Re: New timezones and datetime format

We want to avoid adding timezones that are identical in offset, dst rules, and abbreviation. But should we add timezones such as Asia/Singapore, which is identical to Asia/Makassar (offset UTC+8, no dst) except that the abbreviation is SGT instead of CIT? If users really want, they could select Asia/Makassar and replace the %Z in the format with SGT.

(In a case such as America/Cuba, where there is dst, this doesn't work since the abbreviation isn't constant.)

Comment on Re: New timezones and datetime format

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Re^2: New timezones and datetime format (no more near duplicates) by tye (Sage) on Oct 06, 2004 at 16:18 UTC
No, there are tons of such "duplicate except for abbreviation" timezones so I don't think we should add any of them as it would mostly make timezone settings unwieldy. You could make the argument that Asia/Makassar should be replaced with Asia/Singapore. I won't pretend to know which is more widely used or by how much (but will note that I've heard of Singapore but I don't recall having heard of Makassar). You could also write the patch to allow people to type in their own timezone string and validate that the one they selected is currently supported by the operating system. I just set my timezone to Asia/Singapore by typing in a URL by hand but that doesn't do a good job of telling me if I entered an invalid timezone and isn't a friendly interface for more obvious reasons. If at the same time you made the backward-compatibility and backward GMT offset timezones less visible, that would be nice. (: - tye	[reply]
Re^2: New timezones and datetime format by McDarren (Abbot) on Sep 15, 2005 at 14:58 UTC
I understand this is a _very_ old thread, but I just noticed what appears to be a minor bug. The offsets shown in the drop-down list on the User Settings node appear to be back-to-front. For example, I am in Singapore which is GMT +8, but my local time appears in the drop-down as GMT -8. -- Darren	[reply]