Time posted in posters time zone

[sammich]

With this 'staying up for 3.0' game being played out by number of people on the dark side of the globe now, I was wondering if it were possible to add the local time of the poster made his/her post? That way we could figure out who the dedicated (or crazy) people are staying up through the night for an update. Or more generally, if someone was helping you out with a problem, you would know not to expect more replies if it were past say midnight for them...

Just a thought.

 

[MacNut]

I don't know if it is possible to do in VB, I do like the idea though.

 

[iBlue]

That's kind of a cool idea. I can be a bit anti-change with this forum but if it's not a resource hog or too visually obtrusive, that may be a nice addition.

 

[MacDawg]

Not sure how this would be implemented. Not everyone lists a location in their profile, and even if they did, it may not be accurate. In fact, most use their "location" for other purposes.

I'm no gury, but I would think this would be difficult to achieve.

Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[MacNut]

Not sure how this would be implemented. Not everyone lists a location in their profile, and even if they did, it may not be accurate. In fact, most use their "location" for other purposes.

I'm no gury, but I would think this would be difficult to achieve.

Can it be done using IP location.

 

[MacDawg]

Can it be done using IP location.

That is the only way I think it could be done... but some use masked routings even then, for various reasons, even to show that they are in other countries

Someone with more knowledge than I have would have to address this


Woof, Woof - Dawg

 

[iBlue]

Can it be done using IP location.

Looking that up for each post would be very labour intensive on the servers, I would think. The resources to implement something like this will probably prevent it from happening even if it worked AND if the admins like the idea.

 

[MacNut]

Looking that up for each post would be very labour intensive on the servers, I would think. The resources to implement something like this will probably prevent it from happening even if it worked AND if the admins like the idea.

I don't know if the VB innards will allow it either. It would probably have to be a hack and the higher ups don't like doing those.

 

[WildCowboy]

IP locations wouldn't be feasible, especially since many of them don't trace to the actual location of the poster. It could be done based just on the time zone setting from the poster. That of course relies on them setting that accurately, but most people prefer to see posts listing the correct times, so they tend to adjust that setting properly.

(I'm not saying that we will or can easily do it, but it should be possible.)

 

[MacNut]

It is a cool idea, not sure how it would be worked into the forums but this place is so international that it would be nice to see what time it is where people post.

 

[Eraserhead]

It sounds like it'd make it difficult to figure out the ordering of posters so would therefore be a bad idea...

 

[Doctor Q]

I agree that it would be possible technically to show a user's time zone, by modifying some of the vBulletin code to pick this up from the Date & Time Options in their User Options.

But there's another issue to consider. A user's time zone setting is currently private, not shown to other users. We do our best to respect the privacy of our forum members, and some users may prefer things the way they are, with an optional public "Location" field but their time zone private.

 

[rdowns]

Good idea but implementation doesn't sound too feasible.

Posted at 12:21am tomorrow in Moscow, Russia.

 

[MacNut]

It would have to be 2 different lines. One would be the way it is now showing the current time, the other would be the posters local time.

 

[dmmcintyre3]

You could have an option to show it or not for your posts in the settings.

 

[sammich]

You could have an option to show it or not for your posts in the settings.

Exactly. At the bottom of every post there are settings. That way you can see it every time, and choose to disable it when you feel like it.

And of course as MacNut said, separate lines/brackets next to the post timestamp.

After thinking about this a bit more, I have to say, I've developed a little aversion to this idea. But hey, at least there are other people who still like the idea.

 

[The Californian]

Or you could just ask them where they're from and do the math yourself. A lot of people would like to keep their location private. I think the only way to ensure that everyone's privacy is respected would be to have the default setting to not have your local time displayed.

I do like the idea though.