[Coco] UTC time scheme for CoCo chat

[Roger Taylor]

I've observed over the past months that there is great confusion in the UTC 
time format that was sort of voted on by some of the list members.  I was 
quick to assume that this would work since we get chatters from Germany, 
Australia, and other places on the globe in different time zones.  However, 
the idea has failed.

The date and time both are considered part of the UTC date.  That is, Dec. 
24th 0100 UTC doesn't mean Dec. 24th 7pm Central time.  It means, Dec. 
23rd, 7pm Central.  The time zone chart I grabbed from a Navy web site 
pretty much explains when to add or subtract a day from your local date 
when converting to/from UTC.  And I agree that this is way too confusing 
for people who don't deal with it regularly.

So, what I'm going to do is allow meetings to be posted showing their local 
date and time, with time zone and let the visitor figure it out, as they 
would do even if it was in UTC format. If someone from Australia or Germany 
would like to post a meeting in UTC format, it will still allow that.  If 
people in the U.S. want to use their own local time and time zone, this 
shouldn't be hard to compute in one's head for other U.S. chatters.  I 
think this idea is a lot better than forcing everyone to learn the UTC format.

Btw, the New Year's eve chat shows UTC 01/01/2005 at 0000, which is ~6pm 
Central time Dec 31st., for those who would have showed up on the night of 
the 1st, scratchin' their noggins.  :)

http://www.coco3.com/zones.htm

Cheers, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year,


-- 
Roger Taylor