Before logging in, the time stamps for "Recent Changes" seem to be UTC. After logging in, they are correct for me (Eastern Daylight Savings Time).
Can the default time zone be set for the local PC? From https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Timezone
Alternative methods[edit] If you just want to use the local time of your PC, you can add this line in your LocalSettings.php. This method is what MediaWiki does by default (see includes/Setup.php); it also avoids problems with daylight savings time: $wgLocalTZoffset = date("Z") / 60;
Would that interfere with the user preferences after logging in?
Thanks,
Mike*V