Times for 'downtime' and updates?

[foxgamer]

I was just thinking, after being in the chatroom and several people wondering why the server was down, there is a lot of confusion about the times as PS has members all over the world.

So what I was wondering, and please, this is only a suggestion, but perhaps using 'Internet Time' (the @beats thing) to help people know exactly when the server is going down.

I know this won't help with the people who are new and don't really understand the Internet Time or even have heard of it, but I think a small 'Internet Time' clock on the website (which could be totally un-intrusive) would be a lot more helpful for both devs and members alike.

Your opinions all? Have you heard of Internet Time? (swatch.com if you haven't) Do you think it's a good idea? Bad idea? Wish the thing had never been invented? Have a better idea for doing this? I remember having this conversation with jose the last time I was here, but we never really got anywhere. lol. Sidetracked and all that. hehe.

[Marawel]

That's a pretty good idea.. but the thing is.. mostly no one knows when the server will go down..

[Aiken]

I think it would have been better giving the time in something like UTC. For the current maintenance the time was given as Monday 1800 EST. For me that time was over 14 before the server was taken down. The server went down for it's maintenance at Tuesday 0830 EST.

If the time has been given as Monday 2200 UTC it would not have mattered where in the world you are it would still have been Monday 2200UTC.

EST is a bad time zone to use. 3 countries use EST and that can be made 4 if you include European Summer Time.

[foxgamer]

Marawel, obviously I was not thinking of the times when the server goes down without anyone's knowledge, just when there is a scheduled downtime for updates or anything.

Aiken. I did look at the UTC explanation on the wiki, but I totally didn't understand it. I will have another look tomorrow as it may make more sense then, lol. But thank you both for your input. Nice to get some info from people in different parts of the globe

[Aiken]

Ignore the bits about GMT being replace by UT and people saying GMT when they should be saying UTC and leap seconds. All that does is add extra confusion that is not needed for this exercise.

The way I think of UTC is the time offset from Greenwich in the UK. I am at the east coast of Australia and am 10 hours ahead of Greenwich or UTC+10. A time of 0200 UTC Tuesday would be 12:00 Tuesday local time (lunch time). If a person was 6 hours behind Greenwich or UTC-6 then 0200 UTC Tuesday would be 2000 Monday night local time which would put them somewhere towards the east coast of the states.

All you need to know is your offset from UTC and the local time is easily calculated. UTC does not change if there is daylight savings. That is a local time only issue. If day light savings is in effect you will have to fudge the local time calculated.

Daylight savings is another problem with giving times in local time and expecting people the other side of world to know what time it is. There is a very good chance they won't even know if the time given is normal time or daylight savings time. So if a person does manage to guess what their local time might be they still be 1 hour out.

[foxgamer]

I understand now. But what I don't understand is if UTC is really GMT, why did they come up with UTC and not just keep GMT? I know they say summer is 'supposed' to be GMT+1, but it's not. Not really. So I'm confused why they actually came up with it. I think it's a conspiracy...