Should Steve include GMT when he posts the times for his weekly chat?

[Weldun]

Greenwich Mean Time (http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/) (GMT) is an absolute reference time and does not change with the seasons.

For those of us that come to these boards, and yet are not American, or at least don't live in America, the EST and PST times can be a little confusing. So I ask you, gentle gamers, is it too much to ask for those of us unfortunate enough to live in the funny looking parts of the maps, to have a reference time that is one that we are likely familiar with, seeing as every message baord I've been to sets your clock to local time with a GMT reference. This means that most of us know what our local time is relative to the GMT.

Me? I live at GMT+8, southern hemisphere.

[Reality Czech]

Provided GMT isn't the only way the scheduled time is expressed, I think it'd probably be helpful. I only use GMT when I'm deployed to another country and even then I view it a a nusciance, so I kind of prefer the American time zone references. I already have friends in all 4 time zones that I talk to on the hpone, so I'm used to doing that math in my head. (I wish all my friends could say the same. "Oh, it's 3 AM there?" "Yes, just like the last time when you called me at midnight.")

[bwdemon]

While I love the other argument, I voted that a GMT reference would be okay. I don't think it's necessary, but it wouldn't hurt anything and it might increase participation.

[Reality Czech]

I guess it depends on how many people in Greenwich are buying Hero Games books. :)

It really applies to anyone outside the continental US, not just Grenwichians
(Ooo, I like the sound of that... National Grenwichian Skeet Shooting Team... the word just has a ring to it.)

[Weldun]

Provided GMT isn't the only way the scheduled time is expressed, I think it'd probably be helpful. I only use GMT when I'm deployed to another country and even then I view it a a nusciance, so I kind of prefer the American time zone references. I already have friends in all 4 time zones that I talk to on the phone, so I'm used to doing that math in my head. (I wish all my friends could say the same. "Oh, it's 3 AM there?" "Yes, just like the last time when you called me at midnight.")I'm not asking for GMT to be the exclusive reference. That would be ridiculous, especially when one considers that the largest demographic of board members are American. In my experience, most Americans are more comfortable with the EST, PST, Central Time and Mountain Time references. I'm putting forward the GMT as a third reference point, simply for the "international" members, because it's a pre-existing reference that's internationally accepted as a standard.

[Hermit]

Bah! Never I say. Next you'll try to make us use the metric system in our RPGs and I will never yi..

What's that?
Oh.
:o

[Cancer]

Time zone conversions should not be considered rocket science.

For a good time, check out http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html.

[Reality Czech]

I'm not asking for GMT to be the exclusive reference.
I know, I was actually trying to amplify the point that you were asking for it to be added, not substituted.

That would be ridiculous, especially when one considers that the largest demographic of board members are American. In my experience, most Americans are more comfortable with the EST, PST, Central Time and Mountain Time references. I'm putting forward the GMT as a third reference point, simply for the "international" members, because it's a pre-existing reference that's internationally accepted as a standard.
Yup.

[Reality Czech]

Time zone conversions should not be considered rocket science.

For a good time, check out http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html.

I knew someone was going to bring up the "just do the conversion yourself" point...

I agree it's not hard, but one could reasonably argue that one person making the conversion (i.e. when the chat schedule is posted) is better than more than one doing it afterward. This of course assumes that we're going to view each person's time as equally valuable.

[Weldun]

The problem with "just do it yourself" is that I've encountered people who give a time EST, when they actually mean EDT (Which is EST under "daylight savings"). GMT is unaffected by seasons.

[Reality Czech]

The problem with "just do it yourself" is that I've encountered people who give a time EST, when they actually mean EDT (Which is EST under "daylight savings"). GMT is unaffected by seasons.

I say we go with option #4 (http://www.herogames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1336344&postcount=11). Works every time.

[Kirby]

So I ask you, gentle gamers, is it too much to ask for those of us unfortunate enough to live in the funny looking parts of the maps, to have a reference time that is one that we are likely familiar with, seeing as every message baord I've been to sets your clock to local time with a GMT reference. This means that most of us know what our local time is relative to the GMT.

Me? I live at GMT+8, southern hemisphere.The poll is prejudice and directed towards a specific result. (Either one agrees with the question or if one disagrees, they're simply using fault logic.)

With Steve being in California, his current GMT time is GMT-7. When Daylights savings ends, it will be GMT-8.
Time zone conversions should not be considered rocket science.No kidding. :)


For a good time, check out http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html.:lol: Was that an intentional play on "for a good time call"? Either way, I found that funny.

In the end, once you know the time difference between your location and Steve's, it shouldn't be too difficult to do the math yourself. The time difference won't change from week to week. Until Daylight Saving Time ends in November, at least.

[Sketchpad]

Steve's not in California ... he's on the East Coast ;)

As for the poll ... let Steve post the way he wants. I know I don't have a problem with it ;)

[ghost-angel]

You're still doing math, so it's not helpful at all. You have to figure your offset from GMT then factor in Daylight Savings if we're in that.

No matter what Time Zone it's expressed in someone is doing math to figure it out. So, it'd be an utterly pointless expression.

If the object is to save everyone the difficulty of figuring out when the chat is then either everyone needs to convert to Internet Time (Beats) where everyone is on the same Beat regardless of their location.

And really - it's the same time every week - you need to do the math once and write it down. It takes thirty seconds.

[Kirby]

Steve's not in California ... he's on the East Coast ;)Really? Hmm. Has he been on the East Coast? (Does he work from there?) Or is he just traveling? HERO Games is still in California, right? (Because if not, I want to know why my online order keep coming from CA!)

[ghost-angel]

Really? Hmm. Has he been on the East Coast? (Does he work from there?) Or is he just traveling? HERO Games is still in California, right? (Because if not, I want to know why my online order keep coming from CA!)

Tina is in Nevada.
Steve is in the South East (I forget the exact state).
Darren & Ben are in California (which is where the business is registered).
Andy is in the same place as Steve (I believe).
Darren will soon be in New York City.

They bought Area Of Effect for Hero Games when they took over publishing.

[Kirby]

They bought Area Of Effect for Hero Games when they took over publishing.So that's where Megascale came from!

[Steve Long]

I live in North Carolina, always have -- Bill Gates probably couldn't afford what it would take to get me to live in godforsaken California. ;)

Orders have come from California because that's where the home offices are. Now that the warehousing and the Tina are both in Nevada, they'll be coming from there.

Darren's still in CA until he moves to NYC later this year. Ben's still in CA. Andy's in Virginia.

Typical office these days, really. ;)

[Edsel]

I want Stardates.

[Vondy]

Time zone conversions should not be considered rocket science.

For a good time, check out http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html.

This isn't a question of just do the conversion yourself because its easy (since I'm from America and know your non-standard references), its also a question of the internet bringing people from all over the planet to one forum. Its not just an American community, even though its an American company.

There is a global standard for referencing time: GMT +/-.

There's no reason to assume those unamerican red-commie foreigners would automatically know - or even begin to care - that you call GMT-8 PST. Most of them don't care what your oddball measurement system is, either (though I'm fond of it).

If you talk to an international audience, you use international references.

If I were running a board for Anglophones from all over the world - and it wasn't a Jewish/Israel themed board (let's say it was the Hero Boards and there were, heaven preserve us, goyim on it :D ) - should I use Jerusalem Standard Time? Would the average Joe outside the Middle East automatically know JST is GMT+2?

And that's kind of the point. Americans keep track of their non-standard time zone references, but the rest of the world doesn't know them from Adam, just as I wouldn't expect too many people to automatically know what my local, non-standard time zone reference was referring to. Why would they care - other than the fact that I live at the center of the universe?

Basically, I agree with Weldun.

[Blue]

If you can't do the math, then you aren't a real HERO System player ;)

[Vondy]

You're still doing math, so it's not helpful at all. You have to figure your offset from GMT then factor in Daylight Savings if we're in that.


Its still something they have to reference before they do the math. I don't because I am from America, but it does amount to local time-zone slang being used with an international audience. They aint local, Jim. If there's a global standard, and your audience is around the globe, it seems reasonable to use standard references, or provide something like (PST, GMT-8). Its annoying that internet experience: foreigners, foreigners everywhere.

[Bloodstone]

Ok, Simon or the Mod Squad can probably correct me if I'm wrong but...

Can't we just use the Calender for this?

I don't think it's set up properly right now (I believe it's still displaying 2006), but you should be able to schedule an event on the Calender and then link to that event.

The event's time should then display based on the timezone that the individual viewer has selected in their profile.

So if I set an event for 5/15 1300 CST (which is GMT-5), then when Steve Long sees the event it will display 5/15 1400 EST (GMT-4).

We have a Calender feature on another forum I visit and I'm fairly certain it works that way...

[Vondy]

Can't we just use the Calender for this?


Yes, we have a calender feature, but how many people actually look at it? I've never looked at it. Admittedly, I'm not a very good statistical sampling, but I suspect I'm not alone. Steve announces his chats in posts because it serves as a more visible form of advertising (since I'm a telepath and know what Steve is thinking, of course).

[Vondy]

Note: the control panel lists times in GMT and allows for people to select whether they want DST adjustments. As a result, they can just check the time on the boards (its local to their profile) against whatever Steve puts in his post and do the math, insofar as the post reference (ahem... GMT) matches the board reference.

Here would be a cool tool: a piece of mark-up that allowed you to enter a 00:00:00 time and automatically appended it with your time zone in your profile, and then converted the time for what the reader has selected in their profile.

For instance. Steve puts types in 17:00 and hits the time-zone-stamp button. On his browser it comes up as 17:00 GMT-7, but on my browser it comes up as 00:00 GMT+2.

It should be a pretty easy PHP conversion. Maybe I have a project.

[Supreme Serpent]

Adding GMT should be fine, especially given the HERO diaspora and the US's funky time system. A big countdown clock would be cool too. :D

[Karmakaze]

I had a bit of an issue with the poll choices myself. I'm in the "noting GMT in addition to Steve's local time would be nice, but it's not really necessary" camp.)

If I were going to take part in a scheduled chat with someone based out of London, UK and they posted the local time of chat in BST, I wouldn't be particularly bothered that it wasn't noted that BST stands for British Summer Time and is GMT+1, due to Daylight Saving Time. Because as long as I have a time and a reference point (either a time zone or city name) I can work out the rest.

I have customers in Hawaii, and HST isn't something that even most Americans have internalized. I just use a city time converter. (I have one built into my iGoogle page for just that reason).

[Bloodstone]

Steve announces his chats in posts because it serves as a more visible form of advertising (since I'm a telepath and know what Steve is thinking, of course).

I wasn't insinuating he should stop posting the announcements, merely that he could link to the Scheduled Calender Event in said announcement posts.

Of course, that may end up being more work than he wants to do...

[Kirby]

This isn't a question of just do the conversion yourself because its easy (since I'm from America and know your non-standard references), its also a question of the internet bringing people from all over the planet to one forum. Its not just an American community, even though its an American company.I'm afraid I don't see what the big deal is. Back when I was a kid, we had to do things ourselves. If your mom said "curfew is 7:00," you looked at the current time and figured out how long that gave you. When she'd say on a different day "be home by curfew," you didn't ask her when that was, because it was the same time every day.
Can't we just use the Calender for this?
Yes, we have a calender feature, but how many people actually look at it? I've never looked at it. Admittedly, I'm not a very good statistical sampling, but I suspect I'm not alone.While partly related to this post, this is something that bugs me (though not directed to you, Von D-Man) nowadays: despite the information available people still ask others to do the work for them. There are two quick methods to solve this: 1) Use the calendar feature; 2) Do the math and post a reminder on your monitor. Personally, if I were interested, I'd use option #2, if I didn't memorize it outright.

Why does it have to be more complicated that this?

[Vondy]

I'm afraid I don't see what the big deal is. Back when I was a kid, we had to do things ourselves. If your mom said "curfew is 7:00," you looked at the current time and figured out how long that gave you. When she'd say on a different day "be home by curfew," you didn't ask her when that was, because it was the same time every day.

This is a straw man. The issue was the notation, not the math. Also, who cares what was when you and I were kids? We aren't in a world where your gaming community was the kids you could find at school or the local gaming shop, and your office staff all worked in the same office/building/complex that had to be in driving distance of their homes.

The simple fact is that the internet has created global communities (like this one) with a global membership. Either you use a standardized global notation your community understands or you don't. I don't care about doing the math (as noted), but I do care about clear, useful notation that speaks to the whole community. Refusing to adapt to the reality of your group is, well, a-social.

Local American timezone references aren't useful to anyone other than Americans - and not everyone here is in America. In fact, a lot of us aren't, and we'd appreciate it if, instead of lecturing us about your childhood back in the pre-internet dark ages, you'd step into the twenty-first century and deal with the fact that the internet has filled your community with foreigners from all over the globe who use GMT (not to mention Metric).


While partly related to this post, this is something that bugs me (though not directed to you, Von D-Man) nowadays: despite the information available people still ask others to do the work for them. There are two quick methods to solve this: 1) Use the calendar feature; 2) Do the math and post a reminder on your monitor. Personally, if I were interested, I'd use option #2, if I didn't memorize it outright.

Why does it have to be more complicated that this?

Its called examining how your users use your site and putting information you want your users to see where they are most likely see it. That's the entire point of making posts about online chats instead of just using the calendar, which people aren't using for a reason. If you want them to use it, you have to drive their traffic to it and show them its useful, and that's more work than just making the darned post in the first place.

You can whine about people not doing what you think they should do until the cows come home or you can actually accomplish something by taking effective action. In this case the post is the most effective way to advertise. If Steve wants people to see his calendar entry, he'll have to link to it. That's reality. The difference between winning and whining is a big fat H.

The second part is making sure the information you put in people's path is meaningful to your audience, which is what the GMT request was about. The global community uses GMT - as do many major American institutions and large parts of the Federal Government. It also happens to be the standard for the board software. Its not like someone was asking him to put their local timezone information in his posts - they were just asking if he'd put his timezone in standard global notation.

My problem is the same as yours is in reverse: I don't see what the big deal is.

[Killer Shrike]

MOD: Lets all play nice, shall we? Take private arguments private via IM. The boards are not a forum to bicker in public. This thread is proceeding apace aside from some unpleasantness; lets try to keep it friendly and avoid a lock, check?

Thanks!