Timezones, GMT,BST,CET,CEST

[Baldrian]

Seems people have problems finding out what is what, when and why, so I will try to give a simple explanation. Please post if I am wrong, but do your research before you do.

GMT: http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/
This is a world standard and does never change, no summertime or whatever and is the same as UK time in the winter.

BST: http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/eu/bst.html
This is British summertime and is the same as GMT+1

CET: http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/eu/cet.html
This is Central European time and is ALLWAYS GMT+1

CEST: http://www.timeanddate.com/library/abbreviations/timezones/eu/cest.html
This is Central European SummerTime and is ALLWAYS GMT+2

Hopes this carify a few things and raidleaders remember to post the right times. Some still thinks that GMT is allways UKtime and some that CET is allways europetime. Make sure you post it right.

 

[Flimgoblin]

it seems that a lot of people use CET to mean CEST - far more than GMT is used in place of BST.

However given a lot of time is measured against GMT (an absolute and also the same as UTC or universal time) and almost nothing is measured against CET it's not really a problem

i.e. if someone said today, to meet at 5pm CET I'd assume they meant CEST. If they said to meet at 5pm GMT I'd probably assume they meant BST if we were both brits - if either of us was in any other timezone I'd assume they meant GMT when they said it but not be 100% sure.

To avoid confusion: call it UK time for raids

 

[Ghaladriel]

Prefer CET xD 90% of peeps are not from UK tho

 

[boogie]

if you use the first link in your post http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/

and you click to european union - belgium (that's where i live, just to make it easy for me ) you get this page: belgian time

Central European Time (CET) = GMT+2 (Summer Time)

so i agree with flim, uk-time is good enough and less confusing

 

[Tzan]

You forgot GR time

http://www.guntern.net/Mykonos/foto/gross/DSCN0382.jpg

 

[Saveus]

You forgot eastern time zone, for teh YANK

 

[Baldrian]

You forgot eastern time zone, for teh YANK

Nope I didnt "forget" he knows his own time. its the english that confuse it all with 2 clocks.

 

[Belomar]

Make this thread a sticky, imo--also, reputation point given to Baldrian for a good and informative post.

 

[Macewan]

Great post. This issue really annoys me. It is a huge problem for ppl in england. I have lost count of the number of times I have had discussions where ppl from england argue that gmt=uk time (and im english myself btw).

Does it matter? Well mostly I try to allow extra time so I can be at a raid earlier if required. For instance if the post says 7:00gmt I try to ensure I can be there at either 7pm or 8pm uk time. In my experience they usually wrongly mean the former.

Today I didn't have the time to do that, so I took a chance that the SIDI raid organiser knew what they were talking about. I got online at 5:45 gmt = 6:45 uk time. Raid was supposed to start at 6:00 gmt, but you guessed it, I missed it because it started an hour early.

Is it really so hard for ppl to grasp?

 

[Marrah]

Well done for posting this Baldy, bout time someone did :worthy:

 

[LordjOX]

Yea, mostly ignorant English people argue bout GMT and BST. (not generalising)
Glad that someone clears up in this.

 

[psyco]

its fine posting this, even though its been done before, but no-one actully puts it to practice, we need another form of comunicating - ie hostages

 

[Hawkwind]

Yea, mostly ignorant English people argue bout GMT and BST. (not generalising)
Glad that someone clears up in this.

\o/ for the Idiotic generalisation. Even though you claim its not. :worthy: