On 11/08/2016 21:30, Gary Dale wrote: > Why should calendars be tied to locales?
For Lunar based calenders, which is what the Islamic calendar is, the issue is which meridian to use, for sighting the new moon. For those who use the Thelemic Calendar, both longitude and latitude are significant. (Right now it is Anno Vii ☉ 19 ♌ ☽ 3 ♐ A 27 ♐.) For oddities such as those, a configuration setting in ">Tools >Options" could be added, with a reasonable default as a fallback option. Mecca for the Islamic Calendar. Boleskine House for the Thelemic Calendar. Jerusalem for a Karaite Jewish Calendar, etc. > While all European nations use the Gregorian calendar secularly, the Julian > is still used for religious purposes. My impression is that the Buddhist calendar is still used in Kalmykia. > Is this a case of the locales being overused for things that aren't really > location dependent? Discussion about Sharia law can take place somewhere else, such as your local mosque on Friday, at noon. Which locale to use for an Islamic Calendar _can_ be the subject of a ruling by either a local imam, or a national body. The issue being whether or not it is acceptable to declare a new month, without any reports of the new moon being sighted. For one of the locales, the new moon must be sighted by two reliable witnesses, before the month can be declared, however, for one of the other locales, a new moon can be declared, without sighting the new moon. The current trend is to ignore new moon sighting, relying instead upon astronomical calculations of where the moon is, and whether or not it would be visible. This means that the calender might be more location dependent, but, at the same time, one has less reliance on potentially unreliable witnesses, and their spiritual leaders. The practical application is that it is possible for one to look outside, see the crescent moon, but because of the selected locale, the calender does not show the new month. (This scenario is not uncommon with people in Hawaii, who rely on notification from sources in either Egypt or Saudi Arabia.) Dave Stevens wrote: >if there are particular locales you'd like to see why not be specific? My thinking is that if one is going to go to create a calendar, it should be available for all locales. It doesn't matter if one is talking about the Mayan Long Count, the Islamic Calendar, or the Thelemic Calendar. jonathon -- To unsubscribe e-mail to: [email protected] Problems? http://www.libreoffice.org/get-help/mailing-lists/how-to-unsubscribe/ Posting guidelines + more: http://wiki.documentfoundation.org/Netiquette List archive: http://listarchives.libreoffice.org/global/users/ All messages sent to this list will be publicly archived and cannot be deleted
