Talk:Dark Ages

Start of the Dark Ages

I'd like to figure out when exactly the Dark Ages started. One way to nail it down to 24 hours is to look at AperfectBot's edits. The bot creates certain templates a few days in advance. It created Template:Expedition summaries/2019-09-06 on 2019-08-30 07:01 (all times in UTC), but did not create Template:Expedition summaries/2019-09-07 until after the Dark Ages. So it is safe to say that the Dark Ages had already started at 2019-08-31 07:01, when the latter template was supposed to be created. One edit between both dates is this one at 2019-08-30 11:01. So the Dark Ages had not begun at this time yet.

I am mainly asking this in the context of the Dark Ages achievement. For me, it does not make a difference since I did not go Geohashing between 2019-08-30 11:01 and 2019-08-31 07:01, but others might have.

Summary: The Dark Ages started between 2019-08-30 11:01 and 2019-08-31 07:01.

Question: Does anybody know how to get a more specific time? --Fippe (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

End of the Dark Ages

I'd like to figure out when exactly the Dark Ages ended. DanQ created his account on the new wiki at 2020-02-02 07:04 (all times in UTC), and shortly afterwards on the same day, other users followed. But before that, the Admin user and the maintenance script doing tasks, such as importing the old wiki.

The Admin user was created as early as 2020-01-29 15:02. But I am unsure if the wiki already was online then and visible to the public. Dan writes the launch time was "at the end of last month" (January).

I am mainly asking this in the context of the Dark Ages achievement. For me, it does not make a difference since I did not go Geohashing between 2020-01-29 15:02 and 2020-02-02 07:04, but others might have.

Summary: The Dark Ages ended between 2020-01-29 15:02 and 2020-02-02 07:04.

Question: Dan, can you provide some information about when the Wiki was opened to the public? --Fippe (talk) 09:57, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

My argument is more symbolical than technical (and maybe it's not what you are looking for ¿^^), but I would say the new era began on 2020-02-02 (for the beauty and uniqueness of this date) and therefore the dark ages ended on 2020-02-01. --SastRe.O (talk) 13:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we can still call 2020-02-01 the end of the Dark Ages since DanQ was the first user to register; whether he found the site open by accident/randomly checking or knew it was going live. Anyone who knew/found the site was live before this would presumably register. Also, none of the old registered users were notified so unless you found it by randomly checking, most people still had no idea (Fuzzier transition out of the Dark Ages). I didn't actually find out until the end of Feb. when my HashDroid App was updated on my phone. Pedalpusher (talk) 19:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)