Say what timezone all times are in, at least via a note at the bottom of all pages
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	Jidanni
	Mar 3 2020, 5:03 PM

Description

Let's talk about the "incredible disrespect" of timezones.

$ w3m -cols 999 -dump https://radioscanningtw.miraheze.org/w/index.php?title=%E5%B1%8F%E6%9D%B1%E7%B8%A3%E6%B6%88%E9%98%B2%E5%B1%80&diff=4513&oldid=4288&uselang=en |grep 2020

Revision as of 12:38, 21 February 2020 (edit)     Latest revision as of 18:15, 3 March 2020 (edit) (undo)
Latest revision as of 18:15, 3 March 2020
This page was last edited on 3 March 2020, at 18:15.

Here we see attention is paid down to the last minute, but timezones,
which could sway the results several hours, are not even thought about,
when composing the output.

It is a mystery for the reader: are we talking about

The timezone of the physical website?
A timezone estimated from my IP address?
UTC?
Boris' grandmother's timezone? As she is paying for his website.
The timezone the user has set in Preferences?
But wait, we aren't even logged in, above.

Anyway at the bottom of the screen at least say "Times in +O8:00 unless
otherwise noted" or something.

Sure, we know the answer, but not the man in the street.
The problem occurs the instant one even says at the bottom "This page was last edited on 3 March 2020, at 18:15."

Event Timeline

Jidanni created this task.Mar 3 2020, 5:03 PM

Restricted Application added a project: User-RhinosF1. · View Herald TranscriptMar 3 2020, 5:03 PM

Restricted Application added subscribers: RhinosF1, Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript

RhinosF1 moved this task from Radar to Miraheze-Related Issues (not reported there) on the User-RhinosF1 board.Mar 3 2020, 5:04 PM

RhinosF1 added a project: MediaWiki-Page-history.

OK, let's say we are reading a random wiki, and are wondering what the
timezone the times mentioned on it are in.

We are too lazy or unable to create an account on it to find out.

We check
https://www.google.com/search?q=wiki+timezone+what
https://www.google.com/search?q=what+timezone+is+a+mediawiki+wiki+in
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Timezone
but alas we still can't figure it out.

OK, I have an idea! We'll visit a wiki that we have an account in,
examine some things there while logged in,
and then look at the same things in an incognito browser window, thus
finally figuring out what timezone (at least that single) wiki is using!

OK, on
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Timezone
it says
This page was last edited on 8 December 2019, at 10:40. when logged in
This page was last edited on 8 December 2019, at 02:40. when not

So... at least that one site is using UTC!

Jidanni updated the task description. (Show Details)Mar 3 2020, 5:13 PM

Thanks for reporting! Can you add some appropiate project tags to ensure the right people see this?

Jidanni updated the task description. (Show Details)Mar 3 2020, 5:15 PM

Jidanni updated the task description. (Show Details)

In T246801#5937809, @RhinosF1 wrote:

Thanks for reporting! Can you add some appropiate project tags to ensure the right people see this?

All I know is this affects 100% of the pages of every wiki. So I don't know what tags to use. It is not simply a recentchanges bug.

https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual_talk:Timezone#So_hard_for_outsiders_to_figure_out_what_timezone_wikis_are_saying_times_in

Tagging as general then

Removing Miraheze tracking column as this is a wide scope

Also note "even for logged in timezone addicted freaks" there is no way in Preferences to show a timezone:

Date format
	No preference
	17:22, March 3, 2020
	17:22, 3 March 2020
	17:22, 2020 March 3
	2020-03-03T17:22:13

So some note at the bottom of a page is needed... even if just for legal purposes.

Anyway, currently, the timezone a (not logged into) wiki is showing is
such a secret, that without access to the $wg settings one cannot figure
out what the owner has set it to! Sure, analysis of the raw HTML reveals
"timestamp":"20200302194849" and HTTP HEAD shows Last-Modified: Sun, 01
Mar 2020 17:41:33 GMT but do we really need to start trying to go
further and analyze those?

matmarex closed this task as a duplicate of T242507: "This page was last edited on" footer doesn't indicate time zone.Mar 3 2020, 9:26 PM

Yep, one must resort to the API to dig out the information . https://m.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Siteinfo

Say what timezone all times are in, at least via a note at the bottom of all pagesClosed, DuplicatePublicActions

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Say what timezone all times are in, at least via a note at the bottom of all pages
Closed, DuplicatePublic
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