Maybe a Better way to handle the Northern and Southern Time changes

[Tom]

Now that we have a few Australian tourneys I think we need to make a change to the Kiwi schedule.

Currently it starts at 8AM USA/Eastern time.

This means that for players in the southern hemisphere will see a 2 hour shift in the time it plays between summer and winter.

We ran an experiment this Winter(North)/Summer(South) by adding the Aussie Summertime Filler when the Week In/Out/Humpday/Bago were 2 hours away from the Kiwi and I think the experiment was successful since many did run.
And this was inspite of the fact that is was NOT a TPR tourney!

So once the time changes are complete (The south changes on April 5th) I am going to change the Kiwi to run on Australian Eastern time and add a tourney after it, possibly called Aussie Midnight Madness.

What we will end of with is 3 tourneys 2 hours apart and for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere we will see the Kiwi at 8AM USA/Eastern (1200UTC) and Midnight Madness at 10AM or (1400UTC) in the summer and in the winter the Midnight Madness will be at 1200UTC and the Kiwi at 1000UTC

And yes they will all be TPR tourneys.

One small side effect we will have to get used to is that between our change and their change there will be about a month where the tourneys are offset to the ODD hour, I do not see a way around that.

Tom

[dorbel]

I have proposed in the past that all tournaments all the year round could be scheduled on UTC, hence no changes needed. Is there a rational reason why that wouldn't be best? It would certainly be simplest. Some states and some countries don't bother with summer and winter time after all. In Queensland the legislature rejected daylight saving time changes on the grounds that changing the time confused the cattle and faded the curtains.

[Tom]

I have proposed in the past that all tournaments all the year round could be scheduled on UTC, hence no changes needed. Is there a rational reason why that wouldn't be best? It would certainly be simplest. Some states and some countries don't bother with summer and winter time after all. In Queensland the legislature rejected daylight saving time changes on the grounds that changing the time confused the cattle and faded the curtains.

Well those regions that have exceptions are used to dealing with them, but I personally prefer keep in sync with the local time of the tourney.

This is the way a number of tourneys were running when I started supporting TourneyBot and the expansion I have done followed that lead, with no objections.

I see no need to change tourneys to UTC now!

Tom

[socksey]

After reading the time changes you propose, Tom, I was thoroughly confused.  Wouldn't keeping the tourneys on the same UTC times be less confusing and keep the tourneys on the same time they are on now?  Then noone would need think about what time the tourneys are going to be played, but just continue as they have been.

One of the "herd"...........socksey

[dorbel]

Well there is no "need" to change its true, but the point of scheduling on UTC is that there would then be no "local" tourneys. When tourneys were strongly identified with a TD that was much more the case, but now that tourneybot successfully runs 24 hour tournaments how local are they? The "Australian" tournaments come during the day for Euros and the KKK is even accessible for early risers in America, so it is quite usual for them to have more Euros and Yanks than Aussies. The BM and mini-matches, although strongly identified with their American founders are in fact both at very accessible times for Euros too. UTC timing would be unarguably simpler to organise and in my view easier for players to work out when the tourney would be timed. For example, the 3/5 tourneys in my time zone have just moved forward to 5.0pm, but will move back to 6.0pm again in April! How logical is that?
Anyway, it doesn't matter much I guess. I was just trying to bring a little rationality to the schedule and simultaneously make life easier for our organiser, for whom no praise can be too high for what he brings to the tourneys and leagues. Kudos and thanks to Tom!

[Tom]

Thanks for your comments.

I feel we should give it a try my way and see how it goes

Tom

[KDP]

i would be in favor of listing all the tourneys using UTC.  the time command on fibs gives you this information and it seems having a consistent, unambiguous standard would be the way to go.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

[Tom]

I can look at adding a command to list them that includes the UTC time they next occur.

Good Idea!

Tom

[dorbel]

Not sure if that is what he meant Tom!

[Tom]

Copied WITH permission:

You tell socksey can I PLEASE copy those last few (public) shouts to fibsboard?
socksey says i think stog says no
socksey says sorry, no to fibs shouts in fibsboard, but you can give it a try.  i won't take it out.

socksey shouts *** thx to all the tourney players today! c u same
socksey shouts time tomorrow and don't forget bloodymonday tourney
socksey shouts tigergammon at 2:30 pm signups and 3 pm est/usa
socksey shouts to play! ***
socksey shouts oh yeah, 1 hour later.  god this is annoying

There were some other comments, but I think socksey's comments sum it up

THE TOPIC OF RUNNING TourneyBot tourneys on UTC is now CLOSED!



Tom

[socksey]

I don't think my comments summed it up at all.  Having the tourneys all set to UTC would eliminate all conflict of time zones confusion.  Never mind my macro change problem twice a year for all those tourneys.    I might never need to do that again.    Oh for the day when TB is perfection!  It's close now! 

socksey



Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep. - Scott Adams

[Tom]

some of the other comments which I did not attempt to get permission to post may have help more...

such as something like "oh that is getting too late..."

We have been running tourneys based on local time for over 11 years, it is not going to change it now!
(tourneys such as F3 and Bagolympic, and Mini-Matches according to the schedule posted at FLG)

Tom

[socksey]

Dear Tom, I was not suggesting that any of the tourney change their normal local times.  I was merely suggesting that they be advertised in UCT time so as to be more clearly advertised to the world, rather than to strictly local time.  Capeesh?   

socksey



Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast. - Lewis Carroll

[Tom]

Dear Tom, I was not suggesting that any of the tourney change their normal local times.  I was merely suggesting that they be advertised in UCT time so as to be more clearly advertised to the world, rather than to strictly local time.  Capeesh?   

socksey

If that is what you meant then we apparently agree!

This is what you said, maybe I misread it.

Wouldn't keeping the tourneys on the same UTC times be less confusing and keep the tourneys on the same time they are on now?

I misunderstood "same UTC time" to mean they did not move with Daylight Savings time, my mistake.

I will get a command started to show the schedule with UTC times...

Tom

[socksey]

Yes!   

socksey



It's spring fever.  That is what the name of it is.   And when you've got it, you want - oh, you don't know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so! - Mark Twain