For the purposes of these calculations, we will only consider the top ten countries in order of decreasing participating members in the past six months. (Prepare yourself, my geography is terrible.)
- India is UTC+05:30.
- Russia is from UTC+03:00 to UTC+07:00 (the most densely populated areas).
- China is UTC+08:00.
- Bangladesh is UTC+06:00.
- Egypt is UTC+02:00.
- Iran is UTC+03:30 and UTC+04:30.
- Ukraine is UTC+02:00 and UTC+03:00.
- Vietnam is UTC+07:00.
- USA is from UTC-08:00 to UTC-04:00 (the most densely populated areas).
- Belarus is UTC+03:00.
We now round the :30 timezones for simplicity. The most convenient times in general are colored green, okay times are colored orange, and inconvenient times due to a a typical work/school day are colored red. These are generally negated on the weekends.
If the image on CodeForces is blurry please see this link.
So it seems that the best times to start contests would be between UTC 11:00AM to UTC 07:00PM and from UTC 12:00PM to UTC 5:00AM. In MSK, that's 2:00PM to 10:00PM and 3:00AM to 8:00AM.
I hope this has helped, and if you catch any mistakes, feel free to drop a comment.
Auto comment: topic has been updated by maximaxi (previous revision, new revision, compare).
The best standard starting time is not having a standard starting time, so you don't leave anyone out.
Having said that, I highly question a methodology that places an optimal starting time at 2AM MSK, 5:30 AM IST. There's no way the contest will have many people without Russia or India.
Just to reiterate, I have provided a wide range of optimal starring times, and of course agree that starring all contests at the same time is a bad idea, especially at 2AM MSK/5:30AM IST.
To my mind, there's a huge problem in your methodology: if there are few people from west Europe that's because the contest start times are not appropriate (most of the challenges are in the afternoon, while people are at school/work). And now, in order to improve the situation, you pick a start time that satisfy most current members... The result is even worst for people living in UTC/UTC+1 zones.
To my mind, the best thing is to change the starting times regularly, so that we all get a change to have a good starting date.
(During the week, my preference goes for UTC 08:00PM (after work) or UTC 06:00AM (before work). UTC 09:00AM in the week-end is perfect for me.)
Yes, I would agree that varied contest times are a great idea.