TalkBoard Topics - What Would Be the Most Convenient Time for a Community Chat with the TalkBoard?

We had one semi-successful chat with the community. We thought we'd take a stab at it, we named a date and time, and we held it. Attendance wasn't great, we knew it wasn't the most ideal time, but the converation was good and quite robust and certainly is suggestive that it could be worthwhile to do again and maybe in some sort of ongoing way.

In furtherance of that, and without specific dates in mind (we'll get to that next, consulting our own schedules), I wanted to poll folks to see whether weekend or weekday worked best for folks, and what time of day? That information will be quite useful in figuring out what times to coordinate amongst ourselves and offer to y'all to get together.

So if you don't mind, please take the poll if you're interested in participating in a TalkBoard chat, and let us know what time generally works the best for you!

Thanks,
Gary

Might want to ask IB folk to make the poll an announcement for a few days (said few days also encompassing the work week).

Cheers.

And for those of you who may be as confused as I often am:

http://www.navysite.de/what/zulu.htm

my preferred option isnt listed ..which would include the 6-10pm range (PT) :)

my preferred option isnt listed ..which would include the 6-10pm range (PT) :)

5-11pm Pacific is an option, though..

As one with a predictably irregular schedule I have no preference. As 'no preference' was not a option, I made an executive decision for myself and chose Weekend 1801z - 2359z. :)

And for those of you who may be as confused as I often am:
http://www.navysite.de/what/zulu.htmhttp://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/
Local time for (Canberra): Saturday, 19 June 2010 at 21:17:44
Current UTC (or GMT/Zulu)-time used: Saturday, 19 June 2010 at 11:17:44
UTC is Coordinated Universal Time, GMT is Greenwich Mean Time.
Great Britain/United Kingdom is one hour ahead of UTC during summer.

Took me a second or 2 to figure out the poll above. It's not exactly clear to me, and I figured it out. My guess is that there are 100's of people reading that think its gobbledygook.

Chat is busiest between 10:30 (2230) eastern time (NYC) and midnight.
This translates to 7:30 (1930) pacific time (US west coast) and 9:00 (2100).

Reminder, most, but not all that have come to these chats in the past (remember when Randy did this?) are from the US. That said, there should be more participants if chat is scheduled when a higher percentage of Flyertalkers will be available.

I don't mean to offend my friends in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania.
Just being realistic.

I just read that 5 people voted, and the majority want mid-day US time. I guess these are folks that live on GMT plus. ;)

But a couple of our TB members are international based, and since this is a TB chat, would help if we could pick a time that would also allow them to participate without them having to be up in the middle of the night.

That's why I'm probably going to go for a weekend time that allows all the US time zones to participate, Europe & I think even India. Not sure we can pull off Asia or Oz.

I just need to look at the worldtime zones by city to figure it out for voting because the poll times take a bit of mental arithmatic.

BTW - I can't remember the last time anyone was on chat at 10:30pm EST. Usually it's 11-11:30 (closer to 11:30pm), and dhammer, you know you're always off it by midnight! I remember the 'good old days' when there were 2 'waves' of chat, with the east coast not having to be up 'til the wee hours to participate.

Cheers.

But a couple of our TB members are international based, and since this is a TB chat, w


Thanks for remembering us! I really want to participate if we can arrange this although there is really no reason why we cannot do a couple if there is enough interest!

Took me a second or 2 to figure out the poll above. It's not exactly clear to me, and I figured it out. My guess is that there are 100's of people reading that think its gobbledygook.

Chat is busiest between 10:30 (2230) eastern time (NYC) and midnight.
This translates to 7:30 (1930) pacific time (US west coast) and 9:00 (2100).

Reminder, most, but not all that have come to these chats in the past (remember when Randy did this?) are from the US. That said, there should be more participants if chat is scheduled when a higher percentage of Flyertalkers will be available.

I don't mean to offend my friends in Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Oceania.
Just being realistic.

I just read that 5 people voted, and the majority want mid-day US time. I guess these are folks that live on GMT plus. ;)
Is that not a self-fulfilling prediction though? If you chose a time when it's only convenient for Americans to attend, then it's likely only Americans will attend.

5-11pm Pacific is an option, though..


wow, and its right there at the top too... totally missed it :)

I just read that 5 people voted, and the majority want mid-day US time. I guess these are folks that live on GMT plus. ;)


4 additional votes in 2 days. :eek: 9 votes isn't even preaching to the choir. :D

I suggest adding this thread to the next Talk Mail if you want to have poeple vote.

As well as having IB add announcement to the top of the forums. Does everyone who's on FT get TalkMail? I don't know; just asking. The announcement at top of forums everyone would see. Whether they act on that or TM is a separate issue, but at least it would alert them. Of course then they have to figure out that zulu time ;) :D

Cheers.

Of course then they have to figure out that zulu time ;) :D


If this is done, I'd suggest starting with Eastern time US, Pacific time, then GMT. Not even the hardiest of Flyertalkers know Zulu time. At least some of us in the USA know what GMT means. ;)

And... add lots of space between the different time zones. The / in the above poll needs to be further away than it is to avoid confusion. Feel free to PM me with additional ideas OP. It's good to have a 2nd set of eyes. ;)

Not even the hardiest of Flyertalkers know Zulu time.

I actually keep my watch set to Zulu time wherever I am in the world and then simply calculate the difference based upon the timezone I am in. I find it a lot easier than changing the time everytime I travel.

If I figured out world time zone via cities correctly, and using 8am in Honolulu as a start point:

8am / Honolulu
11am / Los Angeles
2pm / New York City
7pm / London
8pm / Frankfurt
11:30pm / Mumbai
6am(+1) / Tokyo
6am(+1) / Auckland

While not ideal for everyone, I think that's about as close as you're going to get to get most of the world time zones in sync for a chat, whether it's week-day or week-end.

Cheers.

If this is done, I'd suggest starting with Eastern time US, Pacific time, then GMT. Not even the hardiest of Flyertalkers know Zulu time. At least some of us in the USA know what GMT means. ;)

My company has international locations, so our systems are all set in zulu time so we know when something was done - takes a little while to get used to it for sure!

My company has international locations, so our systems are all set in zulu time so we know when something was done - takes a little while to get used to it for sure!

No kidding. I owe Spiff for helping me sort zulu out a few years ago.

And apologies - when I put it the possible timeline above I just did it the old-fashioned American way vs zulu, etc. But think everyone will be able to follow it ;)

Cheers.

Not even the hardiest of Flyertalkers know Zulu time.

Correction, United flyers listening in to Channel 9 (pilot to ATC) would be aware of Zulu time when listening in during Irrops. ATC will says wheels up at xxxx Zulu, or next advisory at xxxx Zulu.

Correction, United flyers listening in to Channel 9 (pilot to ATC) would be aware of Zulu time when listening in during Irrops. ATC will says wheels up at xxxx Zulu, or next advisory at xxxx Zulu.

"Drink cart will be dispatched at xxxx Zulu?" :D

Not even the hardiest of Flyertalkers know Zulu time. At least some of us in the USA know what GMT means. ;)
Speak for yourself. :) I should think of any online forum community FT would have a better than average working knowledge of time metrics.

Having participated in the last chat, it's definitely a worthwhile event.

Holiday weekends should not be chosen for the next event. Just my two cents worth.

I would personally prefer a time when the majority of the Talkboard members can be present for the discussions. I found it disappointing last time that we could not even get a majority of the TB... even though we were told that was the reason a holiday weekend was chosen...

Could the TB pick some times when they are available and let us choose from those options?

Thanks,

I would personally prefer a time when the majority of the Talkboard members can be present for the discussions. I found it disappointing last time that we could not even get a majority of the TB... even though we were told that was the reason a holiday weekend was chosen...

Could the TB pick some times when they are available and let us choose from those options?

Thanks,

I think that it would be nice for the membership to express its view and then for TB to be able attend in as great a number as possible. Realistically, even if there are dates/times we could all make (which I doubt), any given date might exclude one of us. If there was a general sense in the Community of a day/time, we can try and accommdate that as a starting point.