<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default"><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">The abbreviations only really make sense is where people commonly deal with multiple timezones, such as in broad countries like the US or AU.</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">> (She insisted that it was Pacific Standard Time all year round.)</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">Yes, a lot of misunderstandings, even in those countries.</font></div><div class="gmail_default">
<font face="times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">> if an offset needs to be expressed, use +/-HHMM.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">That works for single points in time. It does not, however, handle repeating meetings. For example:</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"> Mondays at 8:00 PT</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">You can't really express this with offsets in any way that would be more understandable than the full name. One could try:</font></div>
<div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br></font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"> Mondays at 8:00 GMT-7/8.</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif"><br>
</font></div><div class="gmail_default"><font face="times new roman, serif">But nobody is familiar with that: leaving people to guess that you mean -7 most of the year, but -8 from Nov to mid March.</font></div><div style="font-family:'times new roman',serif">
<br></div></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all"><div><font face="'times new roman', serif"><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px">
<div></div></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px"><br></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px">
<a href="https://plus.google.com/114199149796022210033" target="_blank">Mark</a></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px"><i><br></i></div><div style="background-color:transparent;margin-top:0px;margin-left:0px;margin-bottom:0px;margin-right:0px">
<i>— Il meglio è l’inimico del bene —</i></div></font><div><div><font face="'times new roman', serif"><i><span style="font-style:normal"><i></i></span><i></i></i></font></div></div></div>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 11:19 AM, John Haxby <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:john.haxby@oracle.com" target="_blank">john.haxby@oracle.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="im">On 02/04/13 09:30, Alan Barrett wrote:<br>
> As long as different people can point to different web sites that say<br>
> different things, and there is no overall summary, this matter is<br>
> unlikely to be resolved.<br>
><br>
> I have no decision making power here, and I have no wish to lay out a<br>
> set of necessary conditions, but here's a stab at a set of sufficient<br>
> conditions:<br>
><br>
> Provide a list of what abbreviations are actually in use by<br>
> the people in Australia, and what abbreviations are legislated<br>
> or standardised or recommended by governments or industry<br>
> bodies or interest groups. If there is inconsistency,<br>
> then present a report on the relative frequency of use of<br>
> the different abbreviations. If the report shows a clear<br>
> consensus in favour of one set of abbreviations, then those<br>
> are the abbreviations that the tz project should use.<br>
><br>
> So far, we have identified that there is inconsistency, but I have no<br>
> idea which abbreviations are in wider use.<br>
<br>
</div>I suspect that there isn't any consistency.<br>
<br>
In the UK where we have just one timezone, commonly abbreviated to GMT<br>
and BST depending on the time of year, we *still* have problems. I've<br>
had people refer to UK time as GMT regardless of the time of year (this<br>
is especially confusing around March/April and October/November).<br>
<br>
The man or woman on the street doesn't care about the abbreviation.<br>
Apart from GMT (use and misuse) people usually refer to "summer time"<br>
and "winter time", or, around the weekend of the clock change "old time"<br>
and "new time".<br>
<br>
In the US, it seems to be common to refer to ET and PT (Eastern,<br>
Pacific). I'm not a US resident, but I've seen TV trailers refer to<br>
that quite a few times. I also vividly recall a US manager insisting<br>
that the time of a meeting would be 10am PST, just after the switch to<br>
PDT. (She insisted that it was Pacific Standard Time all year round.)<br>
<br>
Most people don't use timezone names beyond "what time is it for Aunty<br>
Clara in New Zealand/Canada/far-flung-country-of-choice?" Many of<br>
those people that really do car what time is it have multiple timezone<br>
clocks that display a city name.<br>
<br>
I would happily get rid of the abbreviations completely and, if an<br>
offset needs to be expressed, use +/-HHMM.<br>
<br>
jch<br>
</blockquote></div><br></div>