Should timestamps always use UTC (as in 2012-06-14T10:32:11+00:00
) and not local time (as in 2012-06-14T06:32:11-04:00
for New York)?
References
Although not a WordPress question, I believe it'll be a strong example -- the WordPress core, themes and plugins developed by the core developers, if outputting timestamp somewhere, always seem to use something like
get_the_date('c');
orget_the_modified_date('c');
-- which always output timestamp in UTC, as in2012-06-14T10:32:11
+00:00
.I just came across this answer which simply states that "Time stamps use UTC."
The question
Should timestamps be in UTC or is it just a recommended practise? (There's a lot of difference between the two.) Essentially is something like this -- 2012-06-14T06:32:11-04:00
-- wrong? How is 2012-06-14T10:32:11+00:00
better?