Talk:24-hour clock

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Wee hours

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An IP editor has been removing the reference to wee hours, despite the fact that their rationale is directly and unambiguously contradicted by the sources that are already in the article supporting the content. Their rationale is that 'wee hours' cannot apply as it is defined as the early hours of the morning and therefore cannot be accurate as they contend that 00:00 until 06:00 is only postmidnight, not part of the morning. I could find no source that supports this claim, and indeed that usage of 'early hours of the morning' is the same reason that 02:00 is also referred to as 2 in the morning, or 03:00 as 3 in the morning. Reliable sources routinely refer to this window of time as being in the morning, further demonstrating that the rationale used to remove this content is not reflective of actual usage or reliable sourcing. - Aoidh (talk) 21:42, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Based on the user's edit history, they don't appear to be interested in good faith edits, or following policies, and instead pushing their opinion of what is "right". If they keep up, temporary page restriction might be needed. There have been a number edits over the last few months by apparently the same editor on different IP addresses. Disruptive editing like this just adds housekeeping chores for those who put effort into building the encyclopedia while following policies. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 22:01, 20 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@anastrophe The accusations you made against me are serious. I contribute in good faith and I have not committed any vandalism.
@Aoidh About the 24-hour clock page, I just said the correct thing, that the period between 00:00 to 06:00 is just "postmidnight", not "morning".
If the day has 24 hours and 4 periods/parts, then each part/period has 6 hours:
  • Postmidnight = 00:00 until 06:00
  • Morning = 06:00 until 12:00
  • Afternoon = 12:00 until 18:00
  • Evening or night = 18:00 until 00:00
Remembering that I just want to contribute, I don't want to say things in a "popular" way, since it is incorrect to say that 00:00 until 06:00 is part of the morning.
I will not edit the page temporarily, I want to reach a consensus.
I know that the sources state that 00:00 until 06:00 is part of the morning, but I believe that is incorrect.
To conclude, I agree that the terms daytime (06:00 until 18:00) and nighttime (18:00 until 06:00) are correct, but I don't think it's necessary to put them in the table. It's more interesting to put the periods in 4 parts and not in 2 parts. 168.232.221.120 (talk) 00:23, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the day has 24 hours and 4 periods/parts Do you have a citation for the day being so divided? Guy Harris (talk) 01:03, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"I contribute in good faith and I have not committed any vandalism." I said nothing about vandalism. I said it was based on your edit history, which shows repeated changing of content to match your opinions (because you've never offered reliable sourcing to back up the changes), removing material along with the source that supports it, and edit warring when reverted. At best I can recommend familiarizing yourself to some degree with WP's policies and guidelines, though to be fair, that's an enormous corpus to digest. But there are standards that apply when editing here, and those standards must be followed. If I take you at your word that your intentions are in good faith, then I would recommend:

For me the question is not so much whether "wee hours" is correct as to whether it is relevant to the article. To recap, two months ago, this article just had a simple table, showing the correspondence between a 24-hour clock and a 12-hour clock. And then we got Part of the day and "general period of the day", both by IP's without comment. I don't think either of these columns actually explains anything relevant to a 24-hour clock, especially considering that the main text of the article doesn't discuss this division. And with the current 4-column format, the table ends up taking half the page width (or more depending on appearance settings) - it just looks ugly. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 01:41, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Now there is actually a place where this information could go: Day#Parts. But not this article. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 01:52, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agree that the 'parts' of the day are irrelevant to the topic of this article. cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 02:27, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Especially given that, for example, "Morning" is arbitrarily stated as beginning at 6:00, without a citation; Morning states that it is "either the period from sunrise to noon, or the period from midnight to noon.[1][2]" It continues "In the first definition it is preceded by the twilight period of dawn, and there are no exact times for when morning begins (also true of evening and night) because it can vary according to one's latitude, and the hours of daylight at each time of year.[3] However, morning strictly ends at noon, when afternoon starts."; the sun doesn't reliably rise at 6:00 every day. Evening is similarly not definitive as to when evening begins.
So let's stop having the table arbitrarily divide the day into four 6-hour periods. Guy Harris (talk) 02:42, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's reasonable to remove the Part of the day and Period of the day parts entirely. Calling 5pm daytime and 6pm nighttime is misleading at best. Unless there's some international definition that I'm unaware of, when night begins changes depending on what time of year it is, and even on the same day it depends on where in the world you are at that time and how you define what night is, which varies depending on the context. - Aoidh (talk) 12:06, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I know there's already a column with the 12 hour clock times, but rather than times of day we could have the column split the day between ante meridiem and post meridiem? Nil🥝 (talk) 13:06, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In many countries, the day is divided into 4 periods/parts.
In Brazil, the country where I live, the day is divided into 4 periods/parts, madrugada (postmidnight), manhã (morning), tarde (afternoon) and noite (evening/night)[4][5][6]
In the sources (external links) presented, it is proven that the day is divided into 4 periods/parts: postmidnight (00:00 to 06:00), morning (06:00 to 12:00), afternoon (12:00 to 18:00) and evening/night (18:00 to 00:00).
And I used logical reasoning, if the day has 24 hours and 4 periods/parts, then the fair thing is that each one has 6 hours.
I think it is fair to keep the periods/parts of the day in the timetable on the 24-hour clock page, even though they are also placed on another cited page: Day#Parts.
Just remember that dawn/sunrise and dusk/sunset do not have fixed times, unlike noon/midday (12:00) and midnight (00:00). So it would be confusing if one period had more hours than the other. 168.232.221.7 (talk) 15:51, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
If the day is divided that way in certain countries, then the prose could (if properly sourced and WP:DUE) mention that this is the case in those countries, but much of the world does not delineate it so, especially in a way that can be placed on a table for the reason already given (6pm is not 'night' everywhere at all times). Those columns of the table are unsourced and misleading/inaccurate. That dawn/sunrise and dusk/sunset do not have fixed times is precisely why that content does not belong on a table suggesting that they do have fixed times. - Aoidh (talk) 16:04, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
In the sources (external links) presented, it is proven that the day is divided into 4 periods/parts More precisely, it is proven that in Brazil, the day is divided into 4 periods/parts. It proves nothing about how the day is divided in China, India, the US, Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Nigeria, Russia, the UK, etc..
I think it is fair to keep the periods/parts of the day in the timetable on the 24-hour clock page, even though they are also placed on another cited page: Day#Parts. The periods/parts of the day in Day#Parts are not the ones used in Brazil; they are "Daytime", "Twilight", and "Night", and do not have fixed boundaries, not even noon - they're based on the sun, and thus differ based both on latitude and time of year. I see nothing special about Brazil's division of the day, just as I see nothing special about China's, India's, the US's, Germany's, France's, Italy's, Japan's, Korea's, Nigeria's, Russia's, the UK's, etc. divisions of the day, to make any of those belong in the table. Guy Harris (talk) 16:32, 21 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
And just to keep it entertaining, in the not very high latitudes (England, for example), "morning" in summer starts at about 05:00 and "evening" at about 21:00 [solar noon is at 13:00 due to DST] but in winter it is (reluctantly ) 08:00 and 16:00. If you live somewhere that has no appreciable twilight, maybe 06:00 and 18:00 seem logical but not otherwise. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 13:20, 26 August 2025 (UTC)[reply]

References

  1. ^ "Definition of MORNING". Merriam-Webster. 26 April 2025. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  2. ^ "MORNING Definition & Meaning". Dictionary.com. Retrieved 28 April 2025.
  3. ^ Learner's Dictionary
  4. ^ https://www3.uol.com.br/qualidadeconteudo/portugues/horas-manha-e-madrugada.jhtm
  5. ^ https://www12.senado.leg.br/manualdecomunicacao/estilos/hora
  6. ^ https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/gramatica/cinco-meia-manha-ou-madrugada.htm

Military time and recent edit war

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So I looked up the Merriam-Webster definition - it's 24 hour time, like the old source, contrary to the IP's claim that Merriam-Webster contradicts this somehow. The IP's edit also adds the claim "Americans tend to misuse the term military time", which is subjective and would need a reliable source, contrary to the IP's claim that "I've not added anything that would need verification". Overall, I think the IP has advanced no justifications for their edit war that withstand scrutiny. Mathnerd314159 (talk) 03:51, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]