Actually Neuro, I'm with Colin on this. Your EDT is UTC-4. Your -12 would put the forum's default timezone somewhere like Bangkok. Colin would be UTC+2 as he would be on summer time now (CEST). My MDT (UTC-6) is being "auto-detected" as -14.
Confusing.
UTC (GMT) would make much more sense as the default time for the forum.
G
Oops, correction: The forum default of UTC+8 would place it somewhere like Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, or Western Australia. Canon headquarters in Japan would be UTC+9.