Proposal: It’s been 1 week since yesterday?
Timed out and passed, 9-6. Josh
Adminned at 07 Apr 2010 13:32:06 UTC
Delete the “Any duration reference to a given day (i.e. “Sunday†or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, inclusively begins at 0:00:00 GMT on the mentioned day and inclusively ends at 23:59:59 GMT on the same day.” Bullet point from the “Time” rule.
Change the “Day” section of the “Keywords” rule to
References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 GMT, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.
In the “Daily Actions” section of the “Keywords” rule, change “once per day” to “once each day”
Change the “Week” section of the “Keywords” rule to
References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.
In the “Weekly Actions” section of the “Keywords” rule, change “once per week” to “once each week”.
“last week” is the week before this one. So yesterday was last week, and this proposal seems to break that, or at least make it unclear whilst it’s pretty clear at the moment. I agree that this needs clearing up, but this is likely not the way. Also, you state that days both start and end at midnight, whilst stating that it can’t be two days at once; unfortunately, you don’t clearly state or imply which day midnight is part of. I recommend something along the form “A day starts at 00:00:00 inclusive, and ends at 00:00:00 exclusive”, which should hopefully be uncontroversial. (Mentioning 23:59:59 is problematic because on days with a leap second, there’s a 23:59:60.)
Hix:
Firstly, the currently existing “Any duration reference…” bullet point doesnt actually talk about a duration, it talks about a day as an entity. So I scratch it and rewrite it properly elsewhere.
Next, some of us think that the current way that days end “at 23:59:59” means that there is a whole second unaccounted for. Even if you disagree, I think that everyone can agree that it shouldn’t ever be 2 different days at once; we don’t have to fight over whether this definition violates that principle if we just say so. This change simultaneously gets rid of a redundant “BN uses GMT for everything” reference that is currently in the Ruleset.
Lastly. The current definition of “week” makes it seem like we’re not allowed to use “week” as a duration in phrases like “one week from now” or “within the last week”. We should keep the Monday-Sunday functionality, of course, but make it so that it doesn’t automatically apply to what is meant to be a duration reference.
Changes to the Daily/Weekly Action definitions don’t change their function, they just make it crystal clear that they are entity references. I don’t mean to suggest that every entity reference must be worded in this way, but these are the most important day/week references in the ruleset that are currently ambiguous. (Without context, “per day” and “per week” might be seen as either duration or entity references)