Default time zone = GMT+10 ?

[Dieter]

(10-24-2015 05:25 PM)Katie Wasserman Wrote:  True, but how many forum members want to see the time on posts in UTC

I think all those that prefer a universal standard.

(10-24-2015 05:25 PM)Katie Wasserman Wrote:  I think only those that live in GMT+0, so everyone else would have to change it. I think that the goal of a default setting is to have the fewest members have to change it.

Sure, the default time zone may be the one that applies to the majority of users in that zone. But this changes twice a year with the switch from and to daylight savings time (in most of Europe: this weekend). Actually DST is another reason why a standard like UTC IMHO is the better option.

Let's assume that 30% of the forum members live in the UTC–8 region. If the forum's default time zone is set accordingly, these 30% get their local time displayed ...between November and March. If another 20% live in UTC–7, the best you can do is a default of UTC-7 so that about one quarter of the members gets its local time zone displayed for a period of roughly half a year... #-)

That's why I think that the basic idea is not to accomodate the largest possible number of users, but to provide a common standard time that is acceptable for every user throughout the world. I assume that most of our members will know their offset from GMT/UTC so determining their local time from UTC is trivial. Suppose you live in, say, UTC+9, and what you see is "posted 11:35 P.M.". Wouldn't you prefer something like "posted 13:35 UTC" which tells you more or less directly that this was 22:35 local time?

But maybe a poll is the best solution here.
At this moment there are already two votes for UTC. ;-)

Dieter