Talk:Daylight saving time

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Archives to June 2006. to March 2007.

[edit] Am I the only one that noticed?

The graphic courtesy of some DOD employee of the clock hands being turned back has the caption advising that the time change occurs at 2am on October 28th. Unfortunately, the graphic was created in 2005 when that was true, but this year it is 2am on October 29th!

And, of course, that was never the case in many parts of the world! Wake 03:35, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

I've changed the caption to make it clear that the announcement was for an older year, and just in the U.S. Eubulides 20:38, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DST Proposed changes

The real question rises from time to time, that why not just adjust the clocks by 30 minutes and leave it at that. Golden middle road would remove the clock adjusting and wouldn't be so big difference anymore. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 195.197.215.210 (talk) 09:30, 7 March 2007 (UTC).

Splitting the difference avoids clock-shift problems, but does not provide as much afternoon leisure time in the summer. A few places do it. One example is central-western Arizona, which is permanently about 30 minutes ahead of local mean time. Eubulides 05:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Railroads, U.S.A.

In (ca) 1990, I was traveling via railroad in the U.S.A. when the change over from DST to standard time took place. The train stopped in the desert for an hour, in order to keep on schedule. We were told that all trains in the time zone had stopped. It might be interesting to find out what happens in the spring, and how trains traveling into/outof/through Arizona or other areas not making the changes to/from DST are affected. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 206.53.197.12 (talk) 02:13, 16 February 2007 (UTC).

The page now says "Disruption to … travel … is not uncommon when clocks or rules change." Eubulides 08:01, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Well what do they do when the clock goes the other way? I am not arguing that what you say you experienced happened. I just find it odd that they would physically stop the trains rather than making simple adjustments to the schedule. 66.18.202.164 16:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Traditionally, it was too much hassle to change the schedule (it was a printed document), so they just slowed down the trains or sped them up and tried to make the schedule as best they could. Airline schedules are handled similarly, I expect. Anyway, it's not clear to me that the details are worth discussing in the main page. Eubulides 17:34, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow. That is positively bizarre. It seems like there has got to be some relatively dead-time in the schedule to handle "spring-forward" sanely, And for "fall back," why can't you just wait the extra hour at the terminal? (Hint: For anyone getting off at the terminal, it's not actually a wait.) As I said, wow. --Mr z 08:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

There is generic dead-time to cushion any sort of delay; I don't think it'd be any larger for this particular delay. At 02:00 trains tend to be in the middle of nowhere so there won't be much going on near the terminal either. I imagine most passengers are asleep and don't care where the train stops. Eubulides 17:12, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Windows

Windows Vista supports at most two DST start and stop rules per time zone setting. For example, in Brazil where DST rules commonly change every year, a Vista setting would support the current and previous year's time stamps, while mishandling some older time stamps.

This section appears to be unsubstantiated guesswork. Sources should be cited.

Only one set of "start and stop rules" is in use at any given time but the system can support a large range of years both in the past and into the future. See the data for "Israel Standard Time" in Vista as an example (it has rules from 2004 to 2023, inclusive). Vista shipped with 2006 and 2007 entries for Brasilia, but it can support a larger range of historic data as required. Unfortunately the Brazilian government does not appear to give much warning about upcoming DST changes. 213.199.145.11 17:36, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Citation added. According Microsoft, Vista may have a large catalog of rule sets, but it can use at most two set of rules at any given time, and pre-Vista Windows can use at most one rule set. Eubulides 21:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2007-03-05 NYT story cites mysterious ACEEE, 2006 Energy Dept. studies

Steve Lohr. "Time change a 'mini-Y2K' in tech terms", New York Times, 2007-03-05. says "A report last year by the Energy Department projected savings in electricity at four-tenths of a percent each day of extended daylight savings time.... The American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, a nonprofit group, estimates that the cumulative benefit through 2020 of longer daylight saving time would be a saving of $4.4 billion and 10.8 million metric tons less carbon spewed into the air." I looked for these reports in all the obvious places (e.g., aceee.org, doe.gov) but could not find them. Does anyone know where they are? The "Rationale" section is a bit weak right now and could use some strong citations. Eubulides 05:23, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leading zeroes

Is there any way to remove the annoying or at the very least redundant leading zeroes to the times? 71.102.144.27 03:43, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You mean, like the leading zero in the "03:43" in your comment? That's inserted automatically by Wikipedia. Or if you're talking about the leading zero in times like "02:00" in the main page, that is standard ISO 8601 time format. The Wikipedia manual of style says that leading zero is OK there. Eubulides 05:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Graph

Something like this graph would be very helpful in helping visualize what actually happens. --Belg4mit 17:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed. Ideally it would be an SVG image that is semiautomatically generated from the underlying equation. London would be a good choice for the location, as that is what motivated Willett. (But I haven't had time to do it….) Eubulides 20:20, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks very much for contributing the graph; it's very helpful. Eubulides 17:07, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content correct?

Is this right? It doesn't make sense to me. From the article:

...it established DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October. The law, however, proved so unpopular, mostly because it obliged people to rise and go to bed earlier than had become customary since the advent of electricity, that it was repealed after 1919, when Congress overrode President Woodrow Wilson's veto of the repeal...

Now if it established DST during the summer, people would be getting up *later* by hour if they synchronized activites to the sun. That is, if the sun rose at 6 and you want to get up with this, it would rise at 7. Similarly in the evening if you normally went to bed at sunset 8 PM, you would now go to bed at 9 PM by hour.

Of course, there is the one-time need to get up an hour earlier due to the shortened night in the spring, but this is a one-time thing and not getting up "earlier" e.g. associated with the advent of electricity.

If the person wanted to, say, go to bed 2 hours after sunset, yes, you would feel you were forced to go to bed "earlier" due to the fact sunset occurs at a later numerical hour. I think this is what the article meant, but it is quite confusing as described in the article. Thoughts? --User:gsm996 13:12, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for noticing that. I have simplified the offending wording by noting that farmers objected, and have added an explanation of one of their objections in the "Benefits and drawbacks" section. Eubulides 20:16, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Excellent thanks, reads well now -- I think the farmers were mainly concerned about having to adjust their schedule and end the day at a later numerical hour, no?

One more thing also does not make sense to me...

...Willett's 1907 proposal argued that DST increases opportunities for outdoor leisure activities during afternoon sunlight hours. As a builder, he also wanted workers to arrive at construction sites earlier in summer mornings.... Similar motivations remain to this day.

Again, if construction workers are starting work at sunrise, they would get there an hour later, not earlier during DST, and an hour earlier during the non-DST period. Is this one also backwards?

Maybe Wilson wanted to get an extra hour of afternoon work out of the builders, for if they started at the same hour they would have more light later in the day, but certainly not at the start of the day in the spring... --User:gsm996 18:17, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

The assumption, I think, is that workers typically show up at a fixed time like 08:00, not at a varying time like sunrise. So (assuming the workers agree, e.g., because of overtime pay) a builder can get an extra hour's work from each laborer during summer. However, now that I think about it, the assertion that Willett was motivated by this financial interest is not supported by any of the documentation I know of, so that implication of the statement, at any rate, should be reworded. I'll look into that. Eubulides 00:57, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] semiannual effect

What does the expression semiannual effect mean in the Traffic fatalities? Does it means that this happens two time in the year? By the way the changing date are usually not 6 months separated.

Could someone who knows English better than me and who knows the mentioned study, clarify (if this is the case) that the 0.7% reduction in traffic fatalities, reported by the is an overall average on all the period when DST applies, while the study reports an increase of fatalities on the Monday after a Sunday shifts. However it should be note that the increased of fatalities is not only in the day after the shift, but also in the following days. So adding a value about a period about something like one week, would be appreciate. AnyFile 11:21, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for reporting that. Semiannual is wrong, as you mentioned, so I've changed it to twice-yearly. The 0.7% applies to all the period where DST is in effect, so I added "during DST" to clarify that. I also fixed a bug about exactly when the effect occurs. It occurs only in one day (Monday) in spring, and one day (Sunday) in fall, assuming the transition occurs Sunday. Eubulides 17:03, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

What do you two think semiannual means exactly? --Belg4mit 16:42, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

"Semi" means "half" and "annual" means "year", so it means every half-year. Merriam-Webster's definition gives this meaning, along with the other meaning about "twice a year". But if I washed my car on January 1, then again on January 2, and never again for the rest of the year, I wouldn't call it my "semiannual" car wash. "Every six months" is the more-precise meaning. Eubulides 02:32, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural References

Is the first line of clocks actually a reference to daylight savings time, or is this speculation?Dragon guy 01:22, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I really don't think it has anything to do with it. I'm going to remove it until someone gives a citable source saying it was about BST. I find it extremely unlikely that Martin went "Hmm, I think I'll write a song about daylight savings time". The link to Clocks says nothing about it.

* [[Coldplay]]'s [[Grammy Award for Record of the Year|Grammy]]-winning record "[[Clocks_(song)|Clocks]]" ([[2003 in music|2003]]) was co-written and performed by [[Chris Martin]], great-great grandson of DST inventor William Willett. The song's first line is "Lights go out and I can't be saved".

mattbuck 02:18, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The text in question does not claim that the song's first line is a reference to DST. The cultural connection is via Willett and the title "Clocks". It's possible that the first line is a coincidence, but if so, it is a remarkable one. I'll reinsert the line with comments to that effect; I hope this resolves any controversy. (Perhaps a Coldplay wizard could chime in?) Eubulides 04:03, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Has anyone got a source for the coldplay trivia? it smells a bit fishy.

The Chris Martin entry has a source. Lord Tanlaw is another source; see his speech before the House of Lords on 2006-03-24. I see now that an anonymous user has removed 'The song's first line is "Lights go out and I can't be saved".' without comment; would anyone object if I put it back in? and if so, why? Eubulides 23:27, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

There were no objections so I added it, with a stronger caveat this time. Eubulides 23:09, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

At this point, the line says straight out that the song isn't about daylight savings time, and it seems obvious now that some sort of inelegant editing compromise was reached. Is such a minor fact really worth such a rough patch? Dragon guy 00:36, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

But all cultural references are minor facts. This one is striking. The connection between "Lights go out and I can't be saved" and DST has been mentioned in The Fayettville Observer (March 8), The Bakersfield Californian (March 9), and My Coldplay.com (March 10). But now that you mention it, the current text is too strong: it claims that the song is not about DST, but it's possible that DST was in the back of Martin's mind during composition. I adjusted the wording to fix this, and also (I hope) to make the wording more elegant. Eubulides 05:20, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

well, this is the sort of citation that I was asking for. I have no contest with this information now. Dragon guy 02:14, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

As a result of the review, the cultural references section has been removed, so this talk section is now moot. Eubulides 21:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Paternalism

The section titled "Paternalism" is questionable at best. WiccaWeb 03:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

In what sense is it questionable? The current wording? the basic idea? Eubulides 04:08, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

I retitled the section "social choice" and added a reference to Thomas C. Schelling's oft-cited article on the subject. Better? Eubulides 21:46, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Map should not collide with table of contents

The current placement of the first two images is awkward in my browser. First, I have a high-resolution screen, and the 100px override of the spring-forward clock image makes it small. I'd rather have the user decide this thumbnail size, not the web page. Second, the map squishes the table of contents and it looks really ugly if the browser window is narrow. I'd rather move the map to the "When it starts and stops" section, which has a reference to "Daylight saving time around the world" and talks about how start and ed dates and times vary with location. Not only is this a more logical place for the map, it'll lay out much more nicely. Comments? Eubulides 19:32, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Nobody commented, so I made the change. Eubulides 07:12, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

While the map was indeed too big, I still think it belongs at the top of the article. --~ ~ James Hetfield (previously Wesborland) ~ ~ 14:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the main problem occurs when we put two images right next to each other at the top; that doesn't format well with the table of contents. One option is to put the map at the top, and then put the "spring forward" clock in the "When it starts and stops" section, where the text talks about shifting at 02:00. It used to be like that; maybe that was better. Eubulides 16:49, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe it was, since the map describes which countries use or used DST while the clock is just an... ornament. --~ ~ James Hetfield (previously Wesborland) ~ ~ 22:01, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, but now the map image has an explicit width. This causes it to be smaller on my browser than it would ordinarily be, as I have a hi-res monitor and default to more pixels per thumbnail. How about if we omit the explicit width? Even with the default 180px width the map is still easily legible enough to see the pattern of which countries use DST and which don't, which is all that's needed here. (I wish Wikipedia had a thumbnail option saying "twice as much width as usual" but alas it does not.) Eubulides 22:18, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] U.S. changes

The following link http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928388 shows that Microsoft have had to updated their timezone for the U.S. Should we note this in the article? - Ta bu shi da yu 02:50, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

If that link were current, Y2K7 would be a better place for it. But Y2K7 already has a link to the February 2007 cumulative time zone update for Microsoft Windows operating systems, which supersedes the link you mentioned. So I don't think any changes are needed here. Eubulides 03:09, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Time for a peer review?

Now that the U.S. DST hoopla has died down, I'm thinking of having this page undergo peer review with the idea of eventually having it be nominated for Good Article or Featured Article status. I've never done this before; I've never really edited any other page before, other than very minor edits. Do others think the article is good enough for this process, and if not, what's holding it back? Eubulides 04:24, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

No disagreement, so I'm asking for a peer review now. Eubulides 20:28, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Revised section order proposal

Wikipedia:Peer_review/Daylight_saving_time#bcasterline suggests redoing sections in the following order: name & mnemonic first, then origin, then benefits & drawbacks, then when it starts and ends. Also, perhaps coalescing some subsections of "benefits & drawbacks". There are a few more concrete suggestions in that review, too. Comments? Eubulides 23:41, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

No other comments, so I have incorporated bcasterline's suggestions. Eubulides 21:19, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] USA DST Change - confusing for non-USA citizens

There are various mentions made about post-2007 times, etc, throughout the article. The article is generic and doesn't feature on any one particular timezone of the world, so shouldn't these be either moved elsewhere, or a section dedicated to the DST change made within the article? 80.176.4.125 05:03, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

I have reworded it a bit; could you please look at it again? If you still see problems, could you please be a bit more specific? Here are the four mentions of 2007 on the page right now:

"DST shifts sunrise and sunset times in Greenwich in 2007." (a figure caption)
"Currently there is no clear evidence that electricity will be saved by the extra DST introduced in North America in 2007."
"For example, a 2007 U.S. DST rule change cost an estimated $500 million to $1 billion."
"Starting in 2007, most of the United States and Canada observe DST from the second Sunday in March … The 2007 U.S. change was part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005".

The first quote is not about the U.S. The 2nd and 3rd quotes are about other topics (recent and near-future energy saving, clock-change costs) for which U.S. (and in one case Canadian) data is the only we have reliable citations for. The last quote is part of a larger paragraph whose main point is that start and end dates and times vary with location and year, with Europe and the U.S. being the two examples. In an English-language article, one can reasonably expect examples to be oriented to English-language locations (e.g., Regina, Anchorage, and Greenwich are all currently used), just as the Czech-language article one sees examples that use Central European time. Eubulides 06:52, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] smoke alarms

"DST's clock shifts help remind citizens to replace batteries in smoke detectors and similar devices."

How? Smoke detectors do not have clocks and so don't need to be adjusted. I've never heard of this link before

I've reworded that section-zero sentence in an attempt to avoid confusion. The topic is discussed more in the "Associated practices" section. If you can suggest better wording in either place, please let us know. Eubulides 05:22, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] STOP THIS DST NONSENSE!

The U.S.A. is the most powerful country in the world and, along with the U.K., the one who initiated the adoption of Standard Time (ST) that spread worldwide. ST is plainly justified in modern times for purpose of railroads, aviation, communications etc. It does not affect public health in a noticeable way as generally it is quite close to the Local Mean Time (LMT) or solar time of the place, within a 30 minutes margin (minus or plus), to the exception of a few countries (like Spain, France or China) were the legal ST does not coincide at all with LMT (Spain and France belong to the GMT time zone and their current adopted ST is CET (GMT+1); and China observes one single ST (GMT+8) whereas the territory actually spreads throughout five different time zones!).

The problem begins when Daylight Saving/Summer Time (DST) is adopted during the spring to autumn period (March to end of October), supposedly on highly arguable and controversial grounds of energy saving yet to be proven. (DST was firstly lobbied by the British businessman William Willett (1856-1915) in 1907, adopted by the Germans during WWI in 1916 and promptly followed by other countries until now.) Then the discrepancy between solar time and legal time can reach out as much as 3 hours, depending on each particular country and its coordinates. This is preposterous and completely out of reason. The health costs are great, particularly to the most susceptible population: children, old people and workers in general. Things like disruption of sleep patterns, chronic insomnia, increase of stress, increase of tranquilizers, sedatives, alcohol and drugs taking etc., occur in a mass-scale without any way of preventing it. Year after year, governments worldwide impose upon their defenceless populations a legal time and thereby a life schedule that is completely out of tune with the natural way we should be living, that is, according to the solar time.

How to oppose this sorrowful state of things? People around the world (particularly in the USA) should group up, inform and alert the populations about this problem and lobby next to their governments, the UNO, the EU and other powerful organizations for the abolition of DST and the adoption of the correct ST according to the time zone of their country or region (particularly in the case of countries like Spain, France and China).--Orlando F 01:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk pages are not supposed to be used as platforms for personal views, so are there any objections if we remove this personal-view section from the talk page? Eubulides 05:33, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I object. I find the DST page not containing the due criticism. At least this section on the talk page raises some consciousness.--User:BhishmaL 06:24, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

I object for the same reason. Colonel Warden 06:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone propose a specific change to the main page to fix the perceived problem? I don't see a specific proposal in Orlando F's comments, which are mostly taken from discussion that is already present on the main page (except for a few unsourced remarks about DST and drug use, which are not appropriate for an encyclopedia without reliable sources). Orlando F has added a strong point of view but we cannot put that into the main page, as it's supposed to have a neutral point of view. So I don't see how these comments can contribute to the main article. Eubulides 08:31, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Concur. All substantial objections were raised in the article. samwaltz 10:00, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reason for the initial German switch to DST?

I was wondering why exactly did the Germans and then British etc. decided finally to adopt DST during WW1? I would imagine that military reasons or something would of been the deciding factor, but this article fails to mention why exactly. And if I would like to know why, I'm sure some others may of asked why they did? Kurek 10:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

"Daylight replaced artificial lighting and saved precious fuel for the war effort." is mentioned on this site. :nods: 10:35, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment. I added "DST was promoted as a way to alleviate hardships from wartime coal shortages and air raid blackouts." Eubulides 16:30, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA status on hold

GA review (see here for criteria)

It is well written.

a (prose): b (structure): c (MoS): d (jargon):
It is factually accurate and verifiable.

a (references): b (inline citations): c (reliable): d (OR):
It is broad in its coverage.

a (major aspects): b (focused):
It follows the neutral point of view policy.

a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
It is stable.
It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.

a (tagged and captioned): b (lack of images does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
Overall:

a Pass/Fail:

This is a pretty good article, but I have a few issues: 1) The lead (first three paragraphs) has no inline citations, making it look like original research, such as the statements that DST "promotes outdoor afternoon activities" or that it "cuts overall traffic accident rates". 2) A few minor edit wars are occuring; make sure these are settled in a few days. 3) The lead has no wikilinks, which are helpful for leading into other topics or for explaining terms. King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 19:45, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your review. A quick response:

I looked at other Good Articles I chose at random, namely Telecommunication, Anabolic steroid, Tibet, and Gulf Stream. None of them had inline citations in the lead; the citations were all in the body, and the lead summarized the body, which is the style being used in Daylight saving time. What am I missing? Can you please give examples of Good Articles where inline citations are needed in the lead?
The minor edit wars are mostly me against myself, I think. But things will most likely settle down after the March/early April DST changeover worldwide.
I have added wikilinks to Daylight saving time's lead.

Thanks again for the review, and if you have further suggestions please let us know. Eubulides 21:53, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

An article requires inline citations whenever needed. For example, the GA criteria does not say that they are absolutely necessary; an article that is obviously uncontroversial (like classical mathematics/science that has not received much attention recently) could just have a bibliography and be done. However, in this case, the statements I have listed above in issue #1 are likely to be questioned, and need citations to verify their accuracy. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 00:41, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I added inline citations for every claim in the lead that is likely to be questioned. I also removed the claim "Adding daylight to afternoons promotes outdoor afternoon activities." which in retrospect is unnecessary repetition of the following sentence or two. Perhaps I overdid the editing, but without a model for this I'm running a bit blind; please let me know if it still doesn't work for you. Eubulides 05:57, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

My impression is that it is too parochial, being written from a US perspective, and so not NPOV. The term DST only seems to be used in the USA - elsewhere it is summer time. There's a lot of attention paid to Benjamin Franklin who didn't really invent the idea (because standard time didn't exist in his day). He seems mainly there for local reasons, rather like Columbus and his 'discovery' of America.

Note that there's another article on European Summer Time. They should perhaps be merged. Colonel Warden 18:37, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

No, the term "daylight saving time" is also used in Britain; see, for example Saving the Daylight, a blurb for a British book on the subject, which mentions "daylight saving" several times. In international settings the phrase "daylight saving time" is normally preferred, as it is unambiguous whereas "summer time" also means the summer part of the year, so it's better for this page to use "daylight saving time" (though also mentioning the British English term as well, of course).

As for Franklin, I toned down the coverage of him a bit (in particular, he did not coin the term "daylight saving time"). I hope the current coverage is not out of line, but if not perhaps you can suggest specific changes to clarify this issue? The idea of daylight saving is independent of standard time (DST can be applied to mean solar time, for example), so it shouldn't matter that standard time didn't exist in Franklin's day. Willett's position in the page is considerably (and rightly) more prominent than Franklin: Willett is in the lead, and Franklin is not; Willett is mentioned in four paragraphs, Franklin in only two. The only sense in which Franklin is given more prominence is that we have a nice picture of him but for Willett we have only his memorial; but that is for copyright reasons, and if someone can find a freely-available picture of Willett we should use that.

Formerly, Daylight saving time contained a huge table that covered all the countries in the world. But this was bulky and hard to maintain and was split off into several other pages, notably European Summer Time, History of time in the United States, and Daylight saving time around the world. It would be a mistake to undo that split, as the resulting article would be waaayy too large and would be of lower quality (see, for instance, the quality problems in Daylight saving time around the world). It might be helpful to incorporate a few small snippets of the other pages here, as examples, but under the current organization Daylight saving time should not attempt to catalog every DST practice in the world—there are just too many. Eubulides 19:40, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

The author of the book you cite is American and writes from his experience of working for the US government. See About the author.

And I continue to suppose that 'Daylight Saving Time' is a distinctively American usage. For example, the European Union directive uses the term 'summer-time' in English while the versions in other languages include 'la hora de verano', 'Sommerzeit' and 'l'heure d'été' (Spanish, German and French). The phrase 'daylight saving' or DST does not appear. Colonel Warden 07:04, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure you can find many British and/or European sources that say "summer time" (especially if you limit yourself to EC bureaucrat-speak :-), but that's not the question. The question is whether British English speakers also use and understand the term "daylight saving time". I think the Granta book is a good reference (it is definitely a British book, not an American one) but if you don't like the book, would you settle for the Royal Observatory Greenwich? Its special exhibition that started last weekend talks about what it calls "the history of daylight saving time". And it's not like this is some newfangled American expression that has recently wended its way across the Atlantic: the very first bill in Parliament that proposed DST was called the "Daylight Saving Bill" of 1908, not the "Summer Time Bill". Eubulides 07:55, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

The book to which you refer seems to be a rehash of Prerau's US edition. The tile of the US edition is "Seize the Daylight: The Curious and Contentious Story of Daylight Saving Time". The title of the British edition is "Saving the Daylight: Why We Put the Clocks Forward." So, the same American author and expert understands that he should use the phrase "Daylight Saving Time" for the US market and something else for the British market.

I'm quite certain of British usage because I've been using it for ~50 years. I'm less sure of other countries. So I tried asking an Australian colleague who works here what he was used to back home. He said that they call it "Daylight Savings" but that no-one knew what he meant by this here in London. But their time zones are called "Eastern Summer Time", "Central Summer Time" and "Western Summer Time" so they have the Summer Time usage too. It seems they are now equally influenced by British and US English.

Now I don't mind if this is a US focussed article about the US phrase and there is an equivalent article about the equivalent British phrase. But I do mind if it seems that the US invented and named the concept which the rest of the world followed, when the US was a comparatively late adopter.

Note, by the way, that a British web source contains much material on this subject including a list of errors in the Wikipedia. In particular, Canadian localities seems to have been the first to institute a formal Summer Time. See http://www.merlyn.demon.co.uk/uksumtim.htm Colonel Warden 20:25, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Is the page too U.S.-centric? If so, what should change?

Recently User:Herenthere added a Template:Globalize/USA tag to the page, without comment. I have responded to this complaint by editing the page to remove several instances of "U.S." but in rereading the page I think Herenthere may be confusing US-centricism with 2007-centricism. It is understandable that an up-to-date encyclopedia would emphasize 2007's issues more than older issues, and since the U.S. and nearby countries changed DST rules in 2007, they have the most-recent (and best-documented) issues. I am adding this discussion item to see what problems others see. If there are problems, I would appreciate specific and doable suggestions. Eubulides 03:23, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your concern, and I realize that removing "US" from some of the article does help a bit. However, it appeared to me that in the section "Benefits and drawbacks", most of the effects, including energy conservation and traffic fatality data, as well as the numerous mentions of American brandnames such as Clorox, 7 eleven, Kingsford Charcoal, etc. seem to "over-Americanize" DST. I just wanted to remind readers that there is some bias if British or European statistics/companies aren't mentioned and that if they come from those countries, that they could help improve it. Herenthere (Talk) 03:33, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

OK, I have added two references about SDST (a British proposal) and have replaced references to the U.S. Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association and the National Association of Convenience Stores with a vaguer reference to the UK sport and leisure industry. That was the best I could do. I'd much rather have a hard reference to a company outside the US being in favor of DST for economic reasons; if you find one please let us know. Eubulides 08:03, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Well, Talk:Daylight_saving_time#2007 Change below effectively asked for the SGMA+NACS info back, so I put it back in. At least now we have the UK counterpart. Eubulides 23:38, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Promoted to GA

This article has been promoted to good-article status after the issues in "GA status on hold" were fixed. -- King of ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ 15:30, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 2007 Change

The date for the switch changed this year. Does anyone have information for why this occured? Might it be added to the article? Thanks. Jakerforever 21:16, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Ironically I recently yanked that information from the page on the grounds that the page might be too U.S.-centric. You can't please everybody, but if the vote is close (like this) it's probably better to leave it in. So I just now put it back]; please let us know what you think. Eubulides 23:36, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I had the same concern...I didn't think it would be there because the page was more global. I actually was looking for a "DST in the US" article! I don't want to be greedy...if others have complained about the inclusion of this maybe it should be delete...I'm not sure if there's a big uproar. At least to vote in favor of it's inclusion, it's not totally U.S.-centered, if other countries have switched as well. Maybe not just close ones...did Singapore switch with the U.S.? I had a friend I called that week and he seemed to be on our time (12 hours ahead).

The info is present in more detail in Energy Policy Act of 2005; only a much-shorter version is in the article now. But let's wait for others' opinions before yanking this again.

Singapore doesn't observe DST. Eubulides 03:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It was a convenience store lobby?!? Realy?!? I never woulda guessed. Jakerforever 01:40, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

It's not just convenience stores: it's also outdoor sports and tourism. And advocates for people suffering from night blindness. Also, in the UK the traffic safety guys. All this is in the article right now, though perhaps not as clearly as it should be. There are probably others but we don't have reliable sources for them. Eubulides 03:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] DST/Energy savings

Here's a link to a hearing before the US House on the energy-saving aspects of dst in 2001 -- "ENERGY CONSERVATION POTENTIAL OF EXTENDED AND DOUBLE DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME". Maybe we can incorporate this as a reference somewhere. -- phoebe/(talk) 19:36, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but it's already incorporated; see the Lawson reference (2001-05-24). Eubulides 20:44, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin

(Minor) Para 1 : It would be well to mention, at the beginning, BF's nationality and location.

(Minor) Para 2 : It would be well to mention, at the beginning, WW's nationality.

Para 3 : Germany, etc., were NOT the first Europeans to use Summer Time, although they do seem to have been the first in Europe and the first Continentals.

Ernest Shackleton et al, definitely British, started using Advanced Time in the Spring of 1915 (September 26th) - see his book "South".

82.163.24.100 12:24, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the suggestions; I've fixed all the points you mentioned. Eubulides 18:25, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

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