Legend

Question

What is the time used in these forums?

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
September 5, 2009
11 replies
17434 views

One would tend to assume that the time shown in these forums (for example, the posting times) refer to the USA, although this could be wrong. However, there are (I think) four different time zones in that country. Maybe for the natives it is quite clear what "8:13 AM" means, but it is not at all clear for at least this one inhabitant of another country. Even acronyms such as EPT (I am not sure if I recall this correctly from the old forums) don't mean much to me.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to specify in some clear way what time being used in these forums?

This topic has been closed for replies.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Coming abruptly back to the topic of this discussion, I see that I had missed this message: 43. So I just made some tests using the browsers in which I wasn't logged in.

I can confirm that, in Firefox/Mac and in Explorer/Vista, when not logged in, all times seem to appear as my local time (GMT-4:00) minus two hours; i.e., as GMT-6:00. Once logged in, all times change to my local time, GMT-4:00. I was and still am logged in in Safari/Vista, so I haven't been able to check what happens in this combination.

However, the discrepancy I observed yesterday in Firefox/Mac during the slowdown is not concordant with this. I was logged in (or I wouldn't have been able to post), but the times shown were not my local times, but my times minus 2 hours.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

I can now confirm that when I'm not logged in Safari/Vista, the times shown in these forums also change to my local time minus two hours. Incidentally and curiously, I have remained logged in Explorer/Vista but have been logged out in Firefox/Mac, although in both I had logged only about a couple of hours ago.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Because of the experienced and enormous slowness, this morning I had to use Firefox/Mac to access these forums. Although in my settings I have chosen "local time" (GTM-4:00), my messages appeared as posted two hours before than the local time. For example, my message of 6:48 appears as posted at 4:48. Now back in Safari/Vista, they show the correct times.

I therefore change my original question to: what determines the posting times shown?

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Claudio,

Because of the experienced and enormous slowness, this morning I had to use Firefox/Mac to access these forums. Although in my settings I have chosen "local time" (GTM-4:00), my messages appeared as posted two hours before than the local time. For example, my message of 6:48 appears as posted at 4:48. Now back in Safari/Vista, they show the correct times.
I therefore change my original question to: what determines the posting times shown?

The time you should have posted in order to get your post shown in the forum at the actual time.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Sorry, Jacob, but I seem to be more obtuse than usual, for I don't understand your explanation. Maybe my own explanation of what I see wasn't clear enough? Just in case:

Using Firefox/Mac, with "local time" selected, I posted a message at 6:48, and it was shown as posted at 4:48. After the slowdown ended, I opened the thread in Safari/Vista also with "local time" selected, and my message was shown as posted at 6:48.

Just for the sake of completeness, I have just checked again in Firefox/Mac, and my message appears now as posted at 6:48.

A byproduct of the slowdown?

fatbikez

Participant

i see my local time on here

Kath-H

Inspiring

I don't - it's 11.12 am here. My post is stamped 8.12 am.

Harbs.

Legend

When I'm logged in the time is local. When I'm logged out it's not.

Harbs

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

What Claudio said in post #23.

It was nice in the days of the fair forums, where the original timestamp of each post would be kept, with the addition of the time of latest edit. This would show when the post was posted, and the time span of possibly multiple editing.

Now, the time of latest edit is all we get, along with the resulting (additional) mess when you look at different posts in a thread, unless we do something that at least Claudio and I are reluctant to, as mentioned elsewhere.

A

Anonymous

Like you and Claudio, I see no reason why I should have to do anything other than set my preferences for my timezone. I should not *need* add-ons to make a website useable.

Now, should I *want* the add-ons, that's a different story. At least, then, it's my choice. I don't wish to be *forced* into using them so that I can view a site a particular way.

A

Anonymous

greenjumpyone wrote:
I should not *need* add-ons to make a website useable.

Are you referring to Foxclocks? I only mentioned it as a way of checking the time, for example, in California.

My preferences here in the forums are set to my local time.

Curt Wrigley

Inspiring

When you register, you set your time zone. What is the problem with the times being viewed in your local time zone? That seems the most helpful way to view times to me.

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

Curt Wrigley wrote:
When you register, you set your time zone. What is the problem with the times being viewed in your local time zone? That seems the most helpful way to view times to me.

Yes, this had already been pointed in message #2, and of course I see nothing wrong with it. As a matter of fact, my last message appears as posted at 7:05 PM, which is consistent with my local time (7:17 PM now). However, my opening message in this thread, for example, appears as posted at 6:24 AM today, and I can assure you that I was deeply asleep at that time. Same with my message #14 in this thread

http://forums.adobe.com/message/2229193#2229193

which appears as posted at 5:48 AM.

So I would think that something isn't working properly with the times shown, because I do not switch on computers or write relatively coherent messages while asleep.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

Everyone using the PST/PDT/Pacific as a common time, would make it easier to determine when we are, and it would make it easier to spot the breakdowns in timespace. We did have them in the days of the fair forum where an earlier post was sometimes posted later than a later post, in some cases by more than an hour. With such breakdowns, it should also be possible to get ahead of yourself.

Phillip M Jones

Inspiring

I have set up in my preferences in "your stuff" 4:00 GMT :

Because I live in the Mid-Atlantic section of the USA

A

Anonymous

PjonesCET wrote:
I live in the Mid-Atlantic section of the USA

Isn't it rather wet there?

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

My reason for asking is that some things simply don't check. At the time of writing this message, the first topic in the list was the "What are forum points..." one, with 35 replies and the last one by Jhabrix 9 minutes ago. However, if I open the thread, I see that the last message is #35 (i.e., no posts have been deleted), it is posted by Jhabrix, but at 11:51 AM. As it's now a few minutes past 2 PM here, that's quite a lot more than 9 minutes...

Claudio GonzálezAuthor

Legend

And my message of a few seconds ago appears as posted at my local time!

??????

A

Anonymous

Just peachy!!

Your showing right now posting 18 mins ago. I live EST or 2:29 PM (Michigan)

PST is 3 hours behind EST.

I give up trying to figure it out. My pref is set as EST too.

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

In the days of the fair forums, we all had PST (PDT at this time of the year) as the common forum time.

Now it is the default you may change, as mentioned by Peter.

I still keep it at the default because it is the common forum time (messages about the forums also refer to this time). So in our TST area, we just add 9 hours (apart from the spring and autumn periods affected by differences in transitions between standard and summer time here and there).

A

Anonymous

I just use Foxclocks.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1117

It puts a little icon in the status bar of Firefox with the regions you want..

Jacob Bugge

Community Expert

As mentioned in another thread, http://forums.adobe.com/thread/487501?tstart=0, Claudio and I have decided to avoid enhancements.

And, it is quite easy and convenient just to use the common forum time, which was always called Pacific whether it was PST or PDT, especially when used to it and not wanting to change habits from the time of the fair forums, and especially when forming part of the vampire squad.