I still think it's better to have a forum function that automatically converts timezones.

Would like to mention this idea again — I recall something from the last time we had this debate about how places like TNP have a forum plugin that converts times into the timezone a forum user has set; as for whether anything similar (and still maintained) exists for MyBB, I'm not sure. But I'll dream

Esfalsa | NationStates | Wiki | Roleplay | Discord

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My belief is that as a game that is by its nature, international — the last two Delegates are both Australian — our timezone should be catered towards this notion. In that respect, many of us who do not live in the U.S. are familiar with the UTC time and our own timezone's relation to UTC. As such, I assume that for many, we can easily convert the time in our head, i.e. Melbourne is UTC+11. UTC is an international standard and our use of it is appropriate.

Australian Eastern Standard Time is the 2nd most used timezone on our forums. Eastern Standard Time is the first. UTC is the 5th. This is the timezone breakdown of all forum users. Even taking into account Eastern Standard Time being the default, the trends is pretty damn clear. 

Code:

+----------+--------+
| timezone | number |
+----------+--------+
| -5       |    871 |
| 10       |    163 |
| -4       |    138 |
| 1        |     90 |
| 0        |     88 |
| -6       |     72 |
| -7       |     62 |
| 8        |     60 |
| 2        |     58 |
| -8       |     44 |
| 7        |     19 |
| 5.5      |     18 |
| -3       |     15 |
| 3        |     12 |
| 6        |     11 |
| 5        |      9 |
| 11       |      8 |
| 12       |      8 |
| 4        |      6 |
| -12      |      5 |
| 9        |      5 |
| 13       |      4 |
| -11      |      4 |
| -4.5     |      4 |
| 4.5      |      3 |
| 9.5      |      3 |
| -10      |      3 |
|          |      2 |
| 3.5      |      1 |
| -3.5     |      1 |
| -2       |      1 |
| -1       |      1 |
| -9       |      1 |
| 10.5     |      1 |
| +10      |      1 |
+----------+--------+

(This post was last modified: 01-07-2022, 09:46 PM by sandaoguo.)

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Amerion precisely hits the hammer on the head. I, for example, live in New Zealand, which is GMT+12 when it's not DST and GMT+13 when it is. How am I supposed to remember that right now (since it's daylight savings time here) it's, uh... EST + 18?? right now? That, combined that I have no idea when it's DST in EST since I don't live there, but I do know when it's DST here for obvious reasons. As most people (according to your own data) do not live in EST, I believe that the possible benefits of this benefitting 48% of the community are outweighed by the fact that it only causes unnecessary pain to the majority of users.

I also dislike the fact that this is just Americanisation.

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

(This post was last modified: 01-07-2022, 10:41 PM by Apatosaurus.)

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I also dislike the fact that this is just Americanisation.

Literally get over it.

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I also dislike the fact that this is just Americanisation.

Literally get over it.

This isn't addressing the part you quoted, let alone the rest of my post...

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

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Since we now have a bbcode that will translate a timestamp to your local time, I'm proposing the following amendment in lieu of straight up repealing this law (which would be the better option tbh):

Times Act

An act to establish a common timezone for all official deadlines

Table of contents

1. Scope
   
2. Timezones
   

1. Scope

(1) This act applies to all legal deadlines used by government entities in the South Pacific.

2. Timezones

(1) All legal deadlines posted on the official forums that establish a specific hour and minute must use Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) the official Time bbcode, to ensure displayed times are shown in local timezones.

(2) The deadline must contain a link to a countdown timer established using the Time and Date Live Countdown Timer.

(3) All such deadlines shall be accompanied by a reference to the equivalent time in London, New York and Sydney provided by the Time and Date Time Zone Converter.

(2) All other legal deadlines posted in other venues shall contain a conspicuous link to a countdown timer using the Time and Date Live Countdown Timer and a conversion to London, New York, and Sydney using the Time and Date Time Zone Converter, regardless of what timezone is utilized in the official notice.

(4)(3) When publishing non-legal deadlines, conformance to this act is strongly encouraged.

(This post was last modified: 01-07-2022, 11:00 PM by sandaoguo.)

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This I can get behind. Support.

Local Councilroar.

Selfie

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If NationStates the game does updates at EST midnight and midday, I am not sure why we must observe other times.

I personally don't care either way cause I always vote at the ping, but it is more logical to make the time that NS observes in-game the official time.

-Griffindor/Ebonhand
-Current Roles/Positions
-Legislator 2/24/20-
-High Court Justice 6/7/20-
-South Pacific Coral Guard 11/17/20-
-Minister of Engagement 6/17/22-

-Past Roles/Positions
-Legislator 7/3/16-4/10/18
-Secretary of State 4/3/20-2/24/21
-Chair of the APC 9/24/16-5/31/17
-Vice-Chair of the APC 6/1/17-4/10/18
-Local Council Member 7/1/17-11/17/17
-Citizen 5/2012-12/2014 and  2/26/16-7/3/2016

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If we're going to legislate deadlines posted in other venues as well, we might as well mention that Discord supports something similar to the [time] tag where a timestamp can be inserted into the message using an Unix time (see here). Basically, it's just <t:TIMESTAMP>.

Perhaps something along the lines of this?

All legal deadlines posted on Discord shall prominently display the deadline using the timestamp feature supported by Discord message formatting markdown.

Also, if we're going to link to an external time zone converter, this one displays the deadline in the user's local time zone, which I'd argue would be more useful than the conversion to London, New York, and Sydney.
 

[...]

(2) All other legal deadlines posted in other venues shall contain a conspicuous link to a countdown timer using the Time and Date Live Countdown Timer and a time zone conversion using the Dateful Eventlink generator, regardless of what timezone is utilized in the official notice.

[...]

Esfalsa | NationStates | Wiki | Roleplay | Discord

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I don't believe we post legal deadlines in Discord, just links to the actual threads/dispatches

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