Template talk:Infobox time zone

Default DST

Atlantic Time Zone
Time zone
UTC offset
AST	UTC−04:00
ADT	UTC−03:00
Current time
20:26, 14 December 2024 AST [refresh]
Observance of DST
DST is observed in parts of this time zone.

I've noticed an anomoly with the Current time that's displayed in the time zone infobox. The problem is that even if only a very small number of the countries in the time zone observe DST, the fact that the 'dst use' parameter is set to 'some' or 'parts' means that Current time displays the DST time value even though it's not actually true for most of the countries in the zone! Why can we not have two Current time values displayed (during the daylight saving period of the year), i.e. non-daylight saving and daylight saving, so the reader can see both? Or alternatively we could have a new parameter called 'current_dst' that can be set to 'yes' or 'no', which then selects which of the two times should be displayed under Current time. Then if this parameter is set to 'no', the non-daylight saving time will be displayed all year round.

Take the Atlantic Time Zone as an example. At the moment, the infobox is displaying ADT under Current time even though very few places in the Atlantic Time Zone are observing DST! In fact, the only places in this zone that use ADT are Bermuda, Paraguay, Chile, and some parts of Eastern Canada. ALL OTHER PARTS (the majority) of the Atlantic Time Zone ONLY USE AST. So shouldn't we really be displaying AST under Current time? Or could we not display both during the daylight saving period of the year? Rodney Baggins (talk) 09:14, 2 September 2018 (UTC)

Current Time: Timezone Codes

In order to generate the current time, this template currently just passes the |initials= parameter straight to {{time}}. However, because there is no international standard for these time zone initials codes, it leads to problems such as BST being the abbreviation for British Summer Time (UTC+1), Bangladesh Standard Time (UTC+6) and Bougainville Standard Time (UTC+11) – see List of time zone abbreviations. This was leading the British Summer Time article (which had 23,579 over the last month) to display Bangladesh's time, rather than the UK's. While BST should be fixed at Template:Time (via Module:Time, probably to say that the timezone is ambiguous), it still means that we can't rely purely on passing |initials= to that template.

I've temporarily changed the British Summer Time article to have a non-breaking space in the initials parameter, so that it doesn't display Bangladesh time, but for a more permanent fix, I think we should use UTC offsets to display the time. It may be possible to parse the existing |offset= parameter (we could potentially also do the same for |dst offset= to address the above point about Daylight Savings vs. Non Daylight Savings times), but I don't think that {{time}} is set up to allow us to do that currently. If we started a new template that allowed us to display the current time with an offset, we could also be certain about the error message it returns if it can't parse the offset parameter, as {{time}} seemed to have changed at least once since this template was set up (also temporarily fixed in this template's code for now). ‑‑Yodin^T 10:17, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

There have been utc support changes made to Module:Time/sandbox so you might play around with {{time/sandbox}} in {{Infobox time zone/sandbox}} to see if those module changes resolve some of your issues.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 11:32, 21 September 2018 (UTC)

Just a quick note to say thanks & I've added {{{name}}} to allow this template to pass the full name of a timezone across if the initials aren't working. Have also added a couple more parameters etc. for summer time timezones like British Summer Time. ‑‑Yodin^T 11:39, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

Merge

Interested parties, take note: Now that the discussion about merging Template:Infobox time zone UTC into this one has been closed (as merge) and it has been listed at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Holding cell#Other, someone needs to figure out how the merge will actually be accomplished. - dcljr (talk) 23:11, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Looks like the merge has been finalized by Primefac (unless problems are found). Interested parties should check the current transclusions of this template (in both UTC-offset and non-UTC-offset articles) and look for errors. @TerraCyprus: You objected to the merge in the "holding cell". Do you still have any reservations, now that it has happened? - dcljr (talk) 04:41, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

• That's great! Have restored a bit of functionality that was affecting British Summer Time's infobox (I guess this was just streamlined to try to improve readability Primefac?). Also noticed that Soumya-8974 (talk · contribs) had changed the parameter names in British Summer Time to include underscores, which was also preventing them from working – there may be other articles that have also been changed in this way – will do a quick run through with AWB to see if I can find & fix any more. ‑‑Yodin^T 10:47, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

Also found another parameter left over from Soumya-8974's edits, |acronym= at Central European Time – there may be more remnants from those edits but if so I didn't find them. ‑‑Yodin^T 11:14, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

I'll put in a parameter check to pick up anything weird. Primefac (talk) 11:25, 20 October 2019 (UTC)

[11 months pass…]

@Dcljr: yes. And since the merge all maps on UTC-zones are wrong. TerraCyprus (talk) 13:52, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

Do you have an example of a wrong page? Primefac (talk) 14:36, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: all maps on UTC-zones ... due to Template:Infobox time zone/image calling Timezones2008....png. I would prefer a return to the well maintained File:UTC hue4map X world Robinson.png. In the UTC hue4maps the color is repeated every 6 (24/4) hours, so only using a standard legend for the colors doesn't work. Previously there was a positional legend. Is it possible to hide the areas that are not relevant for a given article by some html-div-tag and/or css? Then one can use the world map and in the legend the relevant colors. Maybe one could use css-margin to move the image inside a box so that only relevant areas are shown. TerraCyprus (talk) 16:44, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

@Primefac: maybe it is possible to get something like Template:Graph:Map. TerraCyprus (talk) 23:21, 16 September 2020 (UTC)

So what you're saying is not that they're wrong, but that you don't like them. Primefac (talk) 01:41, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Primefac, no. "And since the merge all maps on UTC-zones are wrong." (maps in infoboxes on utz-zone articles) Please fix. TerraCyprus (talk) 15:04, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Okay, let me rephrase my question then: what about those maps (for example on UTC−04:00 or UTC−03:00) is incorrect? I do kind of like the idea of using Graph:Map, but that's going to be a ton of work, and so if it's not obviously broken I don't really see the need to fix anything. Primefac (talk) 15:07, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

"... due to Template:Infobox time zone/image calling Timezones2008....png" - any depicted border that changed after 2008, e.g. Volga area in Russia. On the two pages you mention even the main topic is wrong, the borders for -4 and -3 changed, e.g. no DST in BR and AR. CL according to File:UTC hue4map X world Robinson.png and Time in Chile has two zones on the continental part. TerraCyprus (talk) 16:22, 17 September 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like the '08 maps need to be updated, then. I guess I can get working on that (looked more into Graph:Map, but it won't let you subdivide a country). Primefac (talk) 20:33, 17 September 2020 (UTC)