Talk:Daylight saving time/Archive 5

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Changes to lead and to "Energy use"

These changes introduced several problems.

• The revised lead suggests that DST applies only if clocks are changed for part of the year. But as the body of the article makes clear, some areas, such as Iceland, observe DST all year.
• The revised lead unnecessarily repeats the notions that DST saves energy and promotes public health and safety. These ideas are already featured prominently in the lead; they should not be mentioned twice.
• The change removes from "Energy use" the claim that DST may increase gasoline consumption, which is supported by an article by Shawn McCarthy in the Globe and Mail. No reason was given for this removal.

I therefore undid the change as part of a recent cleanup, which also improved the recently-introduced discussion of "daylight losing time". Eubulides (talk) 05:11, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Response: It seems attempts to revise the unscientific, poorly written descriptions of DST are not allowed.

• DST does not increase or decrease daylight at any time. The amount of daylight is determined by the seasonal inclination of the earth to the sun.
  • That is covered under Daylight saving time #Benefits and drawbacks, which says "Obviously it does not change the length of the day; the longer days nearer the summer solstice in high latitudes merely offer more room to shift apparent daylight from morning to evening so that early morning daylight is not wasted." This is briefly summarized in the lead, which says "afternoons have more daylight and mornings have less". Eubulides (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• The lead does not suggest a reason for DST, historically or in current use. There is no mention of its primary goal in saving energy.
  • No, the lead says that DST benefits retailing and sports and reduces traffic fatalities, and that an early goal was to reduce energy usage. Eubulides (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• The history of DST should be separate from the opening paragraph.
  • When the article went through review as part of becoming a featured article, earlier reviewers objected to having lots of short, choppy paragraphs, and suggested a maximum of 3 paragraphs in the lead. Eubulides (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
• The article should eliminate conjecture and unscientific claims masquerading as research. Articles in the paper are not research. Statistics about gasoline consumption or peak energy demands in Australia that do not take into account other variables are just anecdotal.
  • If there is sound scientific evidence about a subject, of course that should take precedence. The paper concerning energy demands in Australia is among the soundest of the citations mentioned; if we can't cite sources like that, we might as well not have a Wikipedia article at all. The gasoline-consumption article is not as good, but is the best source we have on the subject of gasoline consumption; better sources would of course be welcomed, but in the mean time gasoline consumption is a valid issue and we should use the best source we have. Eubulides (talk) 17:39, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Bryan00009 (talk) 12:27, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

UK-US diagram is unreadable

This change introduced a gallery containing Image:Timediffrence_uk-us.png. Unfortunately, the image is unreadable, so I am reverting the change for now. I do like the idea of showing a diagram of time differences. I suggest two things. First, the image needs to be modified so that it is at least somewhat readable as a thumbnail; see the existing maps and diagrams on the page for illustrations of this. Second, please use the UK and Chile instead, as that is a more interesting example. Daylight saving time #Observance practices already says "The time difference between the United Kingdom and mainland Chile may therefore be three, four, or five hours, depending on the time of year" and the image could be an illustration of this point. Eubulides (talk) 16:55, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for this improvement; the new image is much more readable. I made this further change to put the new image next to the text that it illustrates, and to adopt the style for images that is used elsewhere on the page. I have some further suggestions to help improve it even more:

• The image incorrectly states that Western Australia ends DST at 01:00 on March 29. It actually ends at 03:00 local time on March 30. See the Western Australia Daylight Saving Bill (No. 2) 2006 (PDF). As an aside, doesn't daylight-savings-time.info use Zoneinfo code? That should help it avoid bugs like this.
• Once this bug is fixed, the diagram will indicate that the seven-hour offset between Western Australia and Germany exists for only seven hours of real time, from 2008-03-29 18:00 to 2008-03-30 01:00 UTC, which means that it's not that good an example: it makes it appear that the seven-hour offset lasts only for a short time and can be safely ignored for many applications. Better would be to pick two locations where the unusual offset lasts longer.
• Western Australia is trialing daylight-saving; it is controversial there and may well not become permanent. It would be better to use a more-stable location, where daylight-saving is well established and not likely to change.
• With the above two points in mind, I suggest comparing New York City to São Paulo; the resulting diagram has several weeks of the intermediate two-hour offset. However, that diagram incorrectly claims that DST ends in São Paulo at 2008-02-17 23:00 local time; the correct ending time is 2008-02-17 00:00 local time (equivalent to 2008-02-16 24:00).
• The big "March 08" and "Apr 08" in the diagram are inconsistent about whether a month abbreviation is used, and the "08" is a bit too informal here. Better would be "March 2008" and "April 2008", or perhaps just "March" and "April" with the 2008 in the caption. But, come to think of it; there's another problem: the image uses English words, and thus is less useful for translations such as the Spanish DST article. So perhaps "2008-03" and "2008-04" would be better labels. Similarly, the rest of the diagram should avoid English-specific wording as much as possible.
• The URL to "www.daylight-savings-time.info" grates a bit, because it says "savings" rather than the normative "saving". But when I use "www.daylight-saving-time.info" (without the "s"), the web server immediately rewrites it to use the "s". Can that be fixed on the web server side? I'd rather use URLs without the "s" and have it stay that way on my screen.
• The diagram is graphed as if clocks changed at midnight, but they actually change at a particular UTC time, which is not exactly midnight. I suggest altering the graph so that the transitions are graphed accurately according to the UTC time, not just the local date.

Again, thanks for the diagram: I'm not trying to be ungrateful! I'm just trying to help make it better. Eubulides (talk) 21:00, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'll take another look and be back with changes as soon as I can. About writing the change in hour in UTC time - I disagree, I think it makes more sense to put in under local time. And western Australia ends DST at 2:00, or I'm dyslectic (which is an option, but please recheck). -mouse_on_march —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.132.226.190 (talk) 09:45, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I see your point about displaying the time in UTC, but could you at least graph the time in UTC? Otherwise, the graph won't be accurate, since it will show different transitions in different time zones as if they were in the same time zone. As for the Western Australian time, the legislation clearly says that by "the hour of 2 a.m." it means the "hour as determined by standard time". This is 3 a.m. local time in the autumn transition. Remind me again why your website is not using Zoneinfo? It's very good and quite accurate. Eubulides (talk) 15:52, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm uploading the graph again, fixed based on most of your suggestions. The website is not using zoneinfo becuase zoneinfo is sorted by continents, and the time zone regions are not optimized for the convenience of the ignorant user. I'm using several sorces, including zoneinfo. All the bugs should be fixed by the end of the week. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.138.13.25 (talk) 13:07, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! The diagram is much appreciated. Eubulides (talk) 17:23, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

"So-called" drive-ins?

"DST also hurts prime-time broadcast ratings and theaters, especially outdoor cinema, so-called drive-ins."

Why "so-called"? The sentence implies that "outdoor cinema" is the preferred term, but there is no page with that title, and that term is not mentioned on the page for Drive-in theater. (I see that page has a neutrality tag, for some reason that's not obvious to me.)

India

The map shows India as one of the countries which "no longer use DST". Are you guys sure about this? I live in India and have never heard of such a practice being used from my parents or grandparents or anyone else. They don't even know about it. ReluctantPhilosopher (talk) 16:05, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Time in India says they did. Also, the tz database says DST was used there during World War II. Eubulides (talk) 17:50, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

What readers most need from WP is when and which way to reset our clocks

The most useful information to most consulting this reference seems to be missing. On which dates, and exactly how (which way), are we supposed to reset our clocks? --by 66.167.164.17 at 16:30, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There's no simple answer to that question; it depends on where you live. Please see Daylight saving time around the world for some (but alas, not all) of the details. This page is referred to in the lead section of Daylight saving time. Eubulides (talk) 23:44, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

I suggest we put one up as an example for 2 different countries, when they changed their time at different times, to make people see the practical value of the article early. 79.103.188.125 (talk) 15:14, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Thre is such an example in Image:Time-differences-brz-us.png but this is a fairly specialized topic and would be out of place in the lead (that image is currently used in Daylight saving time #Observance practices). To try to address this problem, I inserted a hatnote to point readers more directly at Daylight saving time around the world; hope this helps. There used to be a similar hatnote there long ago; perhaps it was better that way. Eubulides (talk) 16:38, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should start a separate article just like airline destination lists are separate from airlines. HkCaGu (talk) 17:07, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Table for US/Canada/Europe 2008/2009

I have added a box with transition dates for US/Candada and for Europe, for 2008 and 2009. It might be reverted, since some encyclopedia people want to have general rules and mathematical formulas, not tables containing limited info. If it is useful is less interesting to them. Most people who have DST live in US/Canada or Europe. --BIL (talk) 07:03, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that table is not encyclopedic. First Wikipedia is not a directory. Second, the table is limited to just a few places and a few years. Third, the table is incorrect, as not all of US/Canada observes DST, and some Europeans use different rules than what is in the table. I don't know offhand how to address these objections, so I removed the table. Eubulides (talk) 07:22, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

>>some Europeans use different rules<<

Not true (unless you are referring to the 300,000 or so Icelanders, who do not observe DST at all)! Clocks go forward/back on the same dates in all European countries: see European Summer Time. -- Picapica (talk) 16:20, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

I was thinking about the Russians and Belarusians, who switch the same dates but at different times from the EU. The Icelanders are also an exception. This sort of thing can't easily be captured in a small table. Plus, the table would discriminate against those in Argentina, Australia, Mexico, Namibia, and you get the idea. There are just too many details here.

What I would prefer would be for the "Date and time" tab in Special:Preferences ask users to specify their Zoneinfo entry, and then let the Wikipedia software tell each reader what the rules are for their location. That would be fine. But putting the complete table in Daylight saving time is way overkill, and a partial table is unencyclopedic. Eubulides (talk) 16:50, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Premature archive?

Was this discussion archived to hide the many flaws of this article? How this strange article could ever have been a featured article boggles the mind. It should perhaps rather have been called Speculation on the supposed controversies regarding Daylight Saving Time... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.54.202.74 (talk) 21:29, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

You're talking about the discussion from 2007 and earlier? I archived it back in January because Dec. 31 was on a year boundary and the talk page was getting a bit long (33 topics in the ToC). Anyway, archives don't hide anything; all the material is still there. Are there any specific problems that you have in mind? Eubulides (talk) 22:22, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

The comment above should be clear enough - I am talking about your (Eubulides) strong personal bias against DST. The article history shows that you revert or otherwise change anything that goes against your basic opposition to DST. The issues raised there have not been resolved. My impression is that most people just gave up as you seem to be unwilling to let the community work towards any sort of improvements. 198.54.202.74 (talk) 06:03, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

That's still a bit vague. Could you please give details, preferably with a specific proposal for improved wording? I just now looked at that archive and found Talk:Daylight saving time/Archive 4 #NPOV, which contains a strongly worded (albeit similarly vague) complaint that the article is biased in favor of DST, along with Talk:Daylight saving time/Archive 4 #Extreme anti-DST bigotry in this article, a much longer section with concrete proposals, which resulted in some improvements to the article. I didn't see any obviously unfinished work there, but quite possibly I'm missing something. Eubulides (talk) 07:13, 30 April 2008 (UTC)

Reference 65 no longer availible

65. ^ Ann Parker. "Sundials put old slant on telling time", Santa Cruz Sentinel, 2007-03-11. Retrieved on 2008-03-08.

I could not find the article - can someone else update the link? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arcking (talk • contribs) 22:03, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning the problem. The Santa Cruz Sentinel is fairly bad at keeping their old stuff online, and this isn't the first time that link stopped working. I looked for where they moved it to, and failed. Instead of trying to track that article, which wasn't that great a source anyway, I replaced the citation with a citation to Waugh 1973, a higher-quality source although one that is (alas) not freely available online. Eubulides (talk) 01:33, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

Energy Savings

Does anyone have a lead on where to find the report commissioned by Congress on the energy savings effects of extending DST? Mrshaba (talk) 21:38, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

As far as I know it is not available. If anyone can turn it up please let us know here. Eubulides (talk) 01:16, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

Complexity

Presently includes People must remember to change their clocks; this consumes time, particularly for mechanical clocks that cannot be moved backward safely..

Also, digital electronic clocks cannot necessarily be moved backwards. My car and bedside ones must be run forwards by 23*60 minutes, and then reset to the exact time (but my watch can be run forwards by 23 exact hours).

Electromechanical clocks can just be turned off for an hour.

82.163.24.100 (talk) 14:51, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Proposal to remove date-autoformatting

Dear fellow contributors

MOSNUM no longer encourages date autoformatting, having evolved over the past year or so from the mandatory to the optional after much discussion there and elsewhere of the disadvantages of the system. Related to this, MOSNUM prescribes rules for the raw formatting, irrespective of whether or not dates are autoformatted. MOSLINK and CONTEXT are consistent with this.

There are at least six disadvantages in using date-autoformatting, which I've capped here:

Disadvantages of date-autoformatting

• (1) In-house only

• (a) It works only for the WP "elite".
• (b) To our readers out there, it displays all-too-common inconsistencies in raw formatting in bright-blue underlined text, yet conceals them from WPians who are logged in and have chosen preferences.
• (c) It causes visitors to query why dates are bright-blue and underlined.

• (2) Avoids what are merely trivial differences

• (a) It is trivial whether the order is day–month or month–day. It is more trivial than color/colour and realise/realize, yet our consistency-within-article policy on spelling (WP:ENGVAR) has worked very well. English-speakers readily recognise both date formats; all dates after our signatures are international, and no one objects.

• (3) Colour-clutter: the bright-blue underlining of all dates

• (a) It dilutes the impact of high-value links.
• (b) It makes the text slightly harder to read.
• (c) It doesn't improve the appearance of the page.

• (4) Typos and misunderstood coding

• (a) There's a disappointing error-rate in keying in the auto-function; not bracketing the year, and enclosing the whole date in one set of brackets, are examples.
• (b) Once autoformatting is removed, mixtures of US and international formats are revealed in display mode, where they are much easier for WPians to pick up than in edit mode; so is the use of the wrong format in country-related articles.
• (c) Many WPians don't understand date-autoformatting—in particular, how if differs from ordinary linking; often it's applied simply because it's part of the furniture.

• (5) Edit-mode clutter

• (a) It's more work to enter an autoformatted date, and it doesn't make the edit-mode text any easier to read for subsequent editors.

• (6) Limited application

• (a) It's incompatible with date ranges ("January 3–9, 1998", or "3–9 January 1998", and "February–April 2006") and slashed dates ("the night of May 21/22", or "... 21/22 May").
• (b) By policy, we avoid date autoformatting in such places as quotations; the removal of autoformatting avoids this inconsistency.

Removal has generally been met with positive responses by editors. I'm seeking feedback about this proposal to remove it from the main text (using a script) in about a week's time on a trial basis/ The original input formatting would be seen by all WPians, not just the huge number of visitors; it would be plain, unobtrusive text, which would give greater prominence to the high-value links. Tony (talk) 09:04, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I for one am saddened that ISO 8601 after making inroad into Wikipedia is being removed. Zginder 2008-07-28T13:10Z (UTC)

I also prefer ISO 8601 style, but the blue wikilinks from dates are distracting and are a net minus. I redid the dates by hand to preserve as many of the ISO 8601 dates as is reasonable. If the script munges more of the dates we can look at the results more carefully. Eubulides (talk) 15:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

It's hard for me to determine whether this is agreement. The ISO dates are a different matter WRT to the styleguides, aren't they? Curiously, one or more of the citation templates insists on it, against a long-standing guideline in MOSNUM (I think it's long-standing). I hope this didn't cause unnecessary trouble for you, Eubulides—removal is at your option. Let me try the script now to see whether it "munges" anything. Please revert if there are problems. Tony (talk) 11:24, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, looks fine as is; nice handiwork, Eu, but it was beyong the call of duty. Tony (talk) 11:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Images in the References section

I was looking through this article, and I noticed that there are images in the References section. Does anybody know why these images are here? I suppose it is to illustrate a couple of the references, but I believe that these images are very distracting in the reference section. They are even preventing the reflist from being expanded to the suggested two-column width because of some issue with page display in Firefox 2. I think that the images should be removed. Does anyone disagree or have any helpful insight to provide regarding the image placement? — OranL (talk) 00:51, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, they are to illustrate the references. It is helpful to have images illustrating the two most important documents in the history of daylight saving time, but there's not enough room for those images in Daylight saving time #Origin. Also, it's cool to have illustrations in the References section! Only the best books do that. Let's leave them in; the one-column reference format is a small price to pay. Eubulides (talk) 05:57, 23 September 2008 (UTC)

Turkey will abolish daylight saving time from 2009 onwards.

Turkey will abolish daylight saving time from 2009 onwards. Is there any confirmation to this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.232.9.84 (talk) 21:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

See http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=112989 & http://www.worldtimezone.com/dst_news/dst_news_turkey02.html - not 2009, maybe 2011. Probably a bad move for a country hoping to join the EU. 82.163.24.100 (talk) 19:40, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Best part of a summer day.

I added quotes to the phrase "best part of a summer day", which appears to be a quote of William Willett.

The idea that early morning is the best part of a summer day is just an opinion, not generally accepted fact. Even if the phrase is not a direct quote, the quotation marks emphasize that it was an opinion. Yes... they could be therefore be described as scare quotes, but I think that this is a pretty legitimate use.

Another possible meaning of "best part" is "greatest part"... but this makes no sense in the context. I doubt that most Londoners woke after midday, and few would have slept though the majority of daylight hours.

TomH (talk) 19:29, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

We can't use quote-marks here since it is not a direct quote. I changed "the best part" to "a large part" to avoid any worries about opinion. Eubulides (talk) 19:56, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

Fire safety?

"DST's clock shifts can serve as fire safety reminders,^[8]" - is this really worth being mentioned as a lead sentence in the introduction? It's not an intended or important function of DST, and the source is just a random article suggesting one should use the DST shifts to, among other chores, maintain the smoke alarms. It seems this section of the introduction is a pro/con-thing, and fire safety certainly is not at all the main pro for using DST. Btd (talk) 21:09, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Daylight saving time/Archive 4 #Fire safety reminders for the last time this was discussed. Eubulides (talk) 01:56, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

If what is mentioned in that discussion is true, and this is really an intended or major purpose of DST, the statement (or it's reference) should refer when this purpose was amended or publicly accepted (and whether it was originally or purposely intended at all) and by who it was/is supported. After reading the short discussion you linked, it still seems like trivia and so it should be removed. Btd (talk) 02:50, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

It has been removed from the lead, yes. Eubulides (talk) 08:40, 7 November 2008 (UTC)

Who Started it

This is the only place where I heard it wasn't Benjamin Franklin who conceived the idea for Daylight Savings time, in fact I have found many more reliable resources pointing to him regarding DST back in the late 1700's saying he was the originator than I have ever heard about with this other guy listed in Wikipedia... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.119.143.249 (talk) 17:27, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

Which reliable sources were those? Have you checked the reliable sources cited in Daylight saving time #Origin? Have you checked Franklin's 1784 essay? Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Start/ End more prominent

I think that the actual starting and ending dates should be more prominent in the article, maybe in the lead if it is standard worldwide, or a table down article if it is not.--Rayc (talk) 18:59, 26 October 2008 (UTC)

It is not standardized worldwide. There are many, many local rules. Please see Daylight saving time around the world for more info. Eubulides (talk) 05:15, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Daylight Saving and children ...

... and their poor parents ;-) This is a well written/cited article and I don't want to "butt in".

Everyone who has young children knows the problem: the children are (more or less) nicely set into their routines, and twice a year daylight saving strikes and destroys those routines. It usually takes 2 - 4 agonising weeks to get them back into a routine. Has any of the experts around here got any references/studies on this subject? If yes, could you please integrate it into the article?

This is obviously just my personal opinion, but - with young children - daylight saving is about the last thing you need.

HagenUK (talk) 13:26, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Good point. I looked a bit for a reliable source on this subject, and unfortunately came up dry. There's a lot of unreliable stuff on the net, anecdotal evidence and the like, but I couldn't find anything that seemed reasonable. Ideally I'd like a scientific study, or at least something somewhat-authoritative. It does appear from the chatter that the problem affects some children far more than others, which I guess shouldn't be surprising. If someone else can dig up a good source, that'd be helpful. Eubulides (talk) 16:45, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Moving clocks backward during autumn means lighter afternoons during the winter?

Am i missing something here? if you move the clocks back 1 hour then surely dusk at 6PM before the change then becomes dusk at 5PM after the move which means its darker in the afternoon.

Is my thinking at fault here? i always believed that the time adjustment was to create lighter mornings. 80.189.249.13 (talk) 17:14, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

You're right on both counts. But the section header (which says "lighter afternoons during the winter") is wrong. The time adjustment is designed to create darker mornings and lighter afternoons during the summer. Eubulides (talk) 17:47, 27 October 2008 (UTC)

Undesirable deletion of a lead paragraph

It's not reasonable to remove a paragraph from the lead, when the paragraph summarizes a large part of the body, as was the case with this edit. After the edit, entire sections of the article, namely Complexity, Computing, and the last paragraph of Public safety, are mentioned nowhere in the lead. That's not right. As per WP:LEAD, the lead should summarize the entire article, not just part of the article. Perhaps that paragraph's wording is suboptimal and could be improved; but that is not a reason to delete the paragraph entirely. Eubulides (talk) 04:05, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry and I think you're correct, I took too much out of the lead. Three paragraphs seemed too big when the third one was poor I thought it best to remove it. I was too quick to revert you as well sorry. I've reworded the second paragraph to include more of the problems along with the other problems daylight savings can cause. I think this lead is much better now. The only thing I've not included in the lead is the fire safety paragraph of the public safety section, I don't think it needs to be in the lead of DST. Beckje01 (talk) 05:02, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Ok, I've read over the archive of discussions with fire safety in the lead, if you think it needs to be there go ahead and work it in. But to me it feels as extra info that doesn't add to the overview and quick understanding of daylight savings time. Beckje01 (talk) 05:06, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

• I saw a few problems with that rewording. It introduced a phrase "But ... equipment." that was not a sentence. It omitted the summary of computer-based DST changes, which is a big chunk of the article (an entire section). It changed "occupations" to "industries", but farming is not normally thought of as being an industry. Finally, the previous lead kept the issue of extra afternoon daylight (in the 2nd paragraph) separate from the issue of shifting the clocks twice a year (in the 3rd paragraph). This was a useful distinction.
• I sense that your biggest objection was against summarizing the fire-safety issue in the lead. This has been a common objection, so let's take the hint and remove mention of that from the lead. It also would be helpful, I think, for the 3rd paragraph to say more loudly that it's about clock-shift issues. I made this edit to try to do that.
• One more thing: your edit also changed "energy crises" back to "energy crisis", reverting this recent edit by an IP address. Was that intended? I don't have a strong feeling one way or another about that, so I left it alone.

Eubulides (talk) 07:54, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

The energy crises to energy crisis was a mistake I have no feeling either way. My problem is with the length of the lead, I thought, but reading this one it sounds pretty good. The "But ... equipment" sorry I missed that it was late. As for occupations vs industries this may just be a regional thing farming is an industry and farmer is the occupation, I'm from the midwest so we may not be correct, I thought that industries tied better with entertainment. But overall I think the lead is much better now. Beckje01 (talk) 14:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

One last thing, what do you think taking "Extra afternoon daylight reduces traffic fatalities;[5] its effect on health and crime is less clear" and working just the cited part into the benefits section of DST in that paragraph? I think the lead would then cover most things in the article and be very clean and easy to read. If you think its an ok idea I'll give it a shot and post it here first sound ok? Beckje01 (talk) 14:31, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't follow the "One last thing" proposal. What wording change is it proposing? Perhaps you could put a copy of the proposed new wording here? Eubulides (talk) 23:48, 30 October 2008 (UTC)

Yeah that's what I was trying to ask if I should do. Beckje01 (talk) 19:37, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Computing

It may be worth mentioning, in a new sub-section of Computing, something about what computer systems and languages do and/or require. For example, the ECMAScript standard requires that the current rules should be used for all years. MS-DOS ignores DST; Windows uses it. 82.163.24.100 (talk) 13:40, 2 November 2008 (UTC)

Plot device

This edit restored a recently-added WP:TRIVIA section with the new title Plot device. If we had reliable sources that discussed daylight saving time as a plot device, it would be reasonable to add a brief discussion of that here. However, I just now checked the reliable sources we have on the subject (Bartky, Downing, and Prerau; see Daylight saving time #Further reading) and couldn't find any mention of the topic. If two recent books on DST don't discuss plot devices, it raises a serious WP:WEIGHT issue for this article to have an entire section on them. Furthermore, connecting together isolated instances of DST plot devices, without a reliable secondary source that connects them for us, is a violation of Wikipedia's policy on original research). For both these reasons, I removed the section. Eubulides (talk) 15:59, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

5%

This edit changed "significantly" to "5%" twice, with the comment 'changed "significantly" to the actual number "5%" the study had concurred'. However, the cited source, Jansky & Ljung 2008 (PMID 18971502) does not say "5%" anywhere. I reverted the change, which appears to be at least in part a misreading of the source. Eubulides (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Overemphasis of Willett in the lead

This edit added a large amount of material in the lead about William Willett, which raises a serious WP:WEIGHT issue. The lead already mentions Willett, and the body goes into Willett's actions in far more detail; there's no need to have this extreme level of detail in the WP:LEAD. I reverted the change for now. Eubulides (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Biological basis

This edit added a large amount of unsourced text about the biological basis for spring-forward/fall back. The theory that DST "brings mechanical time closer to the natural cycle" is not well-supported by reliable sources. Wikipedia is not the place for original research, and all material in Wikipedia needs to be verifiable. For now, I removed the section. Eubulides (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Color scheme in map

This edit changed the legend to match a change in the underlying map, which was controversial and reverted. Let's discuss the map change first, on commons:File talk:DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png, before doing this. A lot of articles, not just on English Wikipedia, depend on the current color scheme. For now, I restored the previous version of the legend. Eubulides (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

24:00 vs 00:00

This edit substituted "00:00" for "24:00". But they are not the same thing: 24:00 is midnight at the end of the stated day, whereas 00:00 is midnight at the start of the stated day. I changed it back to "24:00", with an explanation. Eubulides (talk) 06:14, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

This further edit replaced "second Saturday in October to the second Saturday in March, with transitions at 24:00 local time" with "second Sunday in October to the second Sunday in March, with transitions at 0:00 local time". However, the two statements are not equivalent. For example, this year the former is 2009-03-15 00:00, whereas the latter is 2009-03-08 00:00. The former wording is correct, and the substitution is incorrect, so I reverted the change. Eubulides (talk) 18:30, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

Benefits and Drawbacks Section

There seems to be some formatting error under this heading in the first paragraph. My HTML skills are not sophisticated enough to know what the error is, but I'd like to bring it to someone's attention so that it might be repaired. The main gist of the paragraph seems to be salvageable within the "history" tab, so hopefully it will be a quick fix. Thank you! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.186.57.191 (talk) 18:25, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed by User:HkCaGu. The problem occurred because 164.116.132.253 (talk · contribs · WHOIS) vandalized the article. Eubulides (talk) 22:12, 9 March 2009 (UTC)

Entertainment?

"causes problems for farming, entertainment and other occupations tied to the sun."

OK, I can figure out how it would affect farmers, whose stock is usually not watching the clock but the sun... but entertainment? Perhaps this could be explained somewhat better? Huw Powell (talk) 22:50, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

It's evening entertainment, the classic example being drive-ins. I added "evening"; thanks for the heads-up. Eubulides (talk) 23:46, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Validity of William Willett as originator of modern DST

The following link throws doubt on the validity of William Willett as the originator of modern DST. See paragraph five, sentence four:

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography [1]

Essentially entomologist and astronomer George Hudson presented a paper to the Wellington Philosophical Society in 1895 advocating seasonal time adjustment in New Zealand. This is ten years before William Willett went for his pre-breakfast ride.

Although his originial paper was not published, a follow up paper presented in 1898 was published. See link.

National Library of New Zealand [2] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.129.97 (talk) 21:03, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks very much for mentioning this. Wow! I modified the article to make it clear that Hudson was the first to propose modern DST. Eubulides (talk) 23:19, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Terminology

The Terminology section should be revised to correct the usage of Time Zone. Time Zones do not change seasonally (consult dictionaries; don't rely on Wikipedia). 82.163.24.100 (talk) 18:48, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what change is being proposed here, exactly. The names of the time used in time zones does change from one season to another, e.g., Eastern Standard Time versus Eastern Daylight Time. Eubulides (talk) 00:56, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

The names of the times used in Time Zones are not the names of the Time Zones. Generally, outside North America (and possibly Russia and Australia), Time Zones are not named, or their names are not commonly used. Time Zones are designated generally by numbers or letters.

In Canada, Nova Scotia is in the Atlantic Time Zone (AT), all year round. In Winter it uses UTC-4, possibly calling it AST. In Summer it uses UTC-3, possibly calling it ADT.

Chile is in the same Time Zone, but is unlikely to call it Atlantic. It also uses UTC-4 in Summer and UTC-3 in Winter, though its clocks generally diasgree with those of Nova Scotia.

In North America, AST and EDT have the same offset from UTC, but do not have the same meaning.

82.163.24.100 (talk) 19:48, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

OK, thanks, for clarifying. I changed "Time zone names" to "Names of times used in time zones" in Daylight saving time #Terminology. Eubulides (talk) 06:23, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

It is wrong to say "Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) becomes British Summer Time (BST).". GMT is GMT year-round and world-round. In the UK, the terms "GMT" & "BST" are not used as frequently as such as "EST" & "EDT" are used in the USA, though they are well enough known; normally, the civil time of a local event is given and presumed to be current local time, but when the time is of world-wide significance it may be given explicitly as GMT (or UT/UTC). It would be correct to say that, in the UK currently, Standard and Winter times are GMT, and Summer time is designated BST. And, legally, the UK civil time is GMT or GMT+1, not UTC or UTC+1 (though time signals are UTC-based).

That's the most glaring example; but even in the USA, PST does not become PDT. Actually, in the US/CA part of the Time Zone UTC-8, the zone (and the civil time?) can be called PT, and the Winter time is called PST & the Summer time is called PDT.

82.163.24.100 (talk) 10:16, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

• Thanks for bringing up the point about western Europe preferring "summer" or its translations; I made a further edit to provide a source for that, and to give a couple of examples provided by the source.
• The phrase "Pacific Standard Time (PST) becomes Pacific Daylight Time (PDT)" is intended to be shorthand for something like "Local time, which is called Pacific Standard Time (PST) before the clocks are moved forward, is called Pacific Daylight Time (PDT) after the clocks are moved forward". The context for this phrase ought to make this clear; I just now tried to make it clearer by changing the introductory sentence to read "The name of local time typically changes when DST is observed." If further clarification is needed please let us know. I think it's better if this paragraph focuses on DST issues, rather than become confusingly distracted by time zone issues (times have different names in different zones) or locale issues (the same time zone can have different names in different locations) or history issues (the same time zone can have different names at different historical periods, even in the same location).

Eubulides (talk) 17:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

New Zealand GMT + 13?

I am on vacation in New Zealand now and noticed in the color-coded image that NZ seems to be the only place that has Daylight Savings Time in its time zone. Since it is normally GMT+12 would that make this Summer (which it is now) GMT+13 and therefore "lap" places that are GMT-12 and technically in the same time zone by more than a day, 25 hours? Valley2city 07:11, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Nothing unusual. Chatham Islands are 45 minutes ahead of NZ, making them GMT+13:45 in the summer. The easternmost part of Kiribati is on GMT+14 year round. GMT-12, however, applies to no land. Therefore, the greatest difference is between GMT+14 and GMT-11 or 25 hours. HkCaGu (talk) 07:20, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for clarifying. I'm amazed that a place can be +14 or that there are quarter time-zones. Well, it's better than the "every train stop" policy prior to the advent of standardized zones, anyway. Valley2city 09:21, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Kiribati has GMT+12, GMT+13 and GMT+14 in the country. Before 1995 they had GMT+12, GMT-11 and GMT-10, the international date line went though it. Because of the trouble that caused with travel, TV, administration etc they changed time zone, and thereby moved the international date line to go around the country. --194.17.253.121 (talk) 13:08, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Summer Time Act 1916

A recent edit added the text "(Summer Time Act 1916, 6 & 7 Geo. V)" to Daylight saving time #Origin. The wikilink to 6 & 7 Geo. V, as this conveys essentially zero information other than a wikilink back to this article. Furthermore, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of legislative acts around the world about daylight saving time, highlighting this particular act in Daylight saving time by citing it chapter and verse (with a wikilink) is a WP:WEIGHT problem and is to some extent misleading to the reader. (That act wasn't the first such act in the world; other countries beat the U.K. to it.)

I moved the discussion of the Summer Time Act 1916 to that article, which is a much more appropriate place for discussion at this level of detail. Eubulides (talk) 05:53, 15 July 2009 (UTC)

Tunisia

In the color Map, Tunisia is shown to be using the DST, but it is no longer using it since this year (2009) http://www.timeanddate.com/news/time/tunisia-cancels-dst-2009.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.86.178.130 (talk) 08:08, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, fixed in Commons:File:DaylightSaving-World-Subdivisions.png. Eubulides (talk) 08:40, 22 July 2009 (UTC)

Franklin and Hudson

A recent pair of edits removed Image:Franklin-Benjamin-LOC.jpg (with edit summary "not particularly relevant here"), and substituted Image:George-Vernon-Hudson-RSNZ.jpeg for Image:G.V.-Hudson-Auckland-Islands-Party.jpeg (with edit summary "substitute with better picture of Hudson"). I see some problems with these changes.

• It's not true that Franklin is "not particularly relevant here". There's more article text about Franklin than there is about Hudson.
• The new image of Hudson is of a considerably older Hudson. Hudson first proposed DST when he was about 28, and again when he was about 32. It's more historically accurate to use a picture of a 40-year-old Hudson than of a 60-ish Hudson.
• The alt text for the Hudson image is "Fuzzy head-and-shoulders photo of a 40-year-old George Vernon in a cloth cap and moustache." This describes the previous image, not the new image.
• The change introduced a call to {{-}}, which is a glitch. It's better not to insert unnecessary white space.

For now I reinstated the old images, but repositioned and resized to give Franklin less (and Hudson more) prominence. Eubulides (talk) 20:04, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Argentina and the lead map

I have updated the lead map to show Argentina as no longer observing DST. Does anyone know of other recent changes? (this one was quite recent). I'd like to get the map right before the number of visitors balloons during the North America change, which is soon. Eubulides (talk) 07:15, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

"Saving" versus "Savings"?

The article does mention the topic briefly, but I feel the explanation is inadequate. This is a case where my hardware gives me very clear feedback that "Daylight Saving Time" is strange and on the edge of very wrong, while it comfortably accepts "Daylight Savings Time" without reaction. Since the article seems to have something of a British leaning, I'm wondering if that may be another disputed point between British and American speakers? (And while I'm commenting, I can't resist noting that I still hate DST and would much rather see a stable clock and tax incentives for businesses to move their working hours forward in the summer.) Shanen (talk) 02:02, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

No, the normative form is "daylight saving time" in American English; see the citations headed "Daylight saving time and its variants", which include The American Heritage Dictionary, Merriam-Webster's Online Dictionary, and the U.S. Congress. As far as I know the Brits are the same. Eubulides (talk) 03:03, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

In 1976, Congress called it "daylight savings time" [3][4]

More info from Wiktionary's daylight savings time:

• Many editors replace this phrase with daylight saving time, with no "s" after "saving". Some sources, such as the North Carolina State University's Online Writing Lab, state that the form "daylight savings time" is incorrect. The justification is that "saving" is a present participle, and this "time" is for saving daylight; thus it is incorrect to use the plural noun "savings".
• Despite such prescription, colloquial use is uniformly daylight savings time, especially in orated speech. Most websites use daylight savings time not daylight saving time. No estimate can reasonably be made about published books, as most authors will not have their attention drawn to this (confer previous usage note.) Also of note is that daylight savings time was the original name, yet over twenty years after the proscriptive change occurred, the new name is only used in "corrected" published texts, but not at all, colloquially.
• Also of note is that the new name has a somewhat awkward pronunciation, invariably leaving the emphasis on 'saving' as if it is time to save someone only during daylight. The proscriptive change is probably not widely accepted as it converts the previous unambiguous phrase into a curiously ambiguous construction.

I'll have to edit that Wiktionary entry because its claim "Most websites use daylight savings time" is not what its raw Google searches show! These raw Googles are on the contrary inconclusive, showing only a slight preference (24%) for savings, and raw Google searches are in any case not a reliable source for Wiktionary or Wikipedia. More conclusive are Google edu searches (US university + school sites) showing a clear preference (180% more i.e. 2.8 times as much) for savings: 74,700 for site:edu "daylight savings time" 26,400 for site:edu "daylight saving time" and no preference on UK university sites 483 from ac.uk for "daylight savings time" 455 from ac.uk for "daylight saving time". And news websites prefer (100% more i.e. 2 times as much) 239 for daylight-saving-time to 119 for daylight-savings-time. --Espoo (talk) 22:04, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

• The above is original research, and can't be used in Wikipedia. But so long as we're using original research, Google News today shows more than twice as many hits for "daylight saving time" versus "daylight savings time" in recent news (243 vs 120). Google Books shows an even stronger preference for "daylight saving time" (2560 vs 1107). Google Scholar shows a mild preference for "daylight saving time" (4900 vs 4760); if we subtract patents, which are are lower-quality sources, the preference for "daylight saving time" becomes stronger (4300 vs 3860). So it does appear that the normative form is currently the singular form (which is what the article says now).
• "daylight savings time was the original name" No, the original name was "seasonal time-adjustment"; see Hudson 1895. The earliest use I can find of either "daylight saving" or "daylight savings" is the former, in the 1914 edition of Willett's proposal (I think it was also in earlier editions). So, as far as I know, the singular form is earlier.
• Certainly the high-quality books on the topic in recent time uniformly use the singular form; see all the books listed in Daylight saving time #Further reading. Prerau (p. xv) says "'Daylight saving time' is considered to be the correct term for this clock-altering process, since it refers to a time for saving daylight, but 'daylight savings time' is also commonly used."

Eubulides (talk) 23:39, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

The above is not original research. Take a look at WP:NAME and WP:GOOGLE. Also, take a look at the Wiktionary entry, now that i improved it, and the entry's talk page. --Espoo (talk) 07:59, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess I'm lost then. Why was the above material added in this talk page? If it was intended to suggest a change to the article, what change would that be? If it was intended to support a claim that the article's name should be changed, then it's not original research in the Wikipedia sense, but all the evidence says that the name should be left alone. Wikipedia policy on naming says that we should follow the usage of reliable sources, and (as the Prerau quote indicates; this is a far more-reliable source than NC State's online writing lab, by the way) these sources clearly prefer "daylight saving time". The entry in Wiktionary is incorrect about U.S. legislation, which normally (though not universally) prefers the term "daylight saving time"; Wiktionary's claim to the contrary is supported by a citation to U.S. legislation that disagrees with the claim. Eubulides (talk) 08:21, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

I added this information here because i didn't have time to edit the article at the time and didn't want to lose the information i'd gathered in researching this issue. Take a look at the article to see what changes i believe need to be made based on the facts presented above and partly already in the article despite being partly misrepresented/misinterpreted in the article. --Espoo (talk) 08:55, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• Sorry, but this material is clearly original research. Your research has found instances of the two terms in Google and other sources, and you have come up with conclusions about variants. We can't do that in Wikipedia. We need to cite reliable sources that have done the research, and that have done the conclusions. The previous version of the article did that: it cited Meade 1978 (doi:10.2307/815124), who had done the research and made some valid points about "daylight savings" vs. "savings account". Your edits removed this citation and substituted your own research.
• The point of the research seems to be to remove the claim that daylight saving time is the normative form. But there's no dispute about this point among reliable sources. The claim should remain, supported as needed by reliable sources. The Prerau source mentioned above is one of them; more can be supplied.
• The change introduced duplicate citations to the American Heritage Dictionary. There's no reason to have two citations.
• "Dictionaries and other reference works mention these variants but list daylight saving time first or use only daylight saving time" This claim is original research; no reliable source says this.
• There is no need to belabor the point about "correct" versus "common" terminology in the lead sentence. The lead sentence is supposed to define the subject and say why it's notable; digressions into terminology are important only insofar as they are needed to define the subject, which is clearly not the case for the dispute over "daylight saving time" and "daylight savings time".

For now I have reverted the changes to Terminology. I suggest discussing them further here before reinstalling. Eubulides (talk) 17:06, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

Draft terminology change

Following up my previous comment, I propose the following change to Terminology, in an attempt to address the issues raised above:

"Although daylight saving time is considered to be correct, daylight savings time is commonly used.<ref>Seize the Daylight. p. xv.</ref> The form In the normative form, daylight saving time uses the present participle saving as an adjective, as in labor saving device; the first two words are sometimes hyphenated, as in daylight-saving time. In the common variants daylight savings time, and daylight savings, and daylight time are common variants, the savings is by analogy to savings account. Daylight time is also common."

Eubulides (talk) 17:24, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

No further comment, so I installed that wording, with very minor tweaking for brevity ("In the common variants daylight savings time and daylight savings the savings is by analogy to savings account" → "The common variants daylight savings time and daylight savings use savings by analogy to savings account"). Eubulides (talk) 00:02, 29 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't have time to discuss this in more detail

• I don't have time to discuss this in more detail now than in the following comments, but believe me, you are quite wrong in your claims about OR. If you'd read the links provided, you'd understand that it's perfectly OK to add information about Google hits in situations where more than one form is used by reference works and other reputable sources, especially if these do not say anything about frequency. In addition, one of them did, and you removed that information! (According to some experts, the change from "saving" to "savings" in spoken English was already "virtually accomplished" in 1978.)
• The claims about "normative form" are not backed up by the sources and are in fact OR. There is no authority that says what normative forms are in English, and the sources provided by my edits (and those already there before) showed that both are used. Just because we have a source that says teachers prefer a certain form doesn't mean this is the opinion of other reputable sources, especially since for example dictionaries often list both forms and specifically do not label the second one "erroneous" or "slang" or anything similar.
• It's better to have the online version of a source than the print source, and it's a very bad idea removing the one all users can access if another editor accidentally leaves both in.
• "Dictionaries and other reference works mention these variants but list daylight saving time first or use only daylight saving time" This statement is most definitely not original research; it simply states the actual situation, and every user can verify that this is true by going to the footnotes (immediately following this statement!).
• Your attempts to impose your view of what is "correct" and what is "only" "common" do not belong in an encyclopedia. If most Americans say "daylight savings time", this most definitely belongs in the first sentence as is customary in all other WP articles when there are common synonyms for the lemma. See Wikipedia:LEAD#First_sentence on the very page you linked to! See also Wikipedia:LEAD#cite_ref-2 and WP:ENGVAR and Wikipedia:Naming_conventions#Common_names.
• Please put all my edits back and edit them as you see fit, but do not simply delete them.--Espoo (talk) 18:30, 25 October 2009 (UTC)

• The usual procedure with the BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is to boldly make an edit, have the edit reverted, and then discuss the edit. The procedure is not supposed to be to boldly make the edit, have it reverted, and then boldly install the edit again. Please discuss the edit rather than continuing to reinstall it. I don't think we're that far apart.
• "The claims about 'normative form' are not backed up by the sources" I agree, and that problem is fixed in the draft that I proposed in #Draft terminology change. The draft does not use the word "normative".
• "It's better to have the online version of a source than the print source" Is this talking about the American Heritage citation? If so, I agree that the online version should also be cited.
• "you are quite wrong in your claims about OR" I read the links provided, and they don't support the claim that one can do original research via Google counts (or counting dictionaries) and then report the results as a reliable source in a Wikipedia article. To double-check this, I have followed up at Wikipedia:No original research/Noticeboard #Counting Google hits and dictionary entries to support a claim.
• "Your attempts to impose your view of what is 'correct' and what is 'only' 'common' do not belong in an encyclopedia" These are not my views; they are the views of reliable sources that are cited in the abovementioned draft. No reliable source disagrees with this point.
• Pending the resolution of the reliable source dispute, I have reverted these changes, except for the American Heritage citation. Please don't continue to reinsert this disputed material without consensus. Instead, it's better to discuss the changes here on the talk page, as I am attempting to do with #Draft terminology change above.

Eubulides (talk) 06:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

California

Why does the world map indicate that California does not follow day light savings time? Not true. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.183.11.108 (talk) 06:26, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Second that. I'm in California and am about to set my clock back right now. 98.210.22.200 (talk) 06:43, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

That's not California. It's Arizona (in the U.S.) and Sonora (in Mexico), neither of which observe daylight savimg time. Eubulides (talk) 06:46, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Ah, sorry, I see that someone vandalized the map. I just now fixed it. I hadn't seen it before because the old (correct) version was cached in my browser. Eubulides (talk) 07:44, 1 November 2009 (UTC)

Old-time "unequal" hours

The Origins section describes, more or less, how DST is something of an attempt to regain the benefit of old "sundial" time, showing how time used to be measured as 1/2th of daylight hours, which vary day by day, and modern equal-length hours had the downside of causing people to not use as much of the sunlight hours. The last sentence of the first paragraph offhandedly mentions that the old unequal length hours have fallen almost completely out of usage. It gave one example of still-current usage of unequal hours: Mount Athos religious usage.

2 November 2009, I added a second example, of Jewish religious usage, with cite to the Jewish Code of law. (Recorded by IP, as I was not signed in.)

We then get to 2 November 2009 Eubulides (talk | contribs) (72,888 bytes) (Undid revision 323495257 by 173.54.199.192 (talk) Cited source does not mention DST.)

I don't believe the revert is appropriate. Of course the reference does not mention DST, it predates DST, which is the point of the entire sentence. If one doesn't like this reference, then one can't like the Mount Athos text and reference, which is really equivalent. Or, one would even have to consider striking the entire paragraph or section.

So, I added my edit back in. If anyone wants to debate the section, paragraph, or sentence... feel free! Otherwise, I stand by my edit. Dovid (talk) 00:30, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, my comment wasn't accurate. The point is that the text says "Unequal hours are still used in a few traditional settings, such as in Jewish religious usage". A 1758 source cannot possibly support a claim that unequal hours are still used. Can you cite a source that says that it's still practiced now? It doesn't suffice to give a gloss on an old text; we need a source that says that people are actually doing what the gloss says. Eubulides (talk) 00:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Done, broken into two statements, that traditional jewish law has this concept with ref to traditional text, and parenthetical that Orthodox Jews still follow it, with its own references —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dovid (talk • contribs) 01:40, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is original research. For example, the The Shulkhan Arukh citation says nothing about time, or about unequal hours, or about anything directly relevant to the point. Likewise for the Encyclopedia entry. I don't see how the three citations imply anything about current practice. And even if I'm wrong, it takes 3 citations to establish this relatively minor point, with a lot of reasoning in between, something's wrong. Is there a single source that establishes the point, and draws the conclusions itself? Eubulides (talk) 02:17, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

To be clear, if was OR, it was of type "synthesis.", However, synthesis is avoided here by making two separate statements. This is in fact allowable. As a side note, were we to attempt to synthesize the statement, and find a sigle source to support both elements, we would fail. Why? Because normative Orthodox Jewish law DOES incorporate the entire body of work, without referencing individual rules. Therefore, many of its rules will never be reaffirmed in separate bodies of work.
<br/

In truth, there's a flaw in your original reasoning. You want to exclude an old source unless it can be proven valid. But why should we presume that the old source is invalid, unless there's some reason to call it into question? In other words, either it is RS, or it isn't RS. You're asking for a cite to show that one part of it is RS, and I'm stating flatly that the entire body of work, as a whole, is in fact RS. The extra cite merely backs up the fact that it continues to be RS. That's not really synthesis even if I used a single statement. Instead, I should be able to remove the cite that shows that the older source is still RS. However, I'd rather preempt someone else who might fall into t he same trap of questioning RS based solely on its age. Dovid (talk) 23:06, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

• " You want to exclude an old source unless it can be proven valid" No, I want a source that directly supports the article's claim that unequal-length hours are still used by Orthodox Jews. Citing a 1758 source does not establish this. Citing a 1758 source, plus some other sources that don't have anything to do with unequal-length hours and do not directly support the point, also does not establish this. Let's see a source that directly supports the point. Splitting the point into two parts, and citing each sub-part separately, does not solve the problem, as the resulting sentence is clearly designed to place into the reader's mind the claim that unequal-length hours are still used by Orthodox Jews, a claim that we have no reliable sources for. Eubulides (talk) 00:47, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• I tried to find a reliable source to confirm the text in question, and could not. I'm afraid that the wording in the article still looks like original research. It's as if we found one old source saying that Roman Catholic tradition is to use unequal hours (which was true, a while ago), and a more-recent source saying that Roman Catholic practice is to follow church traditions (which is also true), and put in both claims in the article, to give the reader the impression that Roman Catholics use unequal hours today. That wouldn't be right: we'd need a source that says Roman Catholics use unequal hours today. Eubulides (talk) 04:38, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• I looked some more, and finally found the magic words "halachic hour", and found a source supporting the claim. Apparently there are multiple Jewish traditions here, with no general agreement on whether to use unequal hours for ceremonies in general (or perhaps for some ceremonies and not others), and no agreement on how long the day is (and therefore no agreement on how long the unequal hours are). This detail and complexity doesn't belong in this article (perhaps in Hour?) but I readded a brief version of the claim with the new source. I hope this doesn't turn into a list of religions that observe unequal hours; in that case we would really need to move this to some other article, as the digression is already uncomfortably long. Eubulides (talk) 08:05, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

• So, you're basically trying to avoid the point of contention, by modifying the "stated fact" a bit to match a different source that you find less problematic. Let it stand, though I disagree on how you have construed the argument over sourcing, including the point about currency. Staus quo, baby, status quo. I can live with this. Dovid (talk) 06:32, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

When did DST begin in various states and provinces?

REQUEST: Would someone please add a table, or something, of WHEN (date) each US & Canadian state began DST? Including any gaps or variations, please? Here; or perhaps after citation #25. This is important info for people doing Astrological charts, and not available elsewhere it seems. Thx.Greenpriestess (talk) 20:29, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

I like to ignore astrology since it is completely void of meaning, but I have to ask, why don't you just use a time system that doesn't have DST? Like UTC (aka Zulu or GMT) or time_t? ~a (user • talk • contribs) 20:57, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

REPLY - the reason for the request is that we take the time from people's birth certificates, obviously impacted by local status.Greenpriestess (talk) 05:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Please see Zoneinfo. If you get a copy of that database, it contains all the information you're looking for. It's not in Wikipedia though; sorry. Eubulides (talk) 21:01, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

REPLY - Yikes, beyond me... Would someone help with this? Many people would value a readily available chart showing each state and province up to 1970 at least. Thanks in advance.Greenpriestess (talk) 05:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

You could grab a copy of Zoneinfo and then look at its sources. Some of them are designed for astrologers. Sorry, it's a lot of work to come up with those tables, and I doubt whether anybody here will take the time. Eubulides (talk) 05:56, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

The first entry in the "Other time zone databases" section of the timezone sources page describes a commercial database of locations/dates/timezones developed specifically for astrologers. It comes in two volumes, one for the US and one for the rest of the world: ISBN 0917086163 and ISBN 0917086570 respectively. -- Avenue (talk) 15:06, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

There is some general historical information in our Daylight saving time in the United States article, too. -- Avenue (talk) 21:09, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

REPLY - Thanks but not enough info, and as I do more charts out of state, especially for years 1930-1966, the specific variation becomes important.Greenpriestess (talk) 05:53, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Dated and limited 1979 article

Last year I replaced this citation:

• Ian R. Bartky (1979). "Standard and daylight-saving time". Scientific American. 240 (5): 46–53. ISSN 0036-8733. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

with this one:

• Ian R. Bartky (2007). One Time Fits All: The Campaigns for Global Uniformity. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-5642-6.

using the edit summary "Cite recent book by Bartky on the subject, rather than a dated and limited Scientific American article." However, a recent edit readded the 1979 citation, with the edit summary "Restored Bartky & Harrison Scientific American reference. Reasons for deletion were invalid." I don't see why the reasons were invalid. That 1979 article is 30 years old, and is indeed dated; at this point it would be of use only for the History section. And it's not much use there, since the sources already used in the History section are higher-quality and are more-available. I have read Bartky & Harrison 1979, and I don't see why it's a useful citation for further reading. Part III of Bartky 2007, with its two chapters "Advancing sunset, saving daylight" and "Changing time, gaining daylight" is a better survey and is far more up-to-date. What important aspect does the out-of-date source have that the more-recent source lacks? Eubulides (talk) 04:37, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Concur, the 1979 material is less current than your updated cites, this was probably a mistake by the deleter thinking that a good source was removed without relizing that it was just replaced. Dovid (talk) 23:08, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Disagee. I'm the one who added the Scientific American article reference, and added it back after its deletion. Am I the only one who has actually read these two references? Upon what, exactly, are you basing your claim that the 1979 article is "dated and limited"? I find no evidence of that. The Bartky book (One Time Fits All, 2007) covers the history and rationale for Daylight Saving Time world-wide, but ends at the year 1927. Only a brief "Epilogue" discusses DST after 1927. The Scientific American article ("Standard and Daylight-saving Time" by Bartky and Harrison, May 1979) focuses on DST in the United States, and covers the period up to the time of the article in 1979. There is quite a bit of information in the Scientific American article that is not present in the Bartky 2007 book. To mention a few examples: (1) map of U.S. showing Standard Railway Time; (2) Time of Sunrise table; (3) map of the U.S. showing chaotic observance of DST prior to 1964; (4) mention of seven time zone changes required in 1962 during a 35-mile bus ride, helping to point out the need for a national standard; (5) mention of different time zones in a government office building in Minneapolis, also pointing to the need for a national standard; etc. (I actually used some of this information in a recent workplace talk I gave on DST.) In general, the Bartky 2007 book is better for a world-wide discussion of DST and its early history; the Scientific American article from 1979 is better for information specific to the United States, and contains some more recent information not present in the Bartky book. Also, keep in mind that the Scientific American article may well be more readily available from a library than the Bartky book. Each reference is useful and contains information not present in the other. I see absolutely no justification for removing this reference. SimpsonDG (talk) 01:18, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the comments. I agree that Bartky & Harrison 1979 has better coverage of DST practice in the United States before 1979. But this is a fairly limited scope. Examples (1) and (2) are not about DST per se, and (3) through (5) are of limited significance: they are only about the U.S., and focus primarily on the 1960s. Bartky & Harrison is a good source for its limited domain, but it brings relatively little to the table for this article. The information that it does bring is pretty well covered by Prerau 2005 and by Downing 2005 (already cited); for example, Prerau's chapter "Clock chaos" does a much better job communicating the confusion of pre-standardized DST. I suggest that the Bartky & Harrison citation be moved to Daylight saving time in the United States, an article whose scope is much more apropos for this citation. Eubulides (talk) 06:57, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Originally, your claim was that you were removing the Scientific American reference because it was superseded by a book with a later publication date by the same author. Then I pointed out that there's actually not much overlap between those two references. Now you're completely changing your story, and claiming that the material covered in the Scientific American article is covered in other books. This suggests that, for whatever reason, you've decided you want to remove the Scientific American reference, and are searching for some justification for doing so. What exactly is the harm done by having this reference in the article? It's obviously a useful resource, is widely available, and is a very nice summary of DST. I used it myself when I gave a talk on DST for NASA, even though I also had the books by Prerau and Downing. I really don't see how this article is improved by eliminating a useful resource. SimpsonDG (talk) 13:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

• As far as the Daylight saving time article is concerned, it appears that Bartky & Harrison 1979 is indeed dated and superseded. As far as I can tell, the material in it is either better covered by newer and more-comprehensive sources, or is not particularly relevant to this article, just as (for example) material about daylight saving time in the Soviet Union in the 1930s would not be particularly relevant in Further reading. From the point of view of Daylight saving time in the United States, the source is a good one, so that is where the source should be.
• Another possibility is for the Daylight saving time article to simply cite the Bartky & Harrison, rather than include it under Further reading. Does Bartky & Harrison directly support any claim that is in the article, or that should be in the article? If so, that would address my objection that the direct relevance seems limited here.
• Please don't attribute personal motives to my comments; it is just as inappropriate for you to say that I've "decided" to remove the article "for whatever reason ... and are searching for some justification for doing so", as it would be inappropriate for me to say that you've decided to keep the article for some unknown reason and are proffering unrelated justifications. So far we've had three editors weigh in on this subject, and you're currently in the minority; these things happen, and it's nothing personal.

Eubulides (talk) 19:55, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

• I've read the Bartky and Harrison article several times, and find that it is neither dated nor superseded. That would imply that there were statements made at the time of publication that are no longer true. Exactly what facts presented in the article do you claim are now false or inaccurate? For your argument to be valid, you need to support it with concrete, specific examples. Vague arguments simply labeling the article as "dated and superseded" do not make for a strong case unless you can back up those statements with facts.
• Besides being a better brief overview than the other sources you mention, there are also facts to be found in Bartky and Harrison but not elsewhere. For example, according to the Bartky and Harrison article, in 1962 there was a movement to resolve the lack of uniformity in the observance of DST. As an example, uniformity advocates pointed a government office building in Minneapolis-St. Paul where the time was different on different floors for part of the year. That fact is not mentioned in any of the other references you cite. You label this as "insignficant", and maybe it is to you. For someone else, that may be an interesting or useful fact that they couldn't find elsewhere. In fact, I used this fact in my colloquium.
• To cite another example: the Bartky and Harrison article includes a discussion of how the optimum start and stop dates of DST may determined, and how this choice is latitude-dependent. I don't see this discussion in any of the books you mention either.
• Your comparison to material about "DST in the Soviet Union in the 1930s" is not relevant. The Scientific American article covers the history of DST with a focus on the U.S., followed by a discussion of astronomical and population factors that go into making decisions about how DST should be implemented in general. It is not nearly as "limited" in scope as you are implying.
• Looking at your previous arguments, you seem to be under the impression that the number of references should be kept to a bare minimum, and any reference that might overlap with material in another should be eliminated. In the real world, this is not how bibliographies are constructed. One author may explain one topic better, while another may do a better job with another topic. One reference may be better for beginners, while another may be better for more advanced researchers. One reference may be a better overview, while another may be more useful for more detailed, in-depth information. In most cases, each reference will present some information not available in the others. In general, it's better to have a variety of reference sources available, to give the reader access to different perspectives and to serve the needs of a diverse readership. Nothing is gained by trying to keep the size of a bibliography to an absolute bare minimum.
• In short, the Scientific American reference is not dated, not superseded, and is a useful resource that should be kept in the article.

SimpsonDG (talk) 21:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Page loading efficiency and style

This page takes a long time to load, and part of this is due to the use of the standard Wikipedia citation templates such as {{cite journal}}. Recently developed faster & smaller templates (such as {{vcite journal}}) make the page a lot smaller and faster to load. The current version of this web page generates 267,444 bytes of HTML, 45% bigger than the proposed version (which generates 184,761 bytes of HTML); in one test the current version took 10.0 seconds for the server to generate while editing, about twice as long as the 4.9 seconds of the proposed version (the timings are variable but this sort of improvement is common). Eubulides (talk) 06:29, 3 February 2010 (UTC) PS. The point of my comment, which I now see wasn't clear, was that we should switch to the new templates, and I'm making the suggestion here for further comments before proceeding. Eubulides (talk) 06:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)

Western Australia

This statement in the article: "Australian districts go even further and do not always agree on start and end dates; for example, in 2008 most DST-observing areas shifted clocks forward on October 5 but Western Australia shifted on October 26.[28]"

is curious, considering that the map shows daylight time as no longer observed in Western Australia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.182.112.44 (talk) 03:41, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed that by changing the example to past tense. Eubulides (talk) 04:45, 7 March 2010 (UTC)

Differences between states in U.S.?

I suggest mentioning what states in the U.S. do NOT observe DST (Arizona and Hawaii). —Preceding unsigned comment added by LeroyVJunker (talk • contribs) 02:44, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, I added that. Eubulides (talk) 06:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

Actually Western Australia, along with Queensland have ever officially adopted daylight saving on a permanent basis, these instances were only trials, before a public vote, which in both cases rejected the idea.

Pga1965 (talk) 09:06, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Point of the article

In the opening paragraph, one is left with the impression that all time is DST if DST is used, paraphrasing "move one hour ahead in spring...move one hour back in fall". This is not a true impression. DST only refers to the time when it is actually in the use (moving one hour ahead in spring). "Standard Time" in the U.S. is used with DST is not in use. This is why we see both abbreviations PDT and PST for example in the Pacific Timezone. The opening paragraph should be adjusted to not leave a false impression. — fcsuper ^{(How's That?, That's How!)} _{(Exclusionistic Immediatist )} — 00:30, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I don't see the problem. If one never moves the clock back, then it's not daylight saving time: one has just changed one's time zone, that's all. That is, an essential part of the practice of daylight saving time is moving the clocks forward and moving them back. Anyway, what specific wording change would you propose to fix the perceived problem? Eubulides (talk) 03:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Just that DST isn't the period of time when the clocks are returned to standard. Right now, the wording in the intro isn't clear about that. Perhaps adding "move the clocks back one hour to return to standard time"?

OK, but the lead sentence should be short, so how about simply saying that advancing the clocks is temporary? I added "temporarily" to the lead sentence. Eubulides (talk) 21:06, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

Semi-colon

"Traffic fatalities are reduced when there is extra afternoon daylight;[6] its effect on health and crime is less clear." Why is this one sentence? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.23.68 (talk) 02:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to two sentences. Eubulides (talk) 07:04, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Limited or contradictory

A recent edit made the following change:

"Although an early goal of DST was to reduce evening usage of incandescent lighting, formerly a primary use of electricity, modern heating and cooling usage patterns differ greatly, and research about how DST currently affects energy use is limited and often contradictory."

with the edit summary "the research is not contradictory". But this is incorrect: as the article states in Energy use, some studies say there's an energy savings, some that there is an energy cost, to DST. And the claim that research is contradictory is directly supported by the cited source, Aries & Newsham 2008 (doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2007.05.021), which states as its first conclusion (p. 1864), "The existing knowledge about how DST affects energy use is limited, incomplete, or contradictory. Many conclusions are the result of expectations alone, are based on constrained assumptions, or are older than 25 years." I see now that the source said "or contradictory" rather than "and often contradictory", so I added that phrase instead. Eubulides (talk) 23:43, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

DST change, re: incomplete data check

had been looking for items below for awhile. order of screens to obtain info are included.

info needed: daylight savings.. On Monday August 8, 2005 President Bush signed into law a broad energy bill (Energy Policy Act of 2005) that will extend Daylight Saving Time by four weeks in 2007. The provisions of the bill call for Daylight Saving Time to begin three weeks earlier on the second Sunday in March and end one week later on the first Sunday in November. Previously, Daylight Saving Time started on the first Sunday in April and ended on the last Sunday in October. In 2007 when the provisions take effect Daylight Saving Time will begin on March 11 and end on November 4, 2007. you may appreciate that not all have had access to the information needed to correctly figure out what is "the deal" with DST change, for no info posted at various websites & after finally finding a search that worked:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daylight_saving_time#Politics keywords for google: 2007 extension to U.S. DST http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&as_q=&as_epq=&as_oq=&as_eq=&num=10&lr=&as_filetype=&as_sitesearch=&as_qdr=all&as_rights=&as_occt=any&cr=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&safe=images#hl=en&source=hp&q=2007+extension+to+U.S.+DST&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=a73b11f867dbecea http://www.timetemperature.com/tzus/daylight_saving_time_extended.shtml —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.85.142.117 (talk) 15:43, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Forgot to say it sucks

Apparently, according to the article, you'd have to be a farmer to hate DST, and even then because of disruption in sun rather than sleep cycles. I don't care about all the economic pro and cons, seemingly reasoned arguments, and weighed analysis. I've never milked a cow in my life, I hate time changes, and I know I'm not the only one. Where in the article does it mention how much people and not just farmers effing hate DST? Not just disagree with the tenets, mind you, but actually literally hate it down to the core. With all of these ill contrived studies, has no one ever asked the public what they think? 72.177.113.91 (talk) 07:50, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

I don't know of any reliable source in this area, and without one, the article can't really say much. If you know of any reliable source, please mention it here. It's fairly easy to find very-localized or unreliable sources, e.g., the poll a few weeks ago showing that 80% of women in West Australia favor DST; but this sort of source isn't suitable for Wikipedia as the poll wasn't that reliable and it's only about Western Australia to boot. Eubulides (talk) 08:04, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't know of any scientific studies. You're right to worry about reliability. That figure of 80% sounds like it was manipulated. Why only women? Could be commercially driven if not an outright lie, but anyways Australians recently fell back. Just wait until they spring forward. The one good thing about DST is it reminds us annually that we don't live in true democracy. 72.177.113.91 (talk) 08:29, 5 April 2009 (UTC)

Why only women ? Because it almost exclusively women who worry about faded curtains.Eregli bob (talk) 15:05, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

You speak of not living in true democracy as if it were something regrettable. In a true, pure democracy, if 51% of the population wants to kill the other 49%, they can. You also acknowledged that you are aware of the "economic pro and cons, seemingly reasoned arguments, and weighed analysis" related to the issue, but make it sounds like it should be abolished because people are annoyed by it. This makes me think that you haven't given enough thought to the issue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.183.23.68 (talk) 02:13, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Medical device malfunction

The article currently says "Medical devices may generate adverse events that could harm patients, without being obvious to clinicians responsible for care.[84]"

There are 2 evident problems with this statement.

1. The first is that the real cause is oversight in equipment design, there is nothing difficult about designing an instrument to handle time changes.
2. The 2nd is that its not when DST is used, but when DST rules /change/ that inadequately designed units fail to follow new rules.

This illustrates an issue with references, just because someone says something doesn't mean its on the mark. 82.31.207.100 (talk) 16:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Please feel free to fix any problems you find. DJ Clayworth (talk) 21:45, 20 March 2010 (UTC)

I think deleting the entire statement makes the article worse, however. Why not improve it to deal with these criticisms instead?

Similarly I think simply deleting the passages about complications from DST and about changing day length is unhelpful, and I think (from your edit summaries) based on misconceptions about what they meant. The complications do not only occur when DST rules are changed. Do we need to make this clearer?

I have restored the deleted passages, and fixed the simplest problem (ambiguity about what "day" is meant). -- Avenue (talk) 23:15, 21 March 2010 (UTC)

Someone has deleted it again. Anyway, I think this article needs a "Criticism section", and comments like this could reside there. --Zaurus (talk) 02:00, 22 October 2010 (UTC)

Table listing when to spring forward and fall back

Can someone add a table (or link to another page with a table) that tells when to adjust the clocks each year in each location? --Yoda of Borg (talk) 10:25, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

We have Daylight saving time around the world, although this is not a table. The tz database is used by many computer systems. Both of these articles are linked to by this one. --Avenue (talk) 12:08, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Germany and Daylight Savings Time

There is a very severe transition between someone speculating about a possibility and a national government putting it in place, even when the speculation is in the form of a published peer reviewed article.

This article relates that the transition happened in Germany some time between the start of World War I and the spring of 1915, but also that once that barrier was passed an array of other participants in the war also did the same thing in the same year.

It might be that some of the other participants in the war were considering the shift in 1914 also. Either way, neither the article on George Vernon Hudson nor on William Willett seems to imply that they had severe influence on either German legislation or on the German military or the Kaiser in 1914 or early 1915.

This seems to me to be a rather severe gap in the article, and even a lot of simple web searches do not easily seem to fill in the gaps concerning the time period of 1914 and early 1915 with respect to the different war participants.

This might be one of the few places in Wikipedia where a simple lack of easily found information may present real gaps on a subject. If someone could find something on the subject and then add it to the article I think that it would improve it.

67.206.161.19 (talk) 15:46, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Effect of changing a countries timezone

I was interested in the effect that moving the current British timezone from GMT/BST to that of European CET/CST time. This always seems to crop up in the news at changeover time. The graph showing sunrise/sunset times is useful and i include an svga version, without colour and with only approximate change over dates.

Clock shifts affecting apparent sunrise and sunset times at Greenwich in 2010.

Clock shifts affecting apparent sunrise and sunset times at Aberdeen in 2010.

I give graphs for Greenwich and Aberdeen, as there is quite a difference in their latitude and it is interesting to see the impact.

One interesting question is what would the time change give. I include graphs of sunrise before 8am and sunset after 5pm, i.e. is it going to be dark before i go to work or before i leave for home. The graphs make it a bit easier to see what the impact of such a change would be.

Clock shifts affecting sunrise at Greenwich before 8am in 2010.

Clock shifts affecting sunset at Greenwich after 5pm in 2010.

Clock shifts affecting sunrise at Aberdeen before 8am in 2010.

Clock shifts affecting sunset at Aberdeen after 5pm in 2010.

For Greenwich on GMT/BST sunrise essentially always happens before 8am throughout the year. Changing to CET/CST would mean for 3 months of the year sunrise is after 8am. Obviously what you loose in the morning you gain in the afternoon.

For Aberdeen on GMT/BST there are currently 2 months of the year with sunrise after 8am. Changing to CET/CST would give 5 months with sunrise after 8am.

I have not put these into the main page as they may not sit well with current pages content.

(Usbspyder (talk) 22:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC))

Incoming and future changes

Russia: President Medvedev has announced the abolition of daylight saving time in Russia starting autumn 2011. See http://rt.com/news/daylight-saving-time-abolished/ or http://en.rian.ru/russia/20110208/162507473.html ... — Preceding unsigned comment added by RomanPolach (talk • contribs) 13:13, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Why NO delay in spring?

Why do the clocks change at about the spring equinox in Europe but well over a month after the autumnal equinox? (Apologies if I have missed the explanation in the article.) JMcC (talk) 10:45, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

I have long pondered this question, and I think the best answer is that it's politicians who set the dates, not scientists. Indefatigable (talk) 18:29, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly the conclusion I have come to. HiLo48 (talk) 19:59, 17 February 2011 (UTC)

The opposite would make sense for purposes of health. The body's circadian rhythm readily adjusts to the Fall change, which allows more sleep, but adjusts with great difficulty and slowness to the Spring change, which effective deprives an hour of sleep (measured at just over 60 minutes in one study) and requires rising earlier. After the change, people continued to rise earlier on the weekends in a pattern precisely tuned to the gradually earlier rising of the sun. For health reasons, the Spring change should be delayed for at some weeks after the Spring equinox, to allow the body has the chance to adjust based on sunlight. Possibly a part of the reason that the body adjusts so easily is the Fall is simply that the natural light progression has already occurred in the month following the equinox. See notes in the next discussion section, below, on Health effects of circadian rhythm disruption.

Health effects of Spring circadian rhythm disruption

Health effects of Spring circadian rhythm disruption

The enforced sleep deprivation and circadian rhythm disruption of the Spring time change has a number of adverse health effects. PMID 11152980. The body's circadian rhythm does not readily adjust to the effects of the Spring change; instead, the body continues to slowly adjust to the earlier morning sunlight. PMID 17964164. The circadian rhythm does more readily adjust to the Fall change, which allows an hour of extra sleep PMID 17964164; for instance; an actual reduction of traffic fatalities has been seen following the Fall change. PMID 7832269. Because the Spring change imposes a number of ill health effects, the nation of Kazakhstan discontinued the use of Daylight saving time.

Given the dissaprate effects, it is difficult to understand why there is no delay in the Spring change. The clocks change at about the spring equinox in Europe and the United States, but well over a month after the autumnal equinox.

The opposite would make sense for purposes of health. The body's circadian rhythm readily adjusts to the Fall change, which allows more sleep, but adjusts with great difficulty and slowness to the Spring change, which effective deprives an hour of sleep (measured at just over 60 minutes in one study) and requires rising earlier. After the change, people continued to rise earlier on the weekends in a pattern precisely tuned to the gradually earlier rising of the sun. For health reasons, the Spring change should be delayed for at some weeks after the Spring equinox, to allow the body has the chance to adjust based on sunlight. Possibly a part of the reason that the body adjusts so easily is the Fall is simply that the natural light progression has already occurred in the month following the equinox. See notes in the discussion section above on health effects of circadian rhythm disruption.

---

Curr Biol. 2007 Nov 20;17(22):1996-2000. Epub 2007 Oct 25. The human circadian clock's seasonal adjustment is disrupted by daylight saving time.

Kantermann T, Juda M, Merrow M, Roenneberg T.

Ludwig-Maximilian-University, Goethestrasse 31, D-80336 Munich, Germany. Abstract

A quarter of the world's population is subjected to a 1 hr time change twice a year (daylight saving time, DST). This reflects a change in social clocks, not environmental ones (e.g., dawn). The impact of DST is poorly understood. Circadian clocks use daylight to synchronize (entrain) to the organism's environment. Entrainment is so exact that humans adjust to the east-west progression of dawn within a given time zone. In a large survey (n = 55,000), we show that the timing of sleep on free days follows the seasonal progression of dawn under standard time, but not under DST. In a second study, we analyzed the timing of sleep and activity for 8 weeks around each DST transition in 50 subjects who were chronotyped (analyzed for their individual phase of entrainment). Both parameters readily adjust to the release from DST in autumn but the timing of activity does not adjust to the DST imposition in spring, especially in late chronotypes. Our data indicate that the human circadian system does not adjust to DST and that its seasonal adaptation to the changing photoperiods is disrupted by the introduction of summer time. This disruption may extend to other aspects of seasonal biology in humans.

PMID 17964164

---

Am J Public Health. 1995 Jan;85(1):92-5. Daylight saving time and motor vehicle crashes: the reduction in pedestrian and vehicle occupant fatalities.

Ferguson SA, Preusser DF, Lund AK, Zador PL, Ulmer RG.

Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, Arlington, Va 22201. Abstract

Fatal crashes were tabulated for 6-hour periods around sunrise and sunset, from 13 weeks before the fall change to standard time until 9 weeks after the spring change to daylight saving time. Fatal-crash occurrence was related to changes in daylight, whether these changes occurred abruptly with the fall and spring time changes or gradually with the changing seasons of the year. During daylight saving time, which shifts an hour of daylight to the busier evening traffic hours, there were fewer fatal crashes. An estimated 901 fewer fatal crashes (727 involving pedestrians, 174 involving vehicle occupants) might have occurred if daylight saving time had been retained year-round from 1987 through 1991.

PMID 7832269 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE] PMC 1615292Free PMC Article

Sleep Med. 2001 Jan;2(1):31-36. Fatal accidents following changes in daylight savings time: the American experience.

Varughese J, Allen RP.

Department of Symbolic Systems, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, CA, Stanford, USA Abstract

Objective: This study examines specific hypotheses that both sleep loss and behavioral changes occurring with the time shifts for Daylight Savings Time (DST) significantly effect the number of fatal traffic accidents in the United States of America.Background: It has been reported that there is a significant increase in the number of automobile accidents in the spring shift to DST due to the loss of 1 h of sleep. But the extra hour gained at night with the shift from DST in the fall has been variably reported to be associated with increases and decreases in the number of automobile accidents which may reflect either behavioral anticipation with an extended late night prior to the change or the benefit of extra sleep after the change.Methods: Data from 21 years of United States' fatal automobile accidents were gathered. The mean number of accidents on the days at the time of the shifts (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) was compared to the average of the corresponding mean number of accidents on the matching day of the weeks preceding and following the shift. This was repeated for each DST shift. The number of accidents for a particular shift was also correlated with the year of the accidents.Results: There was a significant increase in accidents for the Monday immediately following the spring shift to DST (t=1.92, P=0.034). There was also a significant increase in number of accidents on the Sunday of the fall shift from DST (P<0.002). No significant changes were observed for the other days. A significant negative correlation with the year was found between the number of accidents on the Saturdays and Sundays but not Mondays.Conclusions: The sleep deprivation on the Monday following shift to DST in the spring results in a small increase in fatal accidents. The behavioral adaptation anticipating the longer day on Sunday of the shift from DST in the fall leads to an increased number of accidents suggesting an increase in late night (early Sunday morning) driving when traffic related fatalities are high possibly related to alcohol consumption and driving while sleepy. Public health educators should probably consider issuing warnings both about the effects of sleep loss in the spring shift and possible behaviors such as staying out later, particularly when consuming alcohol in the fall shift. Sleep clinicians should be aware that health consequences from forced changes in the circadian patterns resulting from DST come not only from physiological adjustments but also from behavioral responses to forced circadian changes.

PMID 11152980

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ocdncntx (talk • contribs) 19:53, 13 March 2011‎ (UTC)

See also

General topic

• Daylight saving time around the world
• Time in Canada
• CHU distributes official time in Canada

Official Civil Time Distribution

• WWV & WWVH (NIST Shortwave)
• WWVB (NIST Longwave)

Quasi-governmental time distribution systems

• CDMA cellphone stratum 2 time distribution system
• GNSS global navigation stratum 1 time distribution system

Computer Issues

I have removed the sentence " Often, due to interim time updating, the difference will not correspond exactly to the adjustment and may be a few seconds different." from the Microsoft Windows section; I believe it is incorrect. (Adjustments to the clock in the interim should not affect the recorded time of either file.) If there is a supporting source for this, then go ahead and reinstate it.

The Mac OS X section is inaccurate. Mac OS X uses tzdata like most other unix based OSes. It is infact listed in the "tz database" article here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tzdata#Use_in_software_systems . As currently stated it gives the impression that Mac OS X just somehow intrinsically knows when and how daylight savings time works. I am removing the Mac OS X section and adding a reference to Mac OS X in the tzdatabase section. TrashHeap (talk) 16:09, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

In the Complexity section, there is also the text:

"Some Microsoft Windows based systems require downtime or restarting when clocks shift. Apple computer systems don't have this inherent problem. Ignoring this requirement damaged a German steel facility in 1993."

No citation for those claims about the OS behavior, which don't seem to reflect reality. The citation about the steel facility is from 1994, and says nothing about Microsoft or Apple. Perhaps these sentences should just be removed? 65.95.6.215 (talk) 16:43, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation

The opening paragraph says that clocks are "are adjusted forward one hour near the start of spring and are adjusted backward in autumn". This could be clarified, as written it implies that clocks are set 1 hour behind actual time during winter, as opposed to being returned to actual time (set back, not "backward"). 69.145.252.164 (talk) 06:13, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

History of DST - first adoption

In Saskatchewan, Canada, DST was adopted by the City of Regina under Bylaw 803 in the spring of 1914. The City of Saskatoon adopted DST ("Saskatoon Time") on May 31, 1914, under bylaw 840. It was repealed on July 2, however, after resistance to the measure by local businessmen and following its defeat by municipal voters at an election held on June 30. The City of Regina, however, appears to have stayed with DST. (Source: City of Saskatoon Archives D500.VI.79. -- Daylight Savings Time. -- 1914) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 167.129.240.24 (talk) 16:25, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Summer Time was also adopted, in wartime as it happened, on 1915-09-26 (i.e. before Germany) by Shackleton's expedition on Elephant Island. See his book "South". 94.30.84.71 (talk) 12:59, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Terminology section is a bit over the top

The first paragraph gives details of what grammatical parts of English speakers are using when they use the terms "daylight saving time" or "daylight savings time". It also tells us what the correct term is in other languages, in English Wikipedia. I really don't see the point of either, and intend to remove that content if no-one objects. HiLo48 (talk) 02:38, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

Time Zone Map

In the time zone map in this article, the 1995 move of the International Date Line to place the nation of Kirbati entirely on one side of that line is not reflected. A newer map would be suggested. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.145.141.107 (talk) 12:50, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Egypt cancelled DST today. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.139.57.110 (talk) 20:28, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

A source for that claim would be helpful. Can you direct us to one please? HiLo48 (talk) 23:08, 18 April 2011 (UTC)

I thought of all of the Mohntain states do not observe DST? I know a few counties in Illinois don't.68.231.184.217 (talk) 15:01, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Both incorrect. HkCaGu (talk) 15:18, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Read Daylight saving time in the United States which says that all of the United Stats observe DST except Hawaii and Arizona. --BIL (talk) 20:53, 20 June 2011 (UTC)

Non Neutral POV

This article is definitely slanted and is anti-DST. It needs more citations from the pro side to be fair and balanced 12.73.239.76 (talk) 07:57, 31 October 2011 (UTC)SugarPie

Farmers

"Conversely, DST can adversely affect farmers and others whose hours are set by the sun.[4] For example, grain harvesting is best done after dew evaporates, so when field hands arrive and leave earlier in summer their labor is less valuable." But DST is not in effect in the summer, so how can less efficient use of labor in the summer be a adverse effect of DST?! GeneCallahan (talk) 19:59, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

Where I live DST is only used in summer, and I thought that was the case everywhere (apart from places where it lasts all year). The lead is pretty clearly about DST being in summer time. Where are you? HiLo48 (talk) 22:52, 28 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it's much of a problem to change farm hands' working hours during summer accordingly? -- megA (talk) 14:33, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Leaving aside the misunderstanding above, it leads me to question the sentence for other reasons. We mention several times in the article that farmers are generally opposed to DST. However, the references we use seem to be primarily referring to arguments made almost a hundred years ago, and the latest seems to be from the 1950s. Surely we should get some more up-to-date information regarding the feelings of the agricultural sector? Most of the arguments from the older times regarding milk trains and the working hours of farm hands are surely of relatively minor concern in the modern world of industrial agriculture? Does anyone know of any real arguments from the modern agricultural sector regarding DST? Peregrine981 (talk) 14:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

compounding problems of standard time

"DST inherits and can magnify the disadvantages of standard time. For example, when reading a sundial, one must compensate for it along with time zone and natural discrepancies.[121] Also, sun-exposure guidelines like avoiding the sun within two hours of noon become less accurate when DST is in effect.[122]"

Surely this is a very trivial concern that we needn't clutter the article with? MAYBE I can agree to the sundial concern, although this seems a bit trivial considering the many other potential problems with sundials, but the notion that sun exposure guidelines are less effective seems fairly ludicrous, even if it technically correct. Peregrine981 (talk) 15:34, 5 January 2012 (UTC)

"temporarily advancing the clocks"

In the intro, it says that in DST the clocks are "temporarily" advanced forward. Well... if March-til-October counts as "temporarily", then ok. But, to my understanding, the better part of the year - i.e. seven months - is a somewhat longer period than is covered by the notion of "temporary" - however philosophically one might wish to view it. In fact, the astronomically correct non-DST time is much more "temporary" than DST! my two cents :-) BigSteve (talk) 09:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Microsoft

Am I the only one who thinks the section under Microsoft has become too large, verging on trivia? The text that was included when this article passed through FAC seems to me a better overall balance. Thoughts? Eusebeus (talk) 10:31, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

The last paragraph is trivia. Tellingly, it begins with "An interesting effect..." The other main difference is the third paragraph, not sure exactly how useful that one is. CMD (talk) 13:44, 16 February 2012 (UTC)

Economic effects

It would be really helpful if somebody would add the equator to the map of where DST is observed in the northern and southern hemispheres. I'm not sure how to do it myself and I have some trepedation that an Administrator will find a reason to delete it. Dick Kimball (talk) 15:19, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

UK v US again

Yet another article ruined by British heritage people trying to make sure no one "mistakes" something as having come from the Americans. I am so sick of this that I can hardly even use Wiki anymore. Not only do we end up with articles like this one that do not even resemble the truth it is just tiring trying to decipher when it is happening or not Special:Contributions/Clayton (talk) 15:02, 14 March 2012 (UTC) Clayton

Example shift behavior

The text said "in the typical case where the shift is at 2:00 local time", but then went on to give an example where the autumn shift occurred at 3:00 local time. I suspect that it was written by a US writer initially, and then a European writer "corrected" it without also correcting the first sentence.

In the US, where the shift is based on local time, the spring and autumn shifts occur at the same local time.

In the EU, on the other hand, where the shift is based on UTC, the autumn shift occurs an hour later, local time, than the spring shift.

I tried to make that distinction clearer. Jordan Brown (talk) 00:03, 5 September 2012 (UTC)

I second the deletion on the BST

There is another page, not linked to this one, that fully discusses BST. This page should be about Day light saving time and it has been hijacked by editor that makes the claim that Ben Franklin just mentioned the idea. I have seen discussions on many pages by British college students or those trying to get an education, giving credit for inventions to British individuals for far less. There exists a bias account on this page and it leads to reader to the editors POV. The American history on day light savings time has been omitted. Such as the US has been using the term since 1916 and passing it in law 1966, it is actually older then the British code passed in 2003. This is the type of one sided view when you get these types of bias pages. I will make a point of editing this page for a more center view and an accurate account to history. Jacob805 06:51, 12 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob805 (talk • contribs)

What's BST? What deletion? HiLo48 (talk) 07:02, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

Its exactly what it states, there is another page dedicated to British summer time. This page is about day light saving time. The page should be about day light savings time, how it came about, how it it is used, law, history. It is totally different then BST, as BST came about for different reasons and was done at different times compared to Day light savings time. This page has been hijacked to a BST POV, and it should be about Day light saving time. I suggest re writing to page omitting the content of British Summer time, as it has its own page. I do agree that there should be a mention and link to the BST page but that should be the extent of it, please feel free to let me know if you agree or disagree to this. Jacob805 07:16, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

I don't see the problem you seem so concerned about. And I'll just point out that there is no other mention of BST on this page, and only one in the article, yet you write (in repsonse to my question of "What's BST?") "Its exactly what it states..." I'm afraid your communication here leaves a little to be desired. HiLo48 (talk) 07:25, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

There are pages that discuss DST by country, for example: Daylight saving time in the United States. That is what the BST page is. It discusses the seasonal time shift in the UK. This page discusses the concept from a more global perspective. Summer Time and Daylight Saving are basically the same concept, so it makes sense to have a single page that discusses the basics of the concept itself, without having a myriad of separate articles a reader would have to consult to get a global view. If you think there are inaccuracies or problems with the page, please feel welcome to make changes, while keeping in mind that this page should reflect a global perspective. Peregrine981 (talk) 07:32, 12 October 2012 (UTC)

interesting

This was taken from a reference on Hudson's page, it is an abstract from a discussion on Hudson paper On Seasonal Time-adjustment in Countries South of Lat. 30°,” by G. V. Hudson, F.E.S. Mr. Harding said that the only practical part of Mr. Hudson's paper had long since been anticipated by Benjamin Franklin, one of whose essays denounced the extravagance of making up for lost daylight by artificial light. Mr. Hudson's original suggestions were wholly unscientific and impracticable. If he really had found many to support his views, they should unite and agitate for a reform.

So it is safe to say that in 1895, a New Zealand scientist Mr Harding, viewed that the concept of day light savings time was widely accepted as Ben Franklin.Jacob805 07:09, 12 October 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jacob805 (talk • contribs)

Nonsense

I don't understand why they do this in summer instead of winter. Days are long enough in summer time anyway. It's winter when days are short and we need more light. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.156.137.218 (talk) 16:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

I think you heve answered your own question in your third sentence. Ex nihil ^(talk) 20:05, 31 October 2012 (UTC)

Daylight saving time in Libya

As of November 10th, 2:00am, 2012 - daylight savings time has been adopted by Libya after the initiative was passed by the General National Congress. 174.114.186.160 (talk) 21:48, 10 November 2012 (UTC) 174.114.186.160 (talk) 21:50, 10 November 2012 (UTC)A Libyan

http://thelibyareport.com/news/economy/libya-adopt-daylight-saving-time

On or off?

When is daylight savings time "on" and when is it "off"? Is it on or off in the winter? 24.144.38.101 (talk) 01:18, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Off in winter, on in summer. Charles35 (talk) 14:33, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

I've never heard those words used to describe whether or not we're in a daylight saving period. Avoid them. Just say "It's daylight saving now" or "We're in daylight saving now", or not. HiLo48 (talk) 17:28, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Considering the IP titled this section "On or Off?", I figured I would use the form that was already set out. Also, I just wanted to leave a short and sweet reply. I don't think that being extremely accurate is all that crucial. Within reason, you can let the reader imply certain things.

Sorry, the demand for 100% exactness on wikipedia (in the non-mainspace) is a pet-peeve of mine... Charles35 (talk) 06:09, 4 January 2013 (UTC)

Saving or Savings?

Is there much authoritative info about whether it's daylight saving or daylight savings? Both seem to be used but the singular is more common perhaps? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.132.57.42 (talk) 09:51, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

Have a look at the Daylight saving time#Terminology section, and you'll find "authoritative info" and discussion of the terms used. Peregrine981 (talk) 10:07, 15 January 2013 (UTC)

National variety of English

Based on this version this article seems to have originally used British English, and has deteriorated since then. Is there any reason the spelling shouldn't be restored to British English? Jc3s5h (talk) 02:24, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

I think that article is a mix of uses. I'd advocate sticking with the status quo, especially since DST seems to be more commonly used than summer time in most of the world. Peregrine981 (talk) 10:16, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Attempts to End Daylight Saving Time by Petition

A number of on-line web or email petitions have been made by individuals calling for the end of Daylight Saving Time. Most often, these are specific to one country or one province or state at a time. The broadest appeal is international in nature, and may be found at: http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/End_Daylight_Savings_Time This international effort was launched by a Canadian resident on March 10th, 2013 using in part the following social media page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/End-Daylight-Savings-Time/164107770409950

On April 25h, 2013, the Canadian Province of Quebec will vote on a petition put forward by Quebec Member of Parliament for Mirabel, Ms. Denise Beaudoin. That petition may be found here: https://www.assnat.qc.ca/fr/exprimez-votre-opinion/petition/Petition-3587/index.html

Numerous other petitions exist at www.change.org WikiBigBrother (talk) 23:29, 13 March 2013 (UTC) Joel Porter aka WikiBigBrother

Petitions come and go all the time. Opposition is amply covered in the article.Peregrine981 (talk) 10:13, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Introduction is awkward

The introduction is awkward. A decent amount of space is used to deal with nomenclature before the article ever answers the question "What is DST?". I am not terribly familiar with the standards for article openings so I chose not to make any edits. I think everything between en-dashes:

—also summer time in several countries[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] in British English,
and European official terminology (see Terminology)—

should be moved to the end of the opening paragraph.

DouglasCalvert (talk) 08:19, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

We could simply say — summer time in British English —. Agreed that it isn't really necessary to go into the details of its worldwide nomenclature right off the bat. Peregrine981 (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2013 (UTC)

Pros and Cons of Daylight Savings Time

Pros and Cons of Daylight Saving Time

Measuring time has been recorded as far back as 3100 BCE (Before the Common Era). Altering time was first introduced in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin. Ancient civilizations measured the passage of time with the movements of the sun, moon, planets and stars. There has been many types of time measure, such as; during the era of Ice Age, by mankind scratching lines into rock walls, or Egyptian sundials, the Babylonian time keepers, Greek water bowls, that are similar to the functions of an hour glass and the Mayan or Aztec calendar’s, all the way up to the current use of the modern day mechanical clock. (Higgins et al.).Daylight Saving Time is very controversial and has been debated continuously by many a person twice a year since 1784. Daylight Saving Time has created a variety of debatable pros and cons such as; the contrary side of daylight saving time, there is an increase of heart attacks due to the disruption of circadian rhythms, an increase of manic episodes, mental illness, blindness, and skin cancers, or the increase of energy use. On the proponent side of daylight saving time, it can boost one’s health due to an increase of outdoor physical activities, a decrease in seasonal affective disorders due to the longer daylight absorption, an increase in economy due to retailers staying open later and consumers shopping after an average workday, or the decrease of energy use. Either way Daylight Saving Time affects us all. Have you ever experienced a Daylight Saving Time fiasco or health issue? Has the time change ever left you confused, late to work, early to work or other events? From researching all the results, studies have found that, the pros and cons are split down the middle, 50/50 either way.

Handwerk,Brian "Permanent Daylight Saving Time?Might Boost Tourism Efficiency" National Geographic Daily News" 4, November 2011.Webhttp://news.nationalgeographic.com Higgins, K., Miner, D., Smith, C.N., Sullivan, DB. “A Walk Through Time” National Institute of Standards and Technology 5, October 2010 web<https://www.nist.gov/pml/general/time/world.cfm> Roenneberg, Till Dr. “Daylight Saving Time: Healthy or Harmful?” New England Journal of Medicine 3, November 2013 web http://www.new.nationalgeographic.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by JVenDenver (talk • contribs) 23:35, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Inconsistent use of case in the term "daylight saving time"

While I'm aware of no established standard that suggests whether "daylight saving time" should or should not be written in title case (with initial caps), this article is inconsistent on the matter, sometimes capitalizing the first letter of each word and sometimes not. 1JimStarr (talk) 04:36, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I've always believed that the correct form is to not capitalise each individual word. I believe that's in the AP Stylebook. Bailmoney27 talk 04:42, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

A hyphen is needed in the term "daylight saving time"

In my opinion, it's clear that, in the term "daylight-saving time," the word "time" is a noun preceded by a compound modifier, "daylight-saving." Although the use of hyphens in such modifiers is often considered discretionary, most sources agree they're recommended when they help clarify meaning, and if I were to attempt, in the "old-school" manner, to diagram a sentence that includes the phrase, I wouldn't know how to do it without one. In other words, if I were a reader encountering it for the first time and without any prior knowledge of what it means, a hyphen would aid me greatly in understanding this three-word term.

What kind of time is it? It's time in which we are saving daylight; i.e., it's daylight-saving time.

1JimStarr (talk) 04:54, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

Sources differ; American Heritage Dictionary indicates a hyphen, but Associated Press Stylebook (2007) indicates no hyphen. Perhaps we should consult more sources before deciding. Jc3s5h (talk) 16:33, 27 October 2013 (UTC)

daylightsavingtime

what time we set clocks on saturaynight? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.156.5.24 (talk) 01:31, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

This IP number is located in the US. It is written in the Procedure chapter that the US shift is from end of 1:59 AM to 1:00 AM local time. A better description is found when following the given link Daylight saving time around the world (disambiguation) where one can link to Daylight saving time in the United States where it is more clearly written that it is 2.00 AM on 3 November.     It is hard to find this info in Daylight saving time. The article looks more like a scientific article, and it's not easy to find the next DST shift date and time. --BIL (talk) 09:52, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

I have added an {{About}} template pointing out that Daylight saving time around the world has information on local implementations. Jc3s5h (talk) 15:04, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

Nonsensical lede

The lede sentence, "[DST] is the practice of advancing clocks during the lighter months so that evenings have more apparent daylight and mornings have less." doesn't make sense. By definition and standard usage, "evening" and "morning" refer to the amount of daylight present, not the clock time. The effect of DST is to change the clock times during which daylight hours occur (i.e. at which morning and evening start and end). We need a correct summary of the concept and a source. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 07:35, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

Links

>> Indian state pushes to set clock right(Lihaas (talk) 03:55, 9 January 2014 (UTC)).

Worldwide view

The current lead that Tdw restored makes it aimed specifically at American readers, not any reader regardless of where he lives and his background. The advancing of the clock by one hour in summer is called summer time, not only in the UK, but also in Egypt and I'm sure in many other places. Linking the name summer time to British Summer Time is wrong, because it implies that this name is specific to the UTC+1 used in the UK in summer. Another problem with restricting the name in the lead to daylight saving is that it enforces the ignorant view that by advancing the clock we would save an hour of daylight, totally ignoring that the daylight hours in summer would not increase. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 01:01, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

I agree that it's inappropriate to mention just one country in the lead, and have removed that. HiLo48 (talk) 02:18, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Now that Mahmudmasri has clarified his meaning (his original editing comment was, at best, unclear - which lead to a misunderstanding, which is why I reverted the change), I do not disagree, and have made some 'tidying up' and clarifying amendments. TrevorD (talk) 16:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

In the section on Terminology, I have changed the clause mentioning British Summer Time to clarify that this is the name used nationally - and not merely an issue of Br v. Am language. I have purposely not changed the preceding sentence referring to American English, but I wonder whether it should be changed to indicate that those are the names used in the USA (and Canada?), and again not primarily a language issue. TrevorD (talk) 16:09, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Since English is a pluricentric language, the article is now fine. There would have been only a problem if the article made it seem that other terms are substandard over daylight saving. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 20:37, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Contradiction in "fall back" time

The text says: "...in autumn the clock jumps backward from the last moment of 01:59 DST to 01:00 standard time", but the illustration shows time going back from 3:00 to 2:00 (not from 2:00 to 1:00).

NIST says DST ends at 2:00, so I think the text is right and the illustration is wrong, but someone should double check time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 141.206.171.2 (talk) 21:18, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I deleted the graphics because they, at least superficially, contradicted the text. The purpose of graphics is to give a quick understanding of the topic; since the rules are different in different jurisdictions, graphics are not a suitable way to convey this complexity. Jc3s5h (talk) 19:17, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

The graphics just illustrate the general principle. Does it really matter that the exact hour is not necessarily correct? How will we create a graphic that is correct for the whole world? Peregrine981 (talk) 20:46, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think we can count on readers to instantly perceive that it is just a general principle that might not apply to their part of the world, especially if one of the two clocks is right but the other is wrong for the reader's locality. If it isn't instantly perceived for what it is, then it's more trouble than it's worth. Jc3s5h (talk) 20:51, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

OK, but how would you propose that we do illustrate the concept? Are you sure that no illustration is better than a less than ideal one? Peregrine981 (talk) 21:19, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

If you really want an illustration, perhaps a flag icon should be used to indicate the region where the illustration applies. Also, the illustration should correspond to a text description which includes a citation to a reliable source. In addition, the example region should be one which applies daylight time throughout the region; the US is not a suitable example since some states observe daylight time and some don't. Finally, it would be best if the region is English-speaking, so the relevant laws or rules can easily be read by English-speaking editors. Jc3s5h (talk) 22:37, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

I don't think it is necessary to be so literal in the illustration. This isn't a "how to guide" for people to change their clocks. It should be a visual illustration of the concept. Whether that happens at 2AM, or 3AM, and in which precise territory isn't so important IMO. It should simply be labelled as a hypothetical example of how DST is may be/is applied. It might even be better that the clock isn't specific to a certain region, given the intended global audience. People can look up the specifics for their region if it matters to them (which I don't think it will to 95% of readers). I certainly think having an illustration is valuable, in order to cater to more visual learners. Peregrine981 (talk) 23:10, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

My concern is that readers may just presume the illustration is correct for their region, and may not pay any more attention to the figure caption than they do to the text of the article. One of the reasons I get this feeling is reading I have done about notarization laws in the US. It's just astounding how many state legislatures pass laws saying that if a person wants a notarization, and the notary doesn't know them, they must present ID issued by a federal or state government. No consideration for the fact that a foreign visitor might come from a country that doesn't have have a federal-type government (or more likely, the legislature totally forgot that some people in the US are visiting from foreign countries). If a state legislature can be so stupid, what about the rest of our readers? (Yes, I am anticipating responses suggesting politicians will not be as bright as the rest of our readers.) Jc3s5h (talk) 01:55, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

You may be right that people will make the mistake. Undoubtedly you are right. But I don't think that we should build an encyclopedia on the basis of what the dimmest user might presume. I think as long as it is correctly labelled, making it explicitly clear, then we have done what we can. But, this isn't a make or break issue for me, if others have other opinions. Peregrine981 (talk) 08:02, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

Just replace the second image with one that shows the shift from 2 to 1 instead of 3 to 2, so that they both illustrate the action in a given situation, as explained in the text, and which applies to the US and EU. 174.73.22.113 (talk) 00:59, 12 March 2014 (UTC)

EXUSE ME

this article is presenting an appearance that local time is done by science standards and isn't used for theft, studpidy, or say to dodge court at some trial time, or just plain no one cares.

 # From Rives McDow (1998-10-08):
 # The State of Quintana Roo has reverted back to central STD and DST times
 # (i.e. UTC -0600 and -0500 as of 1998-08-02).

 # From Rives McDow (2000-01-10):
 # Effective April 4, 1999 at 2:00 AM local time, Sonora changed to the time
 # zone 5 hours from the International Date Line, and will not observe daylight
 # savings time so as to stay on the same time zone as the southern part of
 # Arizona year round.

 # From Jesper Norgaard, translating
 # <http://www.reforma.com/nacional/articulo/064327/> (2001-01-17):
 # In Oaxaca, the 55.000 teachers from the Section 22 of the National
 # Syndicate of Education Workers, refuse to apply daylight saving each
 # year, so that the more than 10,000 schools work at normal hour the
 # whole year.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.219.202.186 (talk • contribs) 16:17, 26 March 2014‎ (UTC)

linux effected by US changes

IANA hack to US portion of time rules (due to fed gov run microsoft changes?) caused older machines to disagree by an hour of local time, since rules of all states include dependance of US rules.

this is becoming a "big corporate attack" where new and old time formats are incompatible and this is taken advantage of by people with gov power. ie tampering and forced upgrade come to mind

I do not understand what you are trying to say. Linux is in the section title but not in the actual text? Linux uses the olson tz datafiles, that are now maintained under the IANA umbrella. DST changes require updating one package, is that the forced upgrade? The "corporate attack" and "tampering" bits are bizarre... DouglasCalvert (talk) 16:55, 26 March 2014 (UTC)

Origin of "Spring Forward, Fall Back"

I don't write for Wikipedia, but you should know that "Spring Forward, Fall Back" dates to at least 1954. Someone might want to cite/link the information that I've found. http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/spring_forward_fall_back/ Barry (talk) 03:32, 8 March 2015 (UTC)