Talk:Western European Time

This page needs substantial editing

I have many, many problems about this page. Only a few are listed below.

1. Veracity / Citations Required

1.1. Where did the name Western European Time (WET) come from? (http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/time-zone/europe/european-union/western-european-time/)Bungeecork 04:07, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

1.2. What evidence does the author have for any adopted use of the term internationally and locally to the included regions?

1.3. I would guess that the region around Danmarkshavn that participates in WET does so since its principal economic partner is Iceland. If this is the case, it should be mentioned as an example of the rationale behind this time zone.

1.4. Is the rationale of WET purely economic? Does it also entail that set of territories which share a common Daylight Saving Time (DST) rule (see also (2.1.) below)?

2. Consistency / Ambiguity

2.1 Is Iceland a full participant of the DST rule for this time zone?

2.1.1 If so, the map should be re-coloured so that Iceland is the same colour as pt, uk and ie.

2.1.2. If not, then perhaps is should be removed from the list of participant territories.

2.2. A severe ambiguity arises over Ireland, regardless of practice.

2.2.1. Irish Standard Time is as enacted in Acht an Oireachtais No. 23/1968: STANDARD TIME ACT, 1968[1], expressly defining Irish Standard Time as being one hour in advance of Greenwich Mean Time(GMT), or GMT+1.

2.2.2. Irish Summer Time is as enacted in Acht an Oireachtais No. 8/1925: SUMMER TIME ACT, 1925. [2] Particular attention should be drawn to the opening section:

1. —(1) The time for general purposes in Saorstát Eireann shall during the period of summer time be one hour in advance of West-European time.

A potentially original defintion of WET is found in the final section:

4. —In this Act the expression "West-European time" means Greenwich mean time

2.2.3. (Wait for the killer punch!) An amendment to the 1968 Act Acht an Oireachtais No. 17/1971: STANDARD TIME (AMENDMENT) ACT, 1971[3] enacts the creation of what could be described as Irish Winter Time, equivalent to GMT.

2.2.4. Reading these acts, it would appear that Ireland is always legally at GMT+1. By Act of Parliament, therefore, IST means Irish Standard Time as much as it means Irish Summer Time. Regardless of the need to remove ambiguity, this is such an unusual case that it merits inclusion: the text of the article should be amended to incorporate this.

2.3. This article seems to imply that WET is operationally equivalent to Co-ordinated Universal Time (UTC), especially in the application of DST. Please clarify which territories are UTC territories that also adhere to the rules of WET, and which territories are excluded. An alternative edit would be to remove the list of 'other' UTC territories which appears at the bottom of the article, since they are not WET territories.

3. Omissions / Errors

3.1. The map's legend should be adjusted to include properties of those territories coloured light blue and pink.

3.2. The map should be adjusted to include the participant region around Danmarkshavn.

3.3. The first reference to Danmarkshavn should mention that it is a town in Greenland (Kalaallit Nunaat).

3.4. A short table should be added which lists which territories operate DST and when.

3.5. The list of 'other' UTC territories is not complete. It should either contain all non-WET territories which follow UTC or should be deleted as suggested in (2.3.) above.

3.5. A see also section should be appended, which at the very least includes links to:

UTC, GMT, and Central European Time (CET).

3.6. A reciprocal link to the WET page should be appended to the see also sections of the GMT and CET pages.

I can't believe I've just written a comments page twice as long as the referred article. Ah well; I'm now going to look at the other time zone pages. Tomorrow. --die Baumfabrik 02:08, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Sources

The standard source for information about time zones present and past is the public-domain timezone database maintained by Arthur David Olson and Paul Eggert at [4]. Eggert cites:

• Thomas G. Shanks, The International Atlas 5/e, San Diego: ACS Publications, 1999.
• Edward W. Whitman, World Time Differences, London: Whitman Publishing Company, n.d.
• Derek Howse, Greenwich Time and Longitude, n.p.: Philip Wilson, 1997.

121a0012 19:19, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Proposed Merger with Greenwich Mean Time

The page has been tagged with a suggestion that it be merged with "Greenwich Mean Time". There is a discussion of this proposal on the Greenwich Mean Time talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Greenwich_Mean_Time#Merger_.28or_something.29_needed). JamesBWatson (talk) 21:23, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

It seems that the proposal has failed for lack of interest on either page, so I'm deleting the tag. --Red King (talk) 15:42, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Clarification

I came to this page trying to find out if WET was different to GMT. From the Africa map, I assume it is..... but still have yet to find any explanations.

If anyone knows, I'd love to see more on that! Murkee (talk) 18:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

See the proposed merger discussion above for a bit more on this subject. The simple answer seems to be that nobody contributing to these articles actually knows (or at least, nobody has cited any sources stating what the differences are). Cheers --Pak21 (talk) 15:31, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

They are alternative names for the same time zone, UTC+0. --Red King (talk) 15:32, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Historical Uses

Historical uses are poorly described for France and Spain. First, France, as well as United Kingdom and Spain, moved to GMT+1 before German invasion in Feb 1940 and March 1940. Afterwards France was forced to German time but, at this moment, German time eventually meant GMT+2. France did not turn back to GMT+1 until autumn 1942, following the German time shift.

Spain did not switched to CET "in solidarity with Germany". That is just a hoax heard nowadays in Spain. Facts are clocks were advanced in Spain by March 1940 before the German invasion of France and following (in solidarity?) clock advances in United Kingdom and France. At this moment that was not a time zone shift, it was just a the enforcement of summer time, only a bit earlier because of the ongoing world war. Notice that during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), summer time was a common practice in Spain as a result of economic shortages.

Also notice that advancing clocks (a commonplace during economic shortages) in UK, Spain and France resulted in German standard time. It is not any kind of "solidarity with Germany", it is just a geographical coincidence.

Most importantly, German clocks were also advanced to GMT+2 in 1940 and until autumn 1942. Spain did not switch to GMT+2 (except in summers) and thus did not keep any kind of time solidarity with Germany.

Etaoin Shdrlu (talk) 05:31, 13 November 2016 (UTC)

Sources using this name

​I couldn't find modern sources describing countries other than Portugal and the island territories as using WET. Sources discussing time offsets in depth maybe aren't really that common. This source from 1925 does use "Western European time" for several of the countries that formerly used WET, but modern tourist guides [5] just say "Portugal uses WET".

It is possible that my search results are biased due to English countries more commonly referring to it as GMT.

Do any modern sources use this name in the broader sense? They do correspond to each other, but so do Central European Time and West Africa Time.

– Thjarkur (talk) 22:24, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

Iceland, Ireland, Portugal and the UK all use UTC+0. There are (at least) two aliases for UTC+0: GMT and WET. National legislation may specify GMT explicitly but that doesn't stop other designations being used, so long as they are valid. Think of a reader in Japan or California: WET, CET and EET are immediately obvious in a way that GMT and IST are not. [I assume you already know that CET and WAT are aliases for UTC+1]. --Red King (talk) 22:08, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I failed to find any references to WET in the Irish Statute books and parliamentary debates. So have you any proof that Ireland is legally using WET? The Banner talk 09:51, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

That betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of international time standards and time zones. The standard is UTC. Countries different UTC time zones, according to national convenience. UTC time zones have familiar alias names like "Mountain Time", "Greenwich Mean Time", "Irish Standard Time", "Central Africa Time" etc. UTC+0 has the aliases CEST, WAT, WET, BST, and possibly more. UTC+1 has the aliases WEST, BST, IST. Nowhere in statute does it say that Ireland (or the UK) uses UTC+0 and +1 but we still quote it. Why? Because of WP:Readers first and WP:Worldwide. For a reader on the other side of the world, national designations like BST and IST need to be supplemented (not replaced) by international designations like Western European Time, Eastern European Time etc. Wikipedia is not a court of law. --Red King (talk) 13:02, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

This sounds more WP:IDONTLIKEIT than real arguments. You provide no proof but still you are hammering on the use of WET. We are indeed not a court of lw, but Wikipedia is an encyclopedia based on reliable sources. The Banner talk 13:37, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

That response reads even more like WP:IDONTLIKEIT, you certainly haven't produced any counter arguments. Have you any reason to disagree that Western European Time exists and is not my WP:OR invention? But just in case, here's a citation.

Do you have any reason to disagree that WET is a recognised alias for UTC+0 time zone and that WEST is a recognised alias for UTC+1? If not (and I'll be astounded if you do) then what you are really saying is that you object to these new-fangled descriptors appearing even alongside traditional aliases like GMT. (I certainly would not propose that they replace it this side of 2050).--Red King (talk) 15:24, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

No, I have no doubt that WET is identical to UTC. But I do have doubt that WET is the official standard time for the Republic of Ireland as you fail to provide proof of that. The Banner talk 17:47, 9 November 2019 (UTC)

Where have I said it is? Irish (and UK) law long predates UTC and related designations. In fact I updated the article yesterday to affirm that civil time as defined by law is GMT/IST/BST. I would be astounded if the law in Portugal mentions WET and just as astounded if the law in any of Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Benelux, Poland, or the Scandinavian countries mention CET. And so on for Greece etc and EET. WET/CET/EET are all supplementary designations with no status in law, providing 'at a glance' information for intercontinental travellers without need to know the details of national legislation. --Red King (talk) 23:22, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

I do agree it's quite helpful for the reader if we show an overview of countries using UTC±00:00, but I was rather surprised at not seeing this term used much outside of time database sites. I would at least have expected to find more reliable sources that group these countries together. – Thjarkur (talk) 17:14, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Wait, I found a few of sources from the European Commision [6] Currently there are three standard time zones in the EU: Western European Time (Ireland, Portugal, UK), Central European Time (17 Member States) and Eastern European Time. And [7][8][9] – Thjarkur (talk) 17:27, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Haha the European Commission cites TimeAndDate.com as its source like we did... – Thjarkur (talk) 20:17, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Some you win, some you lose. But see also worldtimeserver.com (cited above and visible below) so there are other sources. --Red King (talk) 22:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

That doesn't really address your I was rather surprised at not seeing this term used much outside of time database sites. I suspect that the answer is that you are looking at English language sites, that are aimed at an English language audience and so (as it is only about 20 years since GMT was downgraded to being an alias for UTC+0 and it takes two generations at least) they continue to use GMT. As I've said below, these same English language sources are very happy to use CET. --Red King (talk) 22:28, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

But I don't really see how that changes anything. We are happy to use CET/CEST and EET/EAST, despite being virtually certain that none of the laws of any of the countries where we've given those monikers, mention them at all (if only because the laws long predate UTC and its aliases). It is much easier to use the worldwide notation, alongside the national notation where we can get it. CET is used in the British and Irish press for exactly that reason but, (probably) because they don't want to upset traditionalists, they say GMT and BST/IST when it is close to home. They have to choose: we have the luxury of being able to give both. So what makes WET/WEST so special that a different rule should apply? --Red King (talk) 22:21, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

References

Drive-by tagging

The practice of tagging an article as having "multiple issues" while failing to open a talk-page discussion to explain the concerns, is strongly deprecated. It is particularly inappropriate to do so while still engaged in a debate about the very meaning and purpose of the subject of the article. Are CET and EET to be given the same treatment? --Red King (talk) 23:36, 10 November 2019 (UTC)

Einzug

ich würde gerne weiter mit Bankeinzug arbeiten!! Leider habe ich von meinem neuen Handy - motorrola - von Ihnen nichts mehr gehört!!!!!!! 88.78.106.11 (talk) 09:25, 15 November 2023 (UTC)