Admin Forum:Community Messages Seem to Assume Everyone Works on American Time: Why?

There is a community message up today stating that all editing will be disabled for three hours today from a certain time. The time given is UTC, and it is also given in Pacific and 'Eastern Standard'. This seems to assume that every wiki user is conversant with, or living in, these time zones, which are in fact specific to the U.S only. I'm in Britain. I have no idea what time this refers to as far as Greenwich Mean Time is concerned, so I have no idea when editing will be disabled. I would ask that the Wikia admins please try to remember that wiki's are viewable and editable worldwide and bear that in mind in future when passing on such information. Thank you. Tony ingram 13:07, September 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) is not U.S. specific, actually it's pretty much what is used in Great Britain during winters. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 13:40, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * What would you have them do? List the time for every possible time zone? UTC is the international standard, and people really should know how much of an offset from UTC there is for their time zone. UTC=GMT, so 1pm in UTC is 2pm in Britain (for another five weeks or so, until BST ends). --Tulipclaymore 13:43, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

Why should people know this? Why would they? I don't travel abroad so the only time zone I have any real reason to be conversant with is my own. Tony ingram 13:46, September 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * "Why should people know this?" Because it's good to know. Having a long list of what time it is in city x would be just annoying. If you didn't already know about UTC, then + to wikia for introducing you to the international standard. -- Xd1358(Talk) 13:55, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

I don't want to know what time it is in city X because it will be the same time as in city Y, here; I just want to know what time it is in Britain! All I'm saying is, it seems to me that there is a very U.S-centric attitude prevalent here, which makes little sense when you consider that the sites are viewed and edited by people worldwide. Would adding in the info for Britain and Europe really have been such a problem? Tony ingram 14:02, September 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * UTC = Europe, so I don't see the problem. Anyways, I'm inclined to agree with you that mentioning the time in two different US time zones might seem a bit redundant though.

-- Xd1358(Talk) 14:05, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * As I said earlier, UTC IS the information you're looking for. The fact that they also giving extra bit of information for their biggest market (way biggest, if I might add) which is also their homeland is just that, extra. UTC is the way to do things internationally, and as long as there is no way to make sure the message can have users own timezone automatically, UTC is the only viable option.


 * Feel free to ask when not sure, as thats the polite and reasonable way to act, but don't demand spoonfeeding with very basic knowledge (I consider this to be that, small kids are taught to know these in school I believe). (: –Tm_T (Talk) 14:15, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

Sorry I spoke. But I have to say, I don't consider this very basic knowledge and I certainly wasn't taught anything about UTC at school in the '70's. Anyway, it seems I'm fighting a losing battle so I'll bow out. Tony ingram 14:21, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * The entire point of your argument seems to be that you dont want wikia to cater to any one timezone but then you say you want them to cater to you and your timezone. You keep asking for them to give gmt instead of their own time when they did, they gave you UTC which is GMT. All you had to do was go online and just look it up. Wikia often gives pacific time if you talk to them, I don't live in pacific time and yet you do not see me demanding that they give me that time in my timezone. I simply do the conversion.--

I think Tony makes a good point that it's not necessarily clear what UTC means and how to convert :) I wonder how we can improve the messaging?

We currently use UTC and the opposite sides of the US because that covers the largest group of our English speaking visitors and gives the base-line for others. The messages usually go out in several languages (we sent out seven versions of the latest message) and we use Central European Time or whatever else is most appropriate for each.

Perhaps the solution is to give something like this as a link in each message. We try to keep them as short as possible of course, but perhaps we can find a good way to help everyone see their local timing as easily as possible (preferably one a bit prettier than that page ;) Thanks for bringing this up Tony -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 16:56, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * Thank you for acknowledging my concern! That page actually looks pretty much ideal. I think something like that (but, as you say, prettied up a bit) would be a real help in avoiding confusion. Tony ingram 17:05, September 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * I think the real confusion is the difference between UTC and GMT - which (at least according to Wikipedia) there apparently is - but in layman's terms there isn't - don't know what can be done to remove the confusion --  Random Time  17:08, September 22, 2011 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) I have to add I also havent a clue what UTC is/was when the message popped up and did wonder how it relates to GMT !! (as i'm also in the UK). The only place i have seen the term UTC used is on Wikia & wikipedia, so i assume its a American 'time thing'. But it is good to be informed of such outages of the system by Wikia even if we only realise the 'full' meaning when editing stops, a least we then know why & can go and do something else for abit.


 * Thanks any way for now clarifying UTC = GMT in effect so 1 pm = 2pm currently (as on summer time) - 17:19, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

I'm glad it wasn't just me who had no idea what UTC was. I thought I was going nuts there for a bit! Tony ingram 17:23, September 22, 2011 (UTC)

I saw the massage in CET (Central European Time) which is UTC+1 and corresponds to my timezone (Italy), am I the only one who saw the massage in his message?


 * No, not just you :) we try to send these messages in multiple languages (with the timezone most likely to fit people logging in to Wikia with that language in their preferences). We can't always manage it if it's an unexpected notice, and we certainly can't cover all 100 or so languages used on Wikia. But we catch the ones most commonly used here -- sannse http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb32675/wikia/images/e/e9/WikiaStaff.png (help forum | blog) 22:47, September 22, 2011 (UTC)
 * Good to see Sannse already covered the idea of giving the "world clock" link in the message, was one of the things I was considering yesterday during the downtime. To make clear my stance on this, I'm ok either way, I just didn't see the attitude of original poster be constructive. Same message given in different way would have been better, I should have been clear on this earlier so my apologies. (: –Tm_T (Talk) 05:51, September 23, 2011 (UTC)

UTC = Coordinated Universal Time It's a common "translation" or base time zone. As others have already mentioned, it's the time zone that's the same as the one in the UK when the UK is not adjusting for "daylight savings" or "summmer" time. You'll find it used on most time-translation sites, such as the one Sannse mentioned or airline timetables. And it's used for the signature files here. So, if you travel a lot or want to understand times in different places (for instance, if you work with people in other parts of the world), it's good to learn a bit about it. -- CocoaZen 06:14, September 23, 2011 (UTC)