(This is directed to the maintanence crew of the DhO website software system(s), whom I don't know how to directly address.)

In doing a sort of historical and textual analysis of a couple of threads here (results to come), I noticed that a post I submit in reply to another post can show-up in the list prior to, and date-time-stamped earlier than the post to which it was an answer.

Not that this is an original phenomenon -- the forum is international in scope and this has been seen in other such contexts.

But, there should be an easily configurable or implementable solution -- sorting by time of reception, and noting that time, rather then time-of-dispatch in that local time, which seems to be the time stamped currently.

Is this significant? Not to most. But if reality or whatever is process -- a theme I've heard somewhere -- then presenting phenomena out-of-process-order would amount to adding more, unnecessary, delusion to the whole mix.

One possibility I think I've seen in some other forum is that the time shown -- the relative time of the place of origin -- is in every case qualified by its offset from GMT (Greenwich Mean Time).

And in another, the times are all adjusted to the locality of reception, e.g.
Date: 4 Nov 2014 04:45:53 -0700
Date: 5 Nov 2014 11:21:10 -0800
i.e. both received on the West coast USA, the first in PDT and the 2nd after switch to PST.

Hi Chris,

There is actually a simple explanation for this. The messages are ordered by date of creation, but the timestamp shown is the timestamp of the last time the post was edited. So if someone goes back and edits a post later, its displayed timestamp may end up being later than following posts. The posting users timezone does not affect  the display of the timestamps at all, in fact, as the timestamps are saved in mysql datetime fields, the originating users timezone is never even saved.

Also, if you set your local timezone in my account -> display settings the timestamps for the forum posts should be displayed in your local timezone.

Hope that answers your question.


Simon

Thanks Simon.

The edit->new stamp feature is what it is.

Changing the timezone to the local one here, the times seem a bit less confusing.

After several decades (but a while ago) in s/w development, one learns, in a way, something about lack of enduring, substantial satisfaction.