[2239.AB] Updating the Times Act

Assembly
, , ,
1

The date-picker functionality of Discourse is leagues more advanced than we had with MyBB. Dates and times will always show in your local timezone by default, negating the need to write out multiple timezones. We can still include additional timezones in dates, but there’s really no reason to use UTC by default now.

Times Act

An act to establish a common timezone standards for all official deadlines

1. Scope

(1) This act applies to all legal deadlines used by government entities in the South Pacific.

2. Official Timezone

(1) All legal deadlines posted on the official forums that establish a specific hour and minute must use the official Time bbcode, to ensure displayed times are shown in local timezones use the built-in “date” code functionality.

(2) All other legal deadlines posted in other venues shall contain a conspicuous link to a countdown timer using the Time and Date Live Countdown Timerand a conversion to London, New York, and Sydney using the Time and Date Time Zone Converter, regardless of what timezone is utilized in the official notice.

(2) All deadlines must include the timezone in the format, and the most common timezones of members of the Assembly, London, New York, and Sydney as options.

(3) When publishing non-legal deadlines, conformance to this act is strongly encouraged.

Addendum - Example of Compliant Date & Time Codes

  • Individual date & time: [date=2022-12-06 time=11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America/New_York" timezones="Europe/London|Australia/Sydney|America/New_York"]

  • Date & time range: [date-range from=2022-12-06T11:30:00 to=2022-12-06T11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America/New_York" timezones="Europe/London|Australia/Sydney|America/New_York"]

Using the example provided, this is what a date/time would look like:
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 4:30 PM UTC
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 4:30 PM UTC→Wednesday, December 7, 2022 4:30 PM UTC

3 Likes
2

I support this change, but I think this clause could be better written like this:

3

The first part of that sentence is referencing including the timezone information in the formatting property of the code. Without it, the rendered text doesn’t say what timezone it is.

Compare:
[date=2022-12-06 time=14:30:00 format="LLLL" timezone="America/New_York" timezones="Europe/London|Australia/Sydney|America/New_York"]
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 7:30 PM

[date=2022-12-06 time=11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America/New_York" timezones="Europe/London|Australia/Sydney|America/New_York"]
Tuesday, December 6, 2022 4:30 PM UTC

4

Gotcha. I have no other objections, then.

5

sounds good to me

6

I’m just a bit confused. How exactly is this meant to be read?

7

Exactly how it appears in the example: include these time zones as options in the formatting.

However, I’ve changed the default forum settings and now the base date code included those by default. So that line is no longer necessary.

8

Well made.

9

No objections on my behalf.

10

Since debate seems to have died, and there is no objection raised thus far, I motion this to vote.

1 Like
11

What particular version? The original listed in the OP?

1 Like
12

My apologies, I should have been clearer, it is the OP plus your amendment included.

13

Perhaps we should bring a new amendment up that would move away from mandating the specific time zones, as the base code covers them automatically now.

14

Why should it be displayed using the most common timezone instead of your local timezone?

15

It will automatically display in your local time zone (according to the time zone in settings, in case you move around a lot), but clicking on it will also display in New York, London, and Sydney time.

16

Any thoughts on this revision of Glen’s original language?

Times Act

An act to establish a common timezone standards for all official deadlines

1. Scope

(1) This act applies to all legal deadlines used by government entities in the South Pacific.

2. Official Timezone

(1) All legal deadlines posted on the official forums that establish a specific hour and minute must use the official Time bbcode, to ensure displayed times are shown in local timezones use the built-in “date” code functionality.

(2) All other legal deadlines posted in other venues shall contain a conspicuous link to a countdown timer using the Time and Date Live Countdown Timerand a conversion to London, New York, and Sydney using the Time and Date Time Zone Converter, regardless of what timezone is utilized in the official notice.

(3) (2) When publishing non-legal deadlines, conformance to this act is strongly encouraged.

Addendum - Example of Compliant Date & Time Codes

  • Individual date & time: [date=2022-12-06 time=11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America/Los_Angeles"]

  • Date & time range: [date-range from=2022-12-06T11:30:00 to=2022-12-06T11:30:00 format="LLLL z" timezone="America/Los_Angeles"]

17

I’d like to see the subscript read “An act to establish a time standard for all official deadlines”, since we’re only requiring a single standard now, and section 2’s title to read “Official Time Standard”, since it’s not specifying a singular time zone anymore, and translating into the local time automatically.

18

What is considered a “legal deadline”?

What if the date functionality changes and no longer shows the time zones that we assume it’s showing?

19

2.2 shouldn’t be removed since there is no date functionality on dispatches and it would be nice to still have a standard for those instead of it just being whatever the creator of the dispatch wants.

1 Like
20

A legal deadline is a deadline established under a law. It defines itself.