan Choy]

I have suggested this.

Some of the warhorn sites list their schedules on the front page.

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[Sior]

The funny thing is I don't even list my own time zone when posting my games. I'm in MDT (GMT -6, I believe), while many others seem to be CDT (GMT -5). Maybe it's just because I'm in the States, but I think it's all well and good to post the "local" time zones, provided they have a GMT relation next to it.

I do agree just posting the local time can be frustrating, even for those within the country. Some try to alleviate that by posting PDT, CDT, and EDT (many seem to skip MDT for some reason), and let that be that, but for those outside it doesn't help much.

Is it a fair compromise for GM's to list the time in relation to GMT as opposed to GMT itself?

[Jonathan Choy]

After the second or third time I posted with a time localization link and still got questions....

Nope, I'll just post ISO8601 when I'm posting in the future.

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[Terry]

I have no issue with how times are posted - most seesm to show local time and its relationship to GMT (I'm in GMT, well currently GMT+1). I always get caught out when clocks go back as (certainly Eastern) goes back a few weeks before we do ;-)

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[Simon Thokaar]

the daylight savings time always screws me up...  i dont remember there being both CST and CDT times when i was growing up...  Damn kids with their fancy hulahoops and zimas gotta be making up new times to make me late!

[Steven Sior]

I grew up in Arizona. We didn't have Daylight Savings Time. Since I moved to Colorado 5 years ago, it's been very confusing. So I am sympathetic to this.

Sior

On Thu, May 23, 2013 at 11:54 PM, Simon Thokaar <tho...@gmail.com> wrote:

the daylight savings time always screws me up...  i dont remember there being both CST and CDT times when i was growing up...  Damn kids with their fancy hulahoops and zimas gotta be making up new times to make me late!

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[Matthew Paluch]

what happens for the three weeks a year where GMT changes because britain uses a different daylight savings time?  In other words, CDT is not always GMT-6

I dont have a good answer, but barring an obvious solution, id always go with the GM listing it in his frame of reference and trying to list GMT if he can.  most americans wont be aware of the GMT wobble (unless they play games whose 'west coast' server time is actually based off GMT, so quests reset an hour early for 3 weeks...)

just a comment, not an actually useful suggestion sadly

mfp

[Informed Opinion]

GMT doesn't change.  GMT is always GMT.

 

When Britain is on Daylight Savings Time they are on BST (British Summer Time).

[Jonathan Choy]

Posting in ZT or UTC confused people.

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[Jeremy Meredith]

 GMT is always GMT.

 

Everyone in the world knows where they are in relation to GMT so please let's all just use GMT and be done with it.  Every other solution is more confusing than this. 

[Jonathan Choy]

On May 24, 2013 7:55 AM, "Jeremy Meredith" <sa...@ii.net> wrote:
>>
>>  GMT is always GMT.
>
>  

> Everyone in the world should know where they are in relation to GMT so please let's all just use GMT and be done with it.  Every other solution is more confusing than this. 

Except in practice it doesn't solve the problem and now you're telling everyone to do it your way....

[Jeremy Meredith]

>Except in practice it doesn't solve the problem and now you're telling everyone to do it your way....

 

How is GMT, MY WAY? 

 

It's the WORLD'S way of telling time FFS.

 

How does it NOT solve the problem?

 

One time zone that all games are based off - how is that not the simplest thing in the world?

 

I think you're just trying to be argumentative to be honest.

 

 

[Sean Smith]

I don't actually put the postings up on Warhorn when I run (I just alert those kind enough to administer it). IronHelixx Warhorn is exclusively posted in CST as far as I know. As a result, a simple Google check will typically inform people outside of the states what that might currently translate too. Those posted on the boards tend to fluctuate though so I can certainly see the difficulty and you mention a very good point. I personally think it is a good idea though the shift should always been the same on this particular Warhorn so I see it more applicable for those games being setup via the general forum. Just my $0.02 per my particular GMing tendency and experience.

 

 

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Thanks,

Sean

[Jonathan Choy]

So, let's define the problem: "People are confused what times games are posted for".

You suggested a change (good). You got responses that were not overall favorable (happens). You then said:

Everyone in the world knows where they are in relation to GMT so please let's all just use GMT and be done with it.  Every other solution is more confusing than this. 

Since the initial suggestion of yours is  

Everyone knows what time zone they are in.  The GM of the game (as opposed to everyone who shows any interest in the game) looks up what the time of the game is in GMT and posts that.  If you want to post other timezones as well (for example your own), that's great, but we should all have the first time listed so it's nice and clear as GMT.
 
Then all players, who already know the time difference (eg. I'm in GMT +8, so I just add eight hours to whatever is posted) can easily work it out without needing to look up anything, try and calculate anything or try and wonder about daylight savings or other tricky bits.

... that would make this "your way". The way the world tells time, for definitions broad enough to mean "the world" and averaged to a single representative practice? Look at the clock and hope it resembles whether it's day or night outside. Don't care about time zones because psychologically they're an alien, non-trivial concept that occasionally leads to... well.... TimeCube guy. 

In practice, I have tried posting games using GMT/UTC/ZT before and had to answer the same "what is it in my local time" questions. One episode of "what is that in my time zone" after providing the Universal Time for the game in the initial post was quite sufficient to demonstrate to me that the extra effort yielded a result not significantly enough better than the default of "post my local time with TZ". 

Would you agree that "The GM continues to receive posts asking what the local time for a player in TZ X would be" indicates a failure to solve the problem? As well as "Been there, used this a couple times, found that in practice it added value less than even the minuscule extra work it caused, so I can't champion it as a behavior all the GMs should follow."

Note that my first response to this thread was "I have suggested this"... And also implemented. 

[Jeremy Meredith]

Okay, I give up.  You post a good suggestion and people just want to pull it apart.

 

If the forum (website) here has a rule that ALL GAME TIMES ARE GMT - then no request for local times.  They can work it out themselves.  If they can't be arsed doing that much - bugger 'em. 

[Matthew Paluch]

gmt does change

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/clockchange.html?n=136&year=2013

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 7:35 AM, Jeremy Meredith <sa...@ii.net> wrote:

Okay, I give up.  You post a good suggestion and people just want to pull it apart.

 

If the forum (website) here has a rule that ALL GAME TIMES ARE GMT - then no request for local times.  They can work it out themselves.  If they can't be arsed doing that much - bugger 'em. 

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Matthew Paluch
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[Jonathan Choy]

The time used by people living near Greenwich, England is not necessarily GMT. UTC or ZT are the preferred terms for a constant time zone (as they remove the colonialism aspect of the standard time being defined in England...)

Suffice it to say that times and dates across distances we're looking at here are harder than we all wish they would be. 

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[Steve Werling]

Jon,

You're exactly right.  For some reason time zone conversion is difficult.  Which is why if might be helpful if GMs included a link to an Event Time Announcer offered by timeanddate.com.  It is an extra step, but it would clarify the "GM local" or "Posted local" game time and allow anyone to enter their own location to determine game time for themselves.

Here's an example:

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?msg=PFS+Test&iso=20130528T1930&p1=407&ah=4

Steve

[Simon Thokaar]

lets start using Lunar Standard Time! The Lunar year consists of twelve days, named after the first men who walked on the Moon. Each day is divided into 30 cycles of time, with each cycle being divided into 24 moon-hours. Each moon-hour then has 60 moon-minutes, which in turn of course are made up of 60 moon-seconds each.  The standard notation is: Year-Day-Cycle ∇ Hour:Minute:Second.  Then we can have a standard unit of time that will not change for several hundreds of years (and then we would only have to add a few leap seconds).

So tonight's Iron-Helix games begin at 46-03-09 ∇ 10:50:04

[Brandon]

If you can provide me a time translator I'll do it. :)

On Fri, May 24, 2013 at 1:28 PM, Simon Thokaar <tho...@gmail.com> wrote:

lets start using Lunar Standard Time! The Lunar year consists of twelve days, named after the first men who walked on the Moon. Each day is divided into 30 cycles of time, with each cycle being divided into 24 moon-hours. Each moon-hour then has 60 moon-minutes, which in turn of course are made up of 60 moon-seconds each.  The standard notation is: Year-Day-Cycle ∇ Hour:Minute:Second.  Then we can have a standard unit of time that will not change for several hundreds of years (and then we would only have to add a few leap seconds).

So tonight's Iron-Helix games begin at 46-03-09 ∇ 10:50:04

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[Informed Opinion]

I followed that link and it confirms what I stated earlier.  When Daylight Savings kicks in, England observes BST, which is NOT GMT.  GMT remains the same and England moves one hour away from it.

 

Is it counterintuitive that Greenwich isn't on GMT for half the year?  Yes!  But GMT is still GMT.  If GMT changed then it wouldn't be much of a standard, would it?

[Matthew Paluch]

oh i see your point now.  

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