title: Should timestamps always use UTC?
body: <p>Should timestamps always use UTC (as in <code>2012-06-14T10:32:11+00:00</code>) and not local time (as in <code>2012-06-14T06:32:11-04:00</code> for New York)?</p>
  
  <h2>References</h2>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>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 <code>get_the_date('c');</code> or <code>get_the_modified_date('c');</code> -- which always output timestamp in UTC, as in <code>2012-06-14T10:32:11</code><strong><code>+00:00</code></strong>.</p></li>
  <li><p>I just came across <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/9943258">this answer</a> which simply states that "Time stamps use UTC."</p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <h2>The question</h2>
  
  <p><strong>Should</strong> timestamps be in UTC or is it just a <strong>recommended practise</strong>? (There's a lot of difference between the two.) Essentially is something like this -- <code>2012-06-14T06:32:11-04:00</code> -- wrong? How is <code>2012-06-14T10:32:11+00:00</code> better?</p>