Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sdchema.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!houxm!houxz!vax135!floyd!cmcl2!seismo!hao!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn From: donn@sdchema.UUCP (Donn Seeley) Newsgroups: net.news Subject: Re: Dates in news headings Message-ID: <152@sdchema.UUCP> Date: Fri, 1-Jun-84 03:20:53 EDT Article-I.D.: sdchema.152 Posted: Fri Jun 1 03:20:53 1984 Date-Received: Tue, 5-Jun-84 06:53:09 EDT References: <537@dual.UUCP> <648@sbcs.UUCP> Organization: State Home for the Maturity-Impaired, San Diego Lines: 26 From: debray@sbcs.UUCP Date: Tue, 29-May-84 22:51:29 PDT Date-Received: Thu, 31-May-84 18:04:02 PDT Does that mean that the time in the header is the time in *the reader's time-zone* corresponding to the time of posting of the article? If so, of what use is it?) In case you were wondering, this symptom is part of the reason for the existence of the notorious time warp bug in B news (fixed by Jim McGinness, decvax!jmcg). B news ALWAYS converts date fields into an internal format when it receives an article, causing the time zone information to disappear. When you read an article, the time zone in the date fields is your own. This means that the date information in an article header is useless for determining the longitude of the poster or the local time the article was posted. It DOES give you an idea of how long the article took to get to your site. Actually I would rather not have the date fields interpreted... I can't imagine how not interpreting the dates would break anything. What do the B news maintainers think of this? I didn't REALLY post this article at 3:20 in the morning, Donn Seeley UCSD Chemistry Dept. ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdchema!donn