Internationalize the clock

The clock in SL is, especially for us international users, very annoying.
The two main faults with it is:

1. It is in AM/PM format, something that is not very widley used outside of english speaking countries.

2. It shows the time where LL is based. It is not possible to change it to the timezone of the local user.


What I suggest is that you implement an optional 24hour format and that you add a dropdown that makes you able to choose your timezone so that the clock and Events etc. is shown in the local time. (CET, GMT etc...)

That way we won't have to go through the very annoying task of figuring out when an event is, and how far away it is relative to our timezone.

I really think this is an important addition to SL as it becomes more and more international as this is one of the main peeves I have had with this world ever since I first loged on.
Thank you for listening.

Rickel,

hm, on my computer I can find the local time just in the lower right hand corner on the desktop.

I would like to have the SL time being shown where it is but ...

... additionally I would like to have a second clock with a drop down menu that shows the local time. Or maybe this clock should just be configured in the preferences.

Mel

Love that suggestion!!!

SL are an international life.. and al those timezones got me totaly confused from the beginning...(and still does sometimes)


I downloaded a help to my desktop after some months missing meetings in SL... OK I still dont like that most important LL ones are in the middle of night - for us that live in as example Europa.. I need my sleep... love my pillow... )

I use iClock:

http://www.scriptsoftware.com/iclock/iclockmac.php

Having one standard time is very usefull for events, dates, get togethers, etc. Because you just say, see you tomorrow at 5pm, and everyone knows that you mean sl time. If we could change the time to our local timezone we would have to be aware of all others timezones and get used to calculate back to your own. Now everyone uses one timezone from which to calculate if/when needed. It's much more efficient.

A 24 hour time format would be nice.

This problem occurs in both scientific and military circles.

It's very easily solved - 'Zulu time' or UT (universal time) - which is simply 24 hour format GMT without daylight saving adjustment...
The only snag is that it's a solution that would probably annoy everyone.

While the drop down dual local/game time menu might seem convenient, it would only cause a great deal of confusion when arranging on line events, meetings, etc.

It's not that difficult to find the offset between game time and your location, and I'd hope the arithmetic required to convert wasn't beyond too many residents?

However a 24 hour clock display instead of AM/PM would be a huge improvement and one that could be easily and quickly implemented - and should be at once.

I think the SL clock should show the local SL time. When the sun is at zenith, the clock should show 12:00. When the sun is setting, it should show 8PM. When it's rising, 4AM. The length of hours should be suitably adjusted to make this possible, so that the hour at midnight is shorter than the hour at noon. If a sim has its own cycles, then its clock should reflect that.

LL could implement a complete virtual calendar for this, with days and months that fit in the theme, and years that start with the end of beta.

Roleplay much?

Imho this would completly suck, to put it mildly.

No No No No...I would hate to see the SL clock in my timezone..

As then when you make an event you do it in your time zone forgetting that SL is not your time zone, then the time of your event is all messed up...

And for me, the event goer I will be early, or really late....so no no no..

Windows has a nice clock on the bottom right that tells your time, and the one is SL should remain just that, SL time...

Just learn your timezone, mine is +1, and it is easy and no confusion, want to know SL time, look in the upper right...want to know your time, look in bottom right...done. (Unless running in full screen, then there must be one on a wall, or vcr/dvd that is close..heh)

PS I guess SL client could do the conversion for you, but can't see that being added, as such a low priority, any time soon.

I'm +3 hours from Game time - so I sympathize with doing the math all the time in my head.

However, by sharing a common time offset, its much easier to conversationally refer to time. The logical choices for a common time are either where SL is hosted (PST - California), or GMT.

Because at the time SL was created a much greater majority of residents were closer to PST, I think that was what made sense at the time. Changing it now to GMT would be more traumatic for most and beneficial to a minority.

As SL grows, and the proportion of residents scattered across the globe becomes a even distribution - it may make more sense to switch to something like GMT for a common time format.

Everyone seems to have overlooked this suggestion, but I think it makes the most sense of any.

A second clock beside the first is what is needed. SL time is indeed important, but to have a second one with a time-zone pull-down, would solve all the problems of translating from one time to the other.

If your best friend is in England or Germany of Japan (or you are), you don't need to keep asking them what the heck the time is "for them" (and there is a problem with that).

SL is on Zulu time, for a sufficiently -8 value of Zulu (except during daylight savings time which is an abomination to clocks everywhere (except in Arizona)).

Coordinating global activities are a mess with different timebases. As in:ick. UTC/GMT would have been preferable, but once you establish a timebase, shifting is way confusing.

I would, however, love to see AM/PM banished from the face of the earth. It made a lot more sense in the era of the sundial.

The time should stay the way it is. Mainly because it is the time for the SL World and we are in the same world when in SL.

Maybe they should keep the current game time clock and add next to it a user defineable offset. Like this:

SLT 7:48 AM (11:48 AM)

Yea I can see a half the world having to force sunset.

All the options suck, in some way.

* If the SL clock shows the time in California or in Greenwich, then everyone sees the same time, but it's never local time except for a subset of the players, it never reflects the SL environment, and that's confusing.

* If the SL clock shows the local time for the user, then nobody knows what the SL time is for anything, it still doesn't reflect the Sl environment, and that's confusing. Besides, you can always display local time in another program.

You can also display GMT in another program, for that matter. So...

* If the SL clock shows the local SL daylight time, you can predict what the light's going to do, and the day-night cycle quits being an annoyance, but you can't schedule meetings by it unless you're careful to chack local time.

* If the SL clock shows mainland SL daylight time, then it'll be the same time for everyone, and it'll reflect the environment most people are in, except for a few of the islands. Still a bit confusing in the islands, but you can schedule meetings.

If you always turn on "Force Sunset" and ignore the local time, I guess you won't like either of the last two options, but if you're actually being *in* the environment and not just using it as a chat system they have distinct advantages.

Hmm there seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding of my inital proposition, I wasn't sugesting that we should change the SL timezone, I was suggesting the option of having a clock that you can add a +-Xh to in order for it to fit the timezone that you are in so that you can plan attendance to events without having to recalculate (hmm.. 9 PM, what will the clock be here when that is??).
This kind of constantly forced recalculating is very annoying and makes a simple thing as planing to go to an event uncessesarily hard.

I realize that changing the main clock would be to overdo it, but as suggested first by Melina Loonie a second clock beside the main clock that shows the local time as well as adding and additional dynamic datablock in the events listing that recalculates SL time to local time thereby showing the events both in SL time and in local time.

I don't wish to abolish SL time I just want an easy and effective way to plan what events to go to etc.

If this is not possible I would at least urge LL to implement an optional 24h setting for the clock. The AM/PM system screws up the recalculations tremendously.

This has really confused you?


Agreed


If you can't schedule meetings by it, then what good is a clock?


A few Islands? Maybe you should count them.
In theory you could schedule meetings, but if i say i meet you tomorrow at 8. What would that mean? Tomorrow is a term we use for a day and that equals in our mind to 24 hours.
This would mean a whole different time and date system, wich would be much more difficult to learn, seems to me like something that a game world can do, not a 3d collaborative platform or "thingy".

What does being *in* the environment mean? We are all sitting being hehind a computer using a program, we can choose to roleplay or not and see it as something seperate from RL. But that is only part of what SL can be, SL can in many ways enhance RL. Why would you want to cripple that enhancement by using some arbitrary day and night cycle? Not that i worry it will happen.

I personaly see SL as a medium in the same way the internet is a medium, in wich we can do remarkeble things.

I have no probs with the SL clock.
I live in Scotland.
My partner lives in Australia.
Then i have friends globally too.
But I'm aware of the times in all their respective locations.

I dont see the problem with the clock

I don't know if confusions is the right term, but it's close. You can't look at a clock and tell how long the SL "night" will be, you don't know when the morning will be, how far off it is, how long until nightfall. You could look at the sun (if you didn't have force sunset), but that is an unreliable and painstaking operation, and a pain if you're indoors.

You can't schedule meetings with the clock we use every day, except for people in ths same time-zone as you. You always have to calculate and adjust for any kind of online meeting or conference call. This is no different.

A few islands. Most islands don't shift time, and run at the same time as the mainland.

It would mean you were looking for trouble. It's really annoying logging on and getting an IM saying that there's a group meeting for tomorrow at 8, and having to check what "tomorrow" meant for the sender... do they mean today?

SL is a "game world". If it were a "3d collaborative platform" I could buy a copy of "SL Server" and run it in my office as a private sim for VR conferences and meetings.

It means interacting (as far as this is a meaningful term) with the simulated world, and taking advantage of all parts of the simulation... not just treating it like a pretty chat system.

Ask Linden Labs, they're the ones who implemented an arbitrary day and night cycle. It would be nice if they let us know what time it was in that cycle.

I totally agree with Lucifer. The clock in SL should stay just like it is. There is nothing confusing about it if we just all agree to reference everything off of SLT (Second Life Time). Its just a temporal reference point anyway. What matters is that we all agree on it. Plus it just seems right to have inworld time referenced from where the SL Mission Control is.

That's my L$5.60 ;-P

I can understand your point to a certain degree. But to be able to plan ahead everybody is bound by their local time. What I'm suggesting IS NOT to replace the SLT with some other timezone, Just that implemented into the clock is the ability to have a second clock beside it that is in local time and that the event's calendar gets a second time line that tells when the event will be in local time aswell.. Manytimes have I planned on goingto events only to find out that locally they would take place at 3 in the night... truly annoying that you are not able to see that directly.

Oh and equally important, The 24h option..

Well the way I see it, no matter what is done it will just add confusion. For example even if you have a second clock on the events, then if you give a time people will say ok...not realizing that you may be saying your time not SLT time. With the current setup everyone just assume you are using SLT. If you add options to another clock in-world then many are just going to be confused. So either way it is confusing for some. I personally don't like 24 hour time and prefer AM/PM but that is a preference. I suppose that could be changed to the SL client as a preference, but then again you will get confusion again as people will wonder what you mean by 4....AM or PM because they won't know if you are using 24 hour time or not. And even if you said 1600, many would have to figure out that was 4pm.

Time zones and such have been a problem for many many years, long before SL. It basically just involves calculation no matter what way you look at it (even if you live where SLT is the same time, you will probably have friends that don't and have to plan with them in mind). And no matter what you do, a big percentage of the population will not like it or make the confusion worse by changing.

In short I would say keep the clock as it is. A standard that everyone that comes in knows what it is and can easily look at the top corner to see and calculate what difference it is to them (by comparing it to the bottom corner).

-DB

Please 24 h System !!

No Bishop

Alternate systems include:
Hexadecimal time
and
Unix time

^.^;

I'm all for the 24 hour routine, never really liked AM/PM myself and my watch runs on 24 hour time too. I feel reasonably confident that I know when it says something higher than 12 on my watch it's past midday for me.


Addendum:
Oh, forgot one more time format:
'Termisoc time' which divides a day up into 1024 bytes and is centered on UTC.