User talk:Joe Kress/Archive 2006/10/15–2009/04/20

Need an opinion on these changes

Hi Joe, small difference of opinion about the precise definition of Anno Domini. Can you take a look at these edits in Anno Domini and Common Era and the followup on User_talk:Gerry_Ashton#Your_edits_to_Anno_Domini_and_Common_Era? The Catholic Encyclopedia agrees with my understanding; Gerry Ashton believes the definition is in dispute. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Ok, the discussion has been moved to Talk:Anno_Domini#Epoch_is_nativity_or_conception.3F. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 00:48, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Parilia and Easter

Good detective work, but is that a quote from Bede or from Jones? I assume it's from Bede, the cite for it should also indicate the point in the original Opera de Temporibus. --Chris Bennett 15:55, 20 October 2006 (UTC)

Sorry, my cryptic citation has mislead you. That is not a quote but my version of a conclusion by Jones from a remark by Prosper in 444 who complained about "circuses and bedlam" during Founder's Day. It has nothing whatsoever to do with Bede. It occurs within Jones' long preface to Bede's work entitled "Development of the Latin ecclesiastical calendar" on pages 1-122 of the book. I took some liberty with Jones, because he did not mention Lent. Instead he concluded that Founder's Day could not be allowed within "Holy Week", presumably the last week of Lent, from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday. Jones also notes that the Roman church may have reluctantly agreed that Easter could be as late as April 22 or 23 if they could not avoid pressure from Alexandria to accept its Easter because that would be a minimal intrusion into "Holy Week", which makes no sense because a two day intrusion would place Founder's Day on Good Friday! – Joe Kress 02:45, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Hmm. That makes it sound like an inference and a not particularly certain one at that. I have Jones' book on order through ILL, thanks for the cite.

In any case I wonder if this remark shouldn't really be n the article on Easter rather than the Julian calendar?

--Chris Bennett 20:43, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

If this reason is not accepted, then we have no explanation for Rome's vociferous rejection of Easter after April 21, at the same time that they willingly changed the vernal equinox from March 25 to March 21 (c. AD 340). Nevertheless, you are correct that it properly belongs in Easter. — Joe Kress 23:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

bottomfeeder?

Joe, Why do you want (Talk:Easter) any new discussion topics added to the bottom of a page? That means that the old cruft stays on top and we always have to page through it to get to the current issues. A Bad Idea IMNSHO. Tom Peters 10:08, 30 October 2006 (UTC)

I presume your complaint was triggered by my placement of the archival notice at the top of the page. Nevertheless, you are fighting a losing battle. The vast majority of Wikipedia editors add new discussion to the bottom of the page as Myzou did on Talk:Easter, and you also answered at the bottom, just like I did. Editors can and do put their comments anywhere on the talk page, including the middle, which neither a top nor bottom posting request will stop.

I never page through the talk page to get to current issues. Whenever I see a page that I watch on My watchlist, I always click on "hist" to the right of the name of the talk page—I never click on the talk page itself. On the history I select the last post that I viewed in the left column of radio buttons. I then select "Compare selected versions". This allows me to view new discussions at the top, bottom, or middle of the talk page without having to scroll through any old discussion. This is especially appropriate for very active talk pages, when even fifty new edits scattered throughout the page in one day is not that unusual.

When applied to articles, this allows me to catch vandalism like that recently on computus. To revert such vandalsim, do not correct each change individually. Instead, select the last good version on Page history, then select Edit this page, then Save page without making any changes to it. This reverts the vandalism without missing even minor changes that the vandal made. — Joe Kress 23:38, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

Good catch, thanks!

Took me a minute to see what you changed. I'm not sure what happened there; I guess something got mangled because he was vandalizing the page so frequently. You're right...time to archive. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 23:39, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Inter caetera

Thanks, Joe, for the corrections to Inter caetera. I'm going to NPOV it a bit, but hopefully, not change the substance. Thanks again! NorCalHistory 01:06, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

It appears that the incipit of the Sept. 1493 Bull is Dudum siquidem (see, e. g., [1] and [2]). If you agree, I'll be glad to make the change in the text.NorCalHistory 19:36, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Hebrew Calendar

Just thought you should know -- the limits table looks great under FireFox, but have a look at it under IE 6.0. Microsoft seems to really screw it up. I don't know what the solution is for this. Karlhahn 22:23, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the alert. I have read that Internet Explorer does not implement all of the rules of Cascading Style Sheets in the manner prescribed by the World Wide Web Consortium. In this case, they either do not recognize a "border-style" of "hidden" or do not let "hidden" supersede "solid". If the first, then an undesirable fix would be to repeat my single type in all neighboring cells. If the second, then more style rules would fix it. I did indeed conduct my testing in FireFox. After your alert, I checked it in IE7 and found the same problem that you found in IE6. — Joe Kress 03:11, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

The problem is that IE5,6,7 do not recognize "hidden", so I had to substitute "none". Although "hidden" supersedes "solid", "solid" supersedes "none", which requires the borders of virtually all cells to be specified. — Joe Kress 12:13, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

User talk:Darthvader1

Hi, Joe! The silly thing is, as far as I can tell I only reverted him once, with a clear explanation in the edit summary and another explanation on his talk page. That one wasn't even a close call; he was trying to insert a diatribe about 9/11 and subsequent events into the 2001 article. No matter how you look at it, the September 11 entry on the 2001 page is for things that happened on that date -- and the TSA was not formed on that date. I can't say for sure that I haven't reverted him since then, although if I have, I didn't feel it necessary to send him a warning about it. I did, however, revert this tonight, but this was after his note to me caused me to review his recent edits. BTW, has the TSA actually deployed those backscatter X-ray units? I've only flown a few times this year; I haven't seen them. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:32, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

An EPIC Spotlight on Surveillance dated June 2005 indicated that the machines were being used at 16 or more airports. The TSA was requesting funds to install them nationwide. Today's news says that the previous usage was only by drug enforcement agents—by Christmas the Phoenix airport will begin using the machine for those passengers who fail the initial screening, who even then can opt out and choose a pat down. Several more airports will begin using the machines in early 2007. The TSA description is here. The complete TSA list of allowed and prohibited items, including liquids, is here. — Joe Kress 07:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I just realized that those liquid restrictions will affect me. I'm flying on Tuesday, and it looks like I'm going to have to check my bag; my smallest contact lens solution bottles are 120 ml. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 17:03, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

By the way...

If you missed Talk:1 BC#Requested move, check it out. I had to restrain myself from posting some really nasty comments that would have probably caused someone to send me an {{agf1}} warning. -- Jim Douglas ^(talk) _(contribs) 04:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

I was aware of that discussion but felt no need to participate because you and others handled the situtation nicely. — Joe Kress 07:43, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

Unblock

• I've contacted the blocking administrator for comment; in the meantime, please bear with us, and thanks for your patience. Luna Santin 23:44, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

According to Special:ipblocklist, an entire range of IP addresses was blocked by Essjay at 22:34 on 24 December 2006 for one week (I hope Essjay is not on vacation). See User talk:Essjay#67.150.0.0/16. My IP address is within the range 67.150.*.* but is dynamic (it is now 67.150.59.105). That range was previously blocked by other administrators earlier in the year for only a few hours at a time, so it never affected me before. It is possible that my ISP, ArcZip, has been assigned that range (its headquarters are in Utah). Consult WhatIsMyIPAddress to determine your IP address. — Joe Kress 03:03, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

I've now determined that my IP address will change to some other value within the range 67.150.*.* simply by disconnecting and reconnecting the dialup connection to my ISP, ArcZip. My computer does not need to be restarted or powered off. Your IP address can also be determined by Start | Run | cmd | ipconfig, but only if you are currently connected to your ISP. If you are not connected, no IP address will be displayed. — Joe Kress 04:33, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Babylonian calendar

Your assumption that Babylonians had always used the 19-year cycle is false. The cycle was introduced probably in the V century BC. So do you imply that before that time there was no Babylonian calendar? Of course, there was, and Babylonians had to rely solely on the vernal equinox as a point of reference to fix the beginning of the new year in their calendar. This can be seen from the VI BC tablets. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Bravehearted (talk • contribs) 12:33, 20 January 2007 (UTC).

Copied to and answered on Talk:Babylonian calendar. — Joe Kress 00:22, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

Of course the motion of the Earth affects travel time

Jupiter is not where we see it now. If the Earth didn't move, Jupiter would be at yet a DIFFERENT spot than where we see it now.SBHarris 09:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Egyptian calendar

Hi there Joe. When you get a chance would you kindly look over these recent additions to the a/n article, made by an anon who has some form for introducing rather idiosyncratic original research into calendrics-related articles. I suspect these additions include more of the same, spliced together perhaps with some less-comprehensible restatements of what was already documented. Unfortunately I don't have the background on egyptian calendrics to confirm one way or the other. Cheers, --cjllw | TALK 01:22, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

The additions have some nuggets of truth intertwined with personal optinion. As one editor said, his additions are bizarre. Some of his latest additions appear to be direct copies of other articles. I'm not sure whether to revert it or include some of his changes. Obviously he has de-wikified the article. — Joe Kress 07:55, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks Joe. It seems another editor has since decided to wholesale revert those additions, which on balance I think is appropriate. If there was anything worth saving, it would at the very least need a concerted rewrite to be comprehensible.--cjllw | TALK 04:44, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

TAI and TT in Delta T

You reverted some corrections that I made to Delta T regarding the relationship between TAI and TT. Why? What was wrong with my text? The former (and current) article text is wrong. TT is by definition perfectly uniform, and TAI is a realisation of it. 195.224.75.71 14:54, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

early medieval zeros

Joe Kress, I would ask you (after your contribution of 17-1-2007) to take cognizance of the new contributions of JPD and of me to the discussion at Talk:Number concerning the early medieval zeros at Wiki items [Dionysius Exiguus] and [Number] and to react to these contributions. But I would ask you and JPD and other ones to react to the discussion concerning Wiki item [Dionysius Exiguus], specially to my proposals to improve this Wiki item, at Talk:Dionysius_Exiguus (the only right place for this discussion after all), at which I would like to continue this discussion. Jan Z 12:56, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

International Atomic Time

Hi Joe. Have you seen my comment at the top of the TAI discussion page? I'm not prone to make the change myself, and I'm wondering if you are game. Steven L Allen 17:22, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Gore & Globe

Hi, I replied to an old comment of yours, on Talk:Longitude#Mile conversion. Andy Mabbett 00:46, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

February name and references

Hello. I put a note and references about the month name of February in the Gregorian calendar article. I had bad luck: the most relevant link reference, that what relates "February", "fever" and "influenza", was broken hours after I put it on the article.

I reviewed the broken link; apparently, it is due to the fact that the web site host is being rearranged. As soon as the supporting article becomes available on line, I wish to restore the full original note with the new link.

To see the private discussion about "February", "fever" and "influenza", please visit the Gerry Ashton's talk page (the other member that drops my original note). Yours.Ricardo Cancho Niemietz 08:37, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

The link was repaired and I restored the note and the reference again. I also cite Censorinus as a source and redirect the influenza link to flu season, which is more relevant to the case. Did you know that the winter flu kills about 36,000 people a year only in the US? Think about flu and ancient Romans then...Ricardo Cancho Niemietz 09:21, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Thanxies!!!!

Thanks for the year thing. I'm writing a short story about Wu Mei coming to the harem of the Emperor and I thought it would be cool to say "The Year of the Dog" instead of a Western year, so thank-you for finding that for me. God Bless! --Working for Him 21:02, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

Your interest in calendar reform.

Hello Mr. Kress:

What inspires your interest in calendar reform? I would be interested to learn about your research in this area.

Please take a moment to examine (but do not edit) my biography. I see you have taken considerable time to revise my additions throughout wikipedia. I wish you knew more about me, my research, and my present health condition. Yes, I am new to the wikipedia environment, but would appreciate a kinder interaction (I am accustomed to publishing in peer-reviewed journals).

Incidentally, may I kindly suggest that you eliminate the tautological definition of calendar reform in your opening line: "Calendar reform is any reform of a calendar".

Thank you.

-Dr. Markel

Semper Fi

Paul Markel 06:45, 16 May 2007 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Paul Markel (talk • contribs) 06:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC).

Calendars

Hi, just a short note to say thanks for your tireless work on the calendar articles. I have translated some of them or used them as a model on bg.wikipedia, from 2004 on, and have them on my watch list -- and I see that you're constantly improving them. Thanks and keep up the good work! --5ko 11:43, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Comparison of World Calendar with Gregorian Calendar

I draw your attention to the new article Comparison of World Calendar and Gregorian Calendar, which could be construed as violating WP:NPOV or just not being notable enough to justify its existence as a separate article. It has been created by the same author who added the Calendar Reform template you deleted. Karl 09:34, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that article. Although I have not read it completely, I doubt that it violates NPOV judging by the title. My initial thought is that it should merge with World Calendar, which I presume is monitored by the current World Calendar representative, TWCAdirector. He can remove any incorrect, redundant, or excessive material. — Joe Kress 01:39, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree. My only concern is that the table is very long and could be replaced by a more compact representation of the same information. I added something towards this in the Calendar Wikia version of the page [3]. Karl 14:59, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you "Royal Observatory, Greenwich"

Thanks for correcting my sloppy spelling and grammer. Much appreciated Horology —Preceding unsigned comment added by Horology (talk • contribs) 08:10, 2 July 2007

Do you have details about Pravan Veda

I tried creating this page, but somehow it got removed, even when I had provided proper citations for the same. Kindly respond at my talk page. Can you share with me your resources about Mayan? BalanceRestored 11:38, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

Hipparchus and Meton

The final version about Hipparchus and Meton as written by you is perfectly true. But you should consider one point. Meton took the 19 year cycle from Babylon, where astronomical calculations of high precision were being made. Hence it is inconceivable that the users of this 19 year cycle used a value of year which was most inaccurate in the history of mankind ( 6940 / 19 ). 6940 is a mere rounding off. We do not have records of actual year-length used by Babylonians (esp Chaldeans ) and Meton, and therefore one may accept the rounded value 6940/19. There are innumerable evidences which suggest that lunisolar year was used by Egyptians (near or before 3000 BCE,when they shifted to solar year),Babylonians,Greeks,Indians,etc. Vedanga Jyotisha of India is said to originate around 1400 BCE (H T Colebrooke),which is clearly based upon lunisolar year. Hence, the common origin of lunisolar year must be put in or before 4th millenium BCE, perhaps in North Africa. Users of lunisolar years needed accurate measurements of concurrences of Sun and Moon, and of intercalary months. Moreover, there are evidences suggesting a knowledge of precession of stars in Egypt(reorientation of structures according to reigning stars which shift over centuries). Vedanga Jyotish(of Lagadha) and Brihatsamhita (550 AD,Varah Mihira) suggest that Indians also knew that equinoxes move over time. Hence, it is not proper to assert that Hipparchus discovered precession. He may be the first recorded person to scientifically ascertain the value of precession though experimentation : that is his real contribution ; but he did not discover precession. But the value of his tropical year as given in Almagest is nearer to Metonic year than to tropical year. Hence I think Ptolemy is not wholly reliable in this respect. The ancients were perhaps more accurate than we imagine. I will not retouch your article,because you will not allow it, but please consider the points raised by me.I am an expert of Surya Siddhanta and other Indian systems, and related topics, esp of practical methods of computations which no commentator exactly knows : it has remained a trade secret of almanac makers of India. Published versions are crude, originally written for teaching students. - vinayjhaa@gmail.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.94.47.127 (talk • contribs) 07:19, 12 July 2007

End of consular dating

I have added some text based on your input and that of Dojarca about this topic. Take a look and adjust as you see fit --Chris Bennett 21:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

Sry

My rv caused it to appear again; sorry for trouble. Tony 05:59, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

Prime Meridian

That vandalism was just subtle enough that I wasn't completely sure it was vandalism, so I didn't reverse it. I figured that if it was wrong, someone with greater knowledge of the subject would come along and correct it. That's the most harmful kind of vandalism on WP, though, the kind where it sounds just plausible enough that people are reluctant to reverse it. -- Zsero 20:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I just happen to be studying the deflection of the vertical at the Royal Observatory, so I am aware that astronomical instruments are aligned to the local plumb line via a spirit level. Saying that "areas" are aligned to it is not wrong, just awkward and not strictly related to the article. Because of my continuing study, I now know that the paragraph itself is somewhat erroneous, even though I wrote much of it myself. The problem I now have is how to reword it. — Joe Kress 21:39, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Treaty_of_Tordesillas

See Talk:Treaty_of_Tordesillas#Map_Image_issues... Let's discuss further there if needed, but I believe your revert was unwarranted. ++Lar: t/c 16:48, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

Hebrew calendar

Thanks for your helpful comments at the talk page. I have reinstated a part of the long paragraph, with attribution, and I am continuing work on it. I don't have such a great grasp of the astronomy, however, so I hope what I have in there regarding the "reference meridian" for the "molad interval" is correct - as best I understand it, the fixed times of the molad interval correspond to the actual times one would observe or predict the lunar conjunction at a longitude 4 degrees east of Jerusalem. If I understand correctly, this is significant either because it suggests from where the calendrical calculations were developed (ie, Babylon?) and/or from whom (the Greek astronomers?). Is that close? Kaisershatner 13:27, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

IBMPC

Are you the same Joe Kress who used to contribute to the IBMPC FORUM on VNET? --Gerry Ashton (talk) 19:22, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Probably, because I was an IBM employee until 1994. However, that is so long ago that I don't remember specifically appending to IBMPC FORUM. My greatest activity was in CALENDAR FORUM. — Joe Kress (talk) 06:59, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Leap Year

Yes, the terms can be grouped either way, but there's one way that's more efficient and also demonstrates that only years that are multiples of 4 are potentially leap years. And leaving the parens out will, in most programming languages, group them the other way (and being higher precedence than or). So I don't really see the point of your edit, but since I don't want to prolong an edit war, I leave it to you to do something about (or not). Ysth (talk) 09:33, 2 March 2008 (UTC)

I was trying to stop the ongoing edit war by noting that either grouping is correct. One editor even said that one of the two groupings was wrong. Efficiency and the order of preference is outside the scope of Wikipedia. I have restrained myself from deleting the Leap Year#Algorithm section even though it can be construed to be a how-to discussion, which is prohibited on Wikipedia. — Joe Kress (talk) 04:54, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Fair enough. Thanks for your thoughtful edits. Ysth (talk) 07:17, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

Decades

Hello! You’ve written here [4]. Are you sure that decade (0s) may consist of nine years?! I suppose that it is nonsense and WP:CFORK (because it is possible for somebody to create parallel categories: Category:First decade of 1st century for years 1-10 and so on). If this was a convention, can you indicate the Wikipedian source of that idea? Thanks.--ChroniclerSPb (talk) 14:29, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

All Wikipedia conventions I've checked are consistent: Wikipedia:Timeline standards, Category:Decades, List of decades, WP:MOS#Longer periods, and MOS:DATE#Longer periods apparently are derived from calling modern decades the 1920s, the 1990s, and the like. I'm sure this discussion occured many times in the early history of Wikipedia, but I can't find it at the moment. This convention created the problem that the first decades BC and AD only have nine years each because there is no year 0. The alternative convention of identifying the aforementioned decades as 1921–1930 or 1991–2000 is rather awkward when speaking, even though it would have resulted in ten years in the first decades BC and AD. — Joe Kress (talk) 07:31, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

So, I observe that different users can apply the system they like more - for example: List of battles 1901-2000 (system 1-0) vs. List of wars 1900-1944 (system 0-9). The same problem exists in the Russian Wikipedia (categories which have interwikis vs. articles). In the Category:20th century one can see the table with lines from x1 to x0, but in the article 20th century#Decades and years – the table with lines from x0 to x9. In all wikipedias (except Russian) the article like 1990s refers to period 1990-1999, only in Russian Wikipedia it refers to the period 1991-2000 (see ru:1990-е). It’s a pity but there is no real consensus (only the first user’s will :-) ).--ChroniclerSPb (talk) 18:21, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Your deletion

Your recent edit removed the template {{clarifyme}} from the page Roman numerals, even though the required changes have not been made. Please be careful not to remove any maintenance templates from articles before the issue is satisfactorily resolved. If you disagree with it or you are not sure if any more work needs to be done, discuss the issue on the relevant talk page and allow time for a consensus to be reached before you remove the notice. These notices and comments are needed to establish community consensus about the status of a page. -- Smjg (talk) 18:43, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I've just noticed that you did it again, and that your edit summary included "internal link to clarification". I'm not sure what you thought you were doing, as the section you've added a link to bears no relation to what the clarify request is about, i.e. what cards are being talked about. -- Smjg (talk) 21:02, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

NATO 'fower' (4)

Hi. I'd be interested to read your opinion on my recent query about the NATO/ICAO fower. --NigelG (or Ndsg) | Talk 09:03, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Aztec calendar

Hi there Joe. If you have the time, would appreciate you looking over this discussion at the Aztec calendar talkpg, concerning an ext link to an animated "aztec" calendar (found here, scroll down to the bottom to see it; there's also apparently a book associated with it). I have raised my concerns there re the accuracy of how these 'sources' portray the workings and interpretations of the aztec calendrical systems. I would respect any input you may have. Cheers, --cjllw ʘ TALK 07:42, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

I have never studied the Aztec calendar, so I could not comment at the time you asked for my opinion. I have done some research since then, but I'm still not ready to comment. — Joe Kress (talk) 07:40, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

No worries, quite understand. If you do come across anything in your readings, that clarifies or even contradicts the line taken in that discussion, would be glad to hear of it; it's not my specialty subject area so I cld very well be overlooking something. Regards, --cjllw ʘ TALK 12:57, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

"It is not necessary..." ≠ "Thou shalt not..."

Dear Mr. Kress: The guidelines to which you referred me state that "...there is no need to correct typing errors, grammar, etc...." This is far from an absolute prohibition, which seems to be your interpretation. As an English teacher, I consider it a favor to my fellow wikipedians to help them with their grammar, spelling, and punctuation.

All the best, Writtenright (talk) 22:16, 16 June 2008 (UTC)Writtenright

Thai lunar calendar

Would you take a new look at Thai lunar calendar? Pawyilee (talk) 16:38, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but I do not have any knowledge of or interest in Thai festivals. My main interest is the calendar's history and technical aspects. Nor can I read Thai even though I did spend a year in the country during the Vietnam conflict (at Udon Thani). — Joe Kress (talk) 18:53, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your help with the headings. I'm confused as to whether Principal lunar festivals should perhaps be Principle, so side-stepped to Diller's Holidays and festivals regulated by the moon. Pawyilee (talk) 15:05, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

It should be "principal" meaning the "most important". See Principal / Principle or Principle / Principal. — Joe Kress (talk) 04:23, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

I found the 'a' in '-pal' means it is an adjective; '-le' is le noun. But I settled on Work holidays and festivals regulated by the moon for now. Pawyilee (talk) 10:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Public holidays in Thailand

Right now I'm playing with Public holidays in Thailand in my sandbox. I've discarded the idea of colorizing the table as I did with Lunar Work holidays so as to add "holidays" that are not work holidays, as I think that would be confusing. Instead, I'm thinking of putting those in a second table for such as Children's Day, Teachers Day, the four armed forces days, etc. I also discarded the idea of adding columns for last, present and next year calendar dates in favor of a link to a yet-to-be decided government site (such as a Thai embassy) that lists them. What do you think? Pawyilee (talk) 10:39, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that holidays when work ceases should be distinguished from calendar days for which some group commemorates some cause or idea. Keeping the article up-to-date regarding holidays is a daunting task. If you rely on a government or any other internet site, it may soon be changed due to reorganization of its site, becoming a dead link unless you or some other knowledgable person is around to correct it. Similarly, if you include those holidays within the article and they change, the info becomes incorrect quickly unless you or someone else is around to update it. I'm not sure if you or anyone else can say that they will continue to monitor the article for years and years. The article is not of interest to most English language readers, so if you are not around, it may soon become hopelessly out-of-date. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

You're right! When I added Other national observances, I put the wrong date for Thai Armed Forces Day, which had already been changed due do recalculation of the year of the fight it commemorated. Luckily, a Thai Wikipedia article straightened me out, once I found and decoded it. "Trooping the colors" is also bound to change, as it precedes the current monarch's birthday, but will be a minor detail when that changes. I left an embedded note not to leave local observances, but to put them in the the provincial article or on a page of their own, linked to Category:Festivals in Thailand. I then broke my own rule by adding Yee Ping Festival in Chiang Mai, because it has more notoriety among English readers than, say, Ubol's Candle Festival or Yasothon's Rocket Festival. Phuket's Vegetarian Festival also made the list, because it just started in Phuket, then spread to just about everywhere with a large Thai Chinese community, to the point of displacing Thetsagan Sart Thai and Sart Chin on the calendars I've seen. Work holiday are also bound to change, but I embedded hidden table headings for all dates to make it easier for future editors to find the write place. Oh, and thanks for your clarification, below; I copied it to TSC's Talk page. Pawyilee (talk) 12:18, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Thai solar calendar

Right now it reads, in part, "...[Anno_Domini|Christian Era] (Thai: คริสต์ศักราช, kritsakarat) , abbreviated Kho So (Thai: ค.ศ.). They also show Chinese numerals for the Common Era...."

"Christian Era" is the correct English translation of the Thai, but you are right that "Kho So (Thai: ค.ศ.)" should be "A.D." As for Chinese, an American, who lived there for a year studying Mandarin, told me they just use plain numerals without an era designation, so "Common Era" without a linkage works for me. Some other editor may come along and change it, so I'll put this on TSC's Talk page for future reference. Pawyilee (talk) 11:56, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

As formerly mentioned in Common Era (this level of detail has been edited out), since 1949 mainland China has often identified Western Gregorian years (January–December) via the term Common Era (gōngyuán 公元), to distinguish them from the same numbered years in the traditional lunisolar calendar (agricultural calendar or Chinese calendar). — Joe Kress (talk) 05:49, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Babylonian calendar

Don't alter articles when you clearly don't know the subject. You alterations have had to be reversed becuase they are either weak, irrelevant or incorrect. Article writers should be expert before they consider alterations. --Cal Enda Gar (talk) 17:37, 31 July 2008 (UTC)

Answered at Talk:Babylonian calendar#Article alterations. — Joe Kress (talk) 00:41, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Date precision on Earth page

We appear to have an issue with the precision of the Sidereal day field on the Earth article, so I would like to discuss this before we get into a revert war. Per Wikipedia:MoS#Large_numbers:

Avoid over-precise values where they are unlikely to be stable or accurate, or where the precision is unnecessary in the context. (The speed of light in a vacuum is 299,792,458 metres per second is probably appropriate, but The distance from the Earth to the Sun is 149,014,769 kilometres and The population of Cape Town is 2,968,790 would usually not be, because both values are unstable at that level of precision, and readers are unlikely to care in the context.)

0.997267 gives a value accurate to the tenth of a second, and the number is going to vary over time. I challenge you to demonstrate that a reader will care about higher precision than six decimals. Are you going to keep updating the value over time? Thanks.—RJH (talk) 16:36, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

The rotation period of Earth is stable at the millisecond level. It has not deviated from the eight significant digit value given (which includes +1 ms) by more than about 2 ms since 1650, thus it meets the Manual of Style criteria. Other values within the infobox have even more significant digits, so these eight significant digits are not excessive in context. See IERS Excess of the duration of the day to 86400s … since 1623 (the graph at the end shows deviations slightly greater than the tabulated figures). The two trailing zeros within the h:m:s value are significant. Indeed, if the value is given in "seconds of mean solar time" rather than SI seconds, the IERS gives this stellar day to fourteen significant digits in their Useful constants, which they call exact (it excludes the +1 ms). On the other hand, time is the integration of the given length-of-day (LOD) over many years (millions of seconds) so it includes several leap seconds, and is now 65 seconds greater than its average value between 1750 and 1892, called Terrestrial Time (TT). Do not confuse time with LOD. — Joe Kress (talk) 22:43, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay I see what you're getting at. There should perhaps be an explanatory note added to that field to avoid further confusion. However, surely the orbital period (as measured in days) changes as the length of the day varies (since it is given in solar days). Also I believe that eccentricity undergoes variation on the order of 0.0004 per thousand years, so it may have too many digits. I haven't finished checking the others yet.—RJH (talk) 18:35, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

The other values in the infobox may have excessive precision, but most sources don't give the maximum precision available, and I have not researched them yet. Although many of the parameters do indeed vary, they do so over thousands or millions of years, so their current value should be valid for the life of Wikipedia. Regarding the orbital period, most astronomical sources do not give its value in mean solar days, but in International Astronomical Union days, each of which have exactly 86400 SI seconds, the same day (d) used in Earth's rotation period. — Joe Kress (talk) 20:31, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Geographic coordinate system

Thanks for fixing my mistake in failing to do a complete job reverting the edits by User:203.202.188.211 in article Geographic coordinate system. I should have done a better job to checking the results. Thanks again for the fix. Dbiel ^(Talk) 03:54, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

NATO phonetic alphabet

Thanks for referring me to the incorrect unlinking by Lighbot of the letter 'M' in NATO phonetic alphabet. Note that messages on the bot talk page may not be seen. Such messages are best left on my talk page. Anyway, thanks again. Lightmouse (talk) 07:56, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

Leap Second

I agree that extra gallactic radio sources can be and are used for measuring the Earths rotation, but the Solar day can only ultimately be measured by observing the sun. By way of explanation, if the radio sources ever moved out of syncronisation with the rotation of the earth around the sun, ( an extremely unlikely but not impossible event) then we would have to rely on our observations of the Sun to give us our Solar day. The point I am trying to make is that apparant Solar time can be measured by nothing more complicated than a sundial. Canol (talk) 02:16, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Response at Talk:Leap second. — Joe Kress (talk) 20:44, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Roman numerals

Sorry, your edit wasn't vandalism, just wrong. The headings in that table are the number coded by those unicode roman numerals; if it were just the index into the table, the heading line shouldn't be there at all. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 02:44, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

I was returning the table to its stable state since it was created by Random832 on 24 June 2007, who had included the last haexadecimal digit of the Unicode table entry as its heading. It was changed 31 January 2009 by an anonymous editor (98.244.52.159) who thought "it was copied from a hexadecimal conversion table". I believe the last hexadecimal digit is essential to determine the Unicode hexadecimal code of the entry. The numerical headings do not match the third line of the table as shown in Unicode number forms. — Joe Kress (talk) 03:37, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Western Semitic Calender

Western Semitic Calendar Rktect (talk) 01:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Rktect

He's had several blocks and an arbitration decision against him for OR. I've just given him 2 warnings, and I am at the end of my tether with him. 3 1/2 years and he hasn't learned. dougweller (talk) 20:33, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Year zero

Over at Talk:Year zero#Third opinion an IP editor, 24.242.42.17, has requested a WP:3O regarding an issue with the article. When he calls for the views of 'Joe' it seems he is hoping you will respond. If you are not following this any more, please leave a note to that effect on Talk so that the 3O request can be closed. Thanks, EdJohnston (talk) 03:24, 22 February 2009 (UTC)

It would help if you reworded the section in question for clarity (ie, is year zero actually a year long, or only a place holder), and more so if you gave a source demonstrating this usage in modern astronomy. NJGW (talk) 20:18, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

I see you just responded while I was typing this. I'll read your resp and then respond. NJGW (talk) 20:20, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

Thanks , and a language point

(1) I found your formatting improvements instructive when I noticed them on a couple of edits that I'd done: so _thanks_ for your example -- because I'm still a bit inexperienced on this. I'm trying to figure out the style instructions, but I do still find them a maze.

(2) I'd appreciate your views on a language point: 'Precession of the equinoxes': It's likely to be a long time before astronomical folk stop referring to this, so calling it a 'former' term does not seem quite true. Granted, the officials are preferring 'precession of the equator', but it's not clear that this has taken over. The new term also has drawbacks (e.g. many things have equators but there is only one fiducial equinox not yet quite officially abolished) which mean that the old term might not ever disappear. I don't want to change the edit, but just to suggest reconsideration. Kind regards, Terry0051 (talk) 13:53, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

#2 Computus & Anatolius

Computus & Anatolius: I saw your amendment of my edit about Anatolius, and agree that it adds relevant detail. You might also be interested to notice that Anatolius' omission of some two or three leap years (relative to the Julian calendar) clearly changed the length of the 'cycle', and went a long way to destroy its cyclic character. The error with respect to the solar calendar would have been something approaching ten days in a century, and the error with respect to the real motion of the moon would have been about as great, so that Anatolius' version of the 19-year cycle would have been probably a worse fit with the lunar motion than the 84-year lunar 'cycle' of the Roman computus that persisted for some centuries, giving trouble because of its inaccuracy. Terry0051 (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

McCarthy observed that Anatolius must have thought the Second Coming was soon, otherwise he would not have proposed such an irregular 'cycle'. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

#3 Source materials for zodiac history

About your research in the history of the zodiac that you mentioned on the talk page of 'Zodiac': (a) I'd suggest that O Neugebauer, 'History of Ancient Mathematical Astronomy' (1975) may also be worth a look. (b) Also, I might be able soon to get to a library that has your wished-for reference "Archiv fuer Orientforschung", and if there is anything you can tell me about what you would like within the van der Waerden paper, I'd be happy to try and see what I can get transmitted over to you. Terry0051 (talk) 11:06, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

I would be interested in his conclusions relative to those of Rogers. He gives a very cryptic summary of his paper in his book Science awakening II: The birth of astronomy pp.287+. Unfortunately, my local university library where I now live only has a limited collection so I do not have immediate access to Neugebauer even though I have consulted HAMA many times in the past. — Joe Kress (talk) 19:48, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

Well, I borrowed a copy of the volume containing the van der Waerden paper when I went in for some other things. There's a whole lot in there and he gives a bunch of evidence for developmental stages of zodiacal constellations, the earliest items mentioned seem to be from 7th-c BC and 5th-c BC. I could transmit something in scanned form if there's an available route, feel free to email me (link on my user-page). -- Terry0051 (talk) 22:00, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Swedish calendar

"...according to Kepler's Rudolphine Tables."

The looks of this talk page convinces me that you do know what you are talking about.  :) But then, for the sake of lay people like me, could you please do some work on Rudolphine Tables to make clear the connection? Thank you. - Hordaland (talk) 14:00, 8 April 2009 (UTC)

Although Sweden specified the Rudolphine Tables, any tables could have been used, even modern calculations, as long as all dates are calculated at the meridian of Uraniborg at the southern tip of Sweden, 12º42' east of Greenwich or 50.8 minutes earlier. The article on Kepler's tables probably should mention that they were used by Protestant Germany, Denmark (including Norway) and Sweden (including Finland) to calculate Easter. In addition I have done some research since my revert, so I can expand the Easter section of the Swedish calendar article, including applicable references. — Joe Kress (talk) 02:11, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for answering and for fixing the calendar article -- much improved! (Even better than "fixing" the tables article, as I'd asked for.) Though it makes the usually stiffly well-organized and punctual Swedes look even worse than it did before... - Hordaland (talk) 14:13, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

Your recommendation?

You have made the statement I think on the julian day article talk page that the Julian templates are accurate enough for calculating gregorian equivalent dates. I note the template don't appear to be used by any significant number of articles though. I'd like to know if you think the templates JULIANDAY.Year/Month/Day are accurate enough for generating Gregorian equivalent dates if the date falls between certian dates. If so, what would those dates be? The idea would be to incorporate these into the microformat date templates if they are up to the task. -J JMesserly (talk) 07:40, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

I am quite familiar with the Julian date concept and have even programmed date conversion a long time age, so I can discuss the concept in general. But I have never studied the Wikipedia Template:JULIANDAY, so I can provide no recommendation regarding its acceptable date range. The algorithm described at Template talk:JULIANDAY is much more complicated than necessary, although that may be due to all of the parameter formats allowed. By the way, I had to do some research to even find out what a "microformat date" is. I get the impression from Template:Start-date that the acceptable ISO 8601 format for the year is [±YYYY] but not [±YYYYY]. — Joe Kress (talk) 08:09, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Wow. That's great. I think I just pass the ISO-8601 parameter verbatim. The authority on the format for that value is ISO8601 specs. BTW- this date information would be not just for microformats but all metadata emission from wikipedia, and by far the dominant metadata is mapping information that {{coord}} emits in the KML format. This is a consumer of time information as well. For example, map applications are adding history features[5], and the KML format allows passing of time parameters[6]. They are using ISO8601 too, though spot checks of google earth shows it is a little sloppy- you will see Z on the start date, but not on the end date if you set a pushpin timespan (see view tab), then save it as kml. Anyway, for the {{start-date}} ISO8601 parameter, if you put in time figure for some neolithic or geologic time event, it should just emit it as is, even if it is malformed. If that is not the case, I will correct it. The intent was for bots with a full featured language to come in and figure things out more accurately.

One editor in the MOSNUM imbroglio over plain text dates made a good suggestion to take a look at the Julian templates, and I stumbled on the contribution of User:Verdy p. Isn't #expr up to the task of these calculations? I haven't looked at his implementation either but theoretically, even if verdy made an error, the algorithm should be perfectible, since #expr has powerful enough functions for it? What if I folded that into the date templates so if date given is in the Julian range that the ISO date emitted for dates is calculated using it? But what to do about Roman Calendar? Eg: Battle of Cannae gives 2 August 216 BC. Are gregorian equivalents of these Roman calendar dates known with any accuracy? Are there any tables available so that a bot could figure these out? Gerry Ashton was telling me that the birth of Augustus is only known within a few days of accuracy.

Stepping back from this, I ask myself whether the Gregorian translation issue is irrelevant for kml data. Is it such a good idea to have google earth telling a schoolkid what the gregorian equivalent of Battle of Hastings is? (Actually, an accurate scenario might not be that bleak. I think there is a description text field where we could explain what the Julian date is- but anyway- we are introducing some dissonance there). I can see the utility for translation due the transition period when both Julian and Gregorian were used, but if you were the master of the kml spec, would you stick with strict ISO8601 (Gregorian), or use it only for formatting instructions, and content should reflect the calendar of the period? Then what about Chinese calendar dates? You know these issues backwards and forwards, so I want to know what our first stab at this should be. Of course it can be changed later, but regarding kml, do you think we should stick with normalization of dates into gregorian?

edit- ignore previous paragraph, it's not an option. Under 15.1.2 of the KML spec (OGC 07-147r2- see OGC KML pdf download at [7]) "Time values encoded within elements that extend kml:AbstractTimePrimitiveGroup shall be in the context of the temporal reference system specified by ISO 8601, which uses the Gregorian Calendar and 24 hour local or Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)." So they are explicit. We can't do non gregorian and be kml conformant. Interestingly, in the google earth dialog box for time, the dialog does not allow you to enter a year earlier than 1752- further evidence that they are anticipating people entering historical dates, and have taken the trouble to respond to some of the issues with code. -J JMesserly (talk) 22:41, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

Admittedly, this is a little speculative as no one is yet making use of this data. But I think it is a no brainer to predict that all the map applications will filter kml layers by date- the maps are already very cluttered if you turn many of these layers on. It would be excellent to see all WP articles for a given time period in a given geographic area. Anyway, we need to be thinking about how we want to emit this information, and express it in templates. -J JMesserly (talk) 18:43, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

ISO 8601 requires the use of the UTC time scale, which may include a positive or negative leap second at the end of a month. A proposal exists to save up all leap seconds until one leap hour is needed several hundred years in the future. The last second of a month is usually numbered 59 (with the last minute beginning at second 00), while a positive leap second increases it to 60 and a negative leap second (which has never occurred but is possible) decreases it to 58. However, the Julian Date calculated from UTC time cannot itself be UTC—it can be either UT1 (mean solar time at Greenwich), TAI (International Atomic Time kept by atomic clocks, now about UT1+65s), or TT (Terrestrial Time = TAI+32.184s). The International Astronomical Union (IAU) recommends TT, but it is concerned with the proper calculation of the positions of astronomical bodies, not human events. If JD(UT1) were used, knowledge of ΔT (=TT−UT1) at the end of June or December (when leap seconds normally occur) would be needed, which is available in machine readable format at [8]. If JD(TAI) were used, a list of leap seconds and when they occurred would be needed to recover a UTC date-time, which is available in machine readable format via [9]. Both of these can be obtained via ftp. Although UTC technically began in 1961, for its first ten years broadcast seconds were lengthened slightly throughout the year but were still recorded for civil events as whole seconds, so I think that only whole leap seconds beginning in 1972 need be considered. At the beginning of 1972, TAI−UTC was defined to be 10 seconds, and the first leap second occurred at the end of June 1972. Thus JD(TAI) (plus leap seconds) may be used. Another possibility is to ignore all leap seconds, thus treating all date-times as UT1.

When Verdy p designed {{JULIANDAY}} in 2006, "trunc" and "floor" may not have been available. Because they are now available, the algorithm can be simplified. I note that {{JULIANDAY|2006|4|30|11|59|60}} is mentioned, which includes a positive leap second at noon, the end of a Julian day. However, such a date-time is impossible because because leap seconds only occur at the end of a UTC day at midnight, in the middle of a Julian day, so the algorithm is faulty regarding leap seconds. I suppose it could be correctted, but including any support for leap seconds would be a daunting task.

ISO 8601:2004 3.6 states that if a time element has a defined length, then leading zeros shall be used as required. ISO 8601:2004 4.1.2.1 requires that years have four digits "unless specified otherwise". Thus two digit years in the two centuries centered on year 0000 must be padded with leading zeros. For example -0043 for Julius Caesar's assassination (= 44 BC). But if five digit years were allowed, this implies that four digits years like the current year 2009 should be padded to 02009, which may be unacceptable if they are revealed to the general reader. Thus I recommend that only four digit years [±YYYY] be used.

Livy's History of Rome: Book 22.46 gives no date for the Battle of Cannae, so I don't know how 2 August 216 BC was obtained, nor whether it is a Roman Republican date or a proleptic Julian date. It is extremely unlikely that it is proleptic Gregorian date. It is most likely a Roman Republican date with the name "August" replacing the original month name of "Sextilis" (it was changed in 8 BC). The table associated with Roman Dates by Chris Bennett proposes that the equivalent date in the proleptic Julian calendar was 29 July 216 BC, which is -02150725 in the proleptic Gregorian calendar using the ISO 8601 format according to Calendrica. So if we accept Chris Bennett's reconstruction, Roman dates back to 263 BC can be converted into a fairly reliable proleptic Gregorian date. Chinese dates back to 841 BC are also relatively secure. However, Jewish dates given in the Old Testament are not well known. Any birth before the 20th century is usually not known, even approximately, so if Augustus' date of birth is known to a few days, that is the exception rather than the rule. — Joe Kress (talk) 20:44, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

From what I looked up yesterday when composing my note, the Cannae date is roman calendar[10] (see footnote), and so with Bennet's table we could generate a proleptic gregorian for that too.

These technical conversion approaches suggest a tidy solution. I may take a stab at the non leap second Julian conversion but due to the size of Bennett's tables, a template converter for roman would be problematic, both in terms of coding arcanery needed, and server load. I remain convinced that the definitive conversion should be performed by a maintenance bot with a full featured language that goes through and makes use of the ISO8601 parameter to override the template calculation. The ISO8601 parameter could also be used by editors if they took exception to the algorithms used by the either the bot or the template code.

As for syntax implications, this gives us the technical option of allowing very simple syntax with the calendar implied Julian or implied Roman if they fall within particular spans of time. It is true that we have not evaded the need of users to be able to explicitly declare calendar in cases of ambiguity. Perhaps an optional "calendar" parameter would suffice- but if the community prefers, we could postpend a suffix like -j, -g, -r so that dates could be made explicit in a second calendar. Do you have a recommendation on that?

Re 4/5 digit years. It's only relevant for microformat recipient applications because values for KML recipient applications are never seen. At this time, 4 digit years is fine for both even though users would seldom see the iso date in the microformat case. The only consumers I know for these dates are the calendar apps via micoformats and google earth via KML. Earth is the only one I know accepting dates at this time, and it doesn't allow dates before September 14, 1752. As for microformats the only apps doing dates are the calendar apps like yahoo/google calendar and they generally set a floor at 1970. There are other virtual earth applications that may in the future handle dates relevant for paleontology/ astronomic time, so we could start emitting those with very long leading zero values as soon as they start handling them. The beauty of WP is that all solutions may be upgraded as future contributors and technology determine more appropriate solutions. Anyway, as of today users will only see the ISO date generated for microformat emission when they copy paste. In the future, it might be made totally invisible if WP allowed the html (abbr) tag, as is usually done in microformat encodings. We are a bit of an oddball in using the span html tag with attribute display set to none. It's legal, but it mucks up the copy/paste a bit. For map applications, KML doesn't have this limitation because out output is via a url passed parameters to a toolserver php routine, or via a perl script that just reads the raw wikitext and lifts the values it need. So KML allows completely hidden values.

How does that sound? -J JMesserly (talk) 23:59, 13 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the citation, which only shows that the date was in the Roman calendar, but does not state what ancient source gave it. Nevertheless, that only concerns historians, not a user of microformat dates. We can presume implied Julian for all dates before 1582, but we can only presume implied Roman for dates from Roman history before AD 1. Any date from any other culture cannot be a Roman date, but is probably a Julian date. Dates from Maya pre-classic and classic periods are an exception which are usually given in the proleptic Gregorian calendar. Maya dates from the colonial period were Julian before 1585 (it took about three years for the papal bull to reach New Spain) and Gregorian thereafter.

Times may be needed for historical maps, which can include military formations that change as a day progresses. ISO 8601 assumes local time if a time zone designation is not given. This implies that if the time is to be converted into UTC, which is Greenwich time, then some human must read the article to determine what that local time is. UTC with leap seconds did not exist before 1972, and all except experts assume that even UTC without leap seconds did not exist before 1972. No one would realize that any time given by any source could include a leap second, even after 1971, so in my opinion leap seconds can be safely ignored. Leap seconds are only used in an article about leap seconds. Conversion from AM/PM to a 24-hour system at Greenwich might be needed.

Although (non-coordinated) Universal Time has existed technically since 1928, it was only another name for Greenwich Mean Time, which was usually used before 1972. Zone time was not used by the United States before 1983 and not used before 1847 by England, the first country to use any kind of zone time. Thus American Civil War maps, for example, used local mean time. — Joe Kress (talk) 05:30, 20 April 2009 (UTC)