At 4:45 PM -0400 2005-09-09, Paul Svensson wrote:
it's easier to educate them if they are in a nearby timezone,
and maybe even speak my language.
But languages tend to break down on a national basis, not
timezone basis. Not everyone in CEST speaks French, or German, or
Polish, or any of a dozen other languages. Most countries are
smaller than a single timezone, and don't tend to have more than one
timezone within their boundaries.
So, it's much more useful for you to know that the servers you're
talking to are located in your same country, and therefore likely to
be operated by someone who speaks the same language you do.
Of course, this is not necessarily a valid assumption in some
countries -- in Belgium, there are three official state languages
(French, Flemish, and German), and one official EU language
(English), and many people will speak one or maybe two of these, but
if you don't speak the same one (or two), then you will still be
unable to communicate with them. And Belgium is not alone in this --
look at the Netherlands (Nederlands versus Frisian) and Switzerland
(French, German, and Italian), just to name two well-known Western
European countries where this is an issue.
The only place where timezone information would be useful is if
you're in a larger country that does have multiple timezones, and
there are relatively few countries where that is the case.
Moreover, most of the people in those countries would probably
speak the same language(s) anyway, and therefore it doesn't really
help you all that much to know that they are located within the same
timezone, as opposed to knowing that they are located within the same
country.
In addition, timezone information is still just a variant of
geographic location. We want topological distance, not geographical
location, so adding a further fine degree of information here doesn't
really help us.
Finally, most users can't seem to get their timezone correct in
the first place. You don't want them having their timezone set to
Singapore (or whatever), and being directed to contact server
operators in Singapore, if they themselves are located in Sweden (or
wherever).
If they can't get their timezone setting correct, then you don't
want to do anything that might be based on assuming that their
timezone setting is correct. My experience is that they're more
likely to have their country setting correct, because of the language
issue.
That's three fundamental problems I see with using timezones over
country-codes. If we were playing baseball, you'd be out.
--
Brad Knowles, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little
temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790), reply of the Pennsylvania
Assembly to the Governor, November 11, 1755
SAGE member since 1995. See <http://www.sage.org/> for more info.
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