Talk:Samoa Time Zone

Samoa moving out

Samoa will apparently be changing its winter time from GMT-11 to GMT+13 in late December 2011, omitting a date : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-13330592. 94.30.84.71 (talk) 10:43, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Proposed re-naming/moving/disambiguation

The term Samoa time zone literally and accurately refers to the time zone for the nation of Samoa (see a simple Google search or, for example, [1]). While the same term might also be used in American Samoa for its local time zone, this generates ambiguity and would more accurately be described as American Samoa time zone. The cited U.S. legislation [2] and the American Samoa Wikipedia entry actually refer to the latter as "Samoa standard time", not "Samoa time zone"; elsewhere, it is referred to as "American Samoa time zone".[3] To name an article "Samoa time zone" for American Samoa and UTC+13:00 (which actually refers to several places using the same time offset) for Samoa suggests favouritism towards a U.S. point of view.

I suggest the following:

• Samoa Time Zone be converted into a disambiguation page
  • Time in American Samoa be made, re-moved from the current page (it now redirects to the current article)
  • Time in Samoa be made specifically in relation to Samoa, with appropriate links from UTC+13:00 (instead of a redirect to the current article, as it does now)

—sroc (talk) 10:18, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Oppose. This article is part of a series of United States/Canada time zones. In these articles, the main focus is the geographical areas covered by U.S./Canada legislations, which a minor emphasis on who else use the same time. "Zone" is a continental/large nation concept, one which small countries like Samoa doesn't have to care about.

U.S. law may only mention an "eighth zone" and "Samoa standard time", but in practice (Code of Federal Regulations), the zone is actually known as the "Samoa Zone".[4]

If there is anything to disambiguate, it is "Samoa Standard Time",[5] which now has two versions 24 hours apart.

North American reality in Wikipedia simply dictates a need for an article named like this one's. But as for contents, looks like there's still cleanup to do--relocating/removing/adding of contents.

And finally, I'd say www.timeanddate.com is a more respected website than timetemperature.com. timeanddate.com actually features a news section with zone change and DST updates. HkCaGu (talk) 11:27, 31 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for commenting, HkCaGu. I'm not sure what you mean by "North American reality in Wikipedia simply dictates a need for an article named like this one's." Certainly, Wikipedia should reflect a worldwide view, not a US-centric view.

A Google search for "Samoa time zone" more often returns results referring to Samoa than American Samoa.[6]. The top two results are: (1) Current local time in Samoa – Apia[7] and (2) Current local time in American Samoa – Pago Pago[8]. It is logical that most world citizens (except perhaps American citizens) would assume "Samoa time zone" refers to Samoa rather than American Samoa. There is, after all, a more logical name for the time zone for American Samoa: "American Samoa time zone".

As for the clean-up, there is currently a problem that Time in Samoa currently redirects to Samoa Time Zone which specifically states that it is not about the time zone in Samoa. This needs to be rectified, amongst the various other revisions needed to the affected articles.

What do you suggest as a solution? —sroc (talk) 11:43, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

FYI, here's a list of affected pages:

• Articles that require clean-up:
  • Samoa Time Zone
  • UTC+13:00 (contains brief reference to Samoa, which needs to be expanded or moved into a separate article)
• Articles that redirect to Samoa Time Zone
  • Samoa Standard Time
  • Time in American Samoa
  • Time in Samoa (needs to be or re-direct to an article about the time zone in Samoa)
• Articles which may require clean-up if Samoa Time Zone is moved:
  • List of time zone abbreviations
  • List of time zones by country
  • Time in the United States#Zones outside the states

There may well be others, too. —sroc (talk) 12:02, 1 January 2012 (UTC)

"North American reality in Wikipedia simply dictates a need for an article named like this one's." means the fact that because each North American time zones has its own article, there isn't much choice that there will be an article with a name such as this article's name. This article's name is biased toward the U.S. because it is a country that needs to draw time zones and small countries like Samoa doesn't need anything other than defining its standard time. There is a contrasting bias that Western Samoa could change its name unilaterally and call itself Samoa without regard to consent of their "American" "colonial" fellow Samoans--because the Westerners are sovereign, and American Samoans are not.

I don't think you can determine what "Samoa Time Zone" should mean with a Google search on three words (whether stringed or not--and Google does not differentiate lower and upper cases between "Time Zone" and "time zone"), especially due to recent news coverage, from which a lot of readers aren't even aware that there is such a place called American Samoa. HkCaGu (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

And according to current practice, I do not think we need a separate article about Samoa's time zones. Samoa, UTC+13 and UTC-11 should be enough to cover the material. If a new article is needed at all, it would be "Time in the Samoas", as any article covering the 2011 move needs to cover the history of 1892--at that time the U.S. had not taken possession, and the whole island group went from Austrlian date to American date. HkCaGu (talk) 19:00, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

And by "bias" I mean the terms themselves ("Samoa", "Samoa Time Zone") are biased. Wikipedia can't simply neutralize them. Compared this to "Samoa Standard Time" which has two versions, and Wikipedia will have to be neutral. HkCaGu (talk) 19:23, 2 January 2012 (UTC)

I understand your reasoning for having an article titled Samoa Time Zone refer to the time in American Samoa for consistency with the other U.S. time zones; whereas Samoa only has one time zone, it is appropriate that its article be located as Time in Samoa. The latter format is customary for countries that one have only one time zone (e.g., Time in Argentina, Time in Ethiopia, Time in Malta, Time in New Zealand, etc.). It is certainly a notable topic given the number of changes and the amount that is already written about it in other articles; it is merely a matter of consolidating information scattered on other pages. It is certainly preferable to having Time in Samoa redirect to a page that is explicitly not about the time in Samoa! —sroc (talk) 11:02, 9 January 2012 (UTC)