Katrina Forum - when will it end?

Glen Romine

EF5
Joined
Apr 22, 2004
Messages
998
Location
CMI
I feel the Katrina forum is starting to take a nose dive in terms of content and heated personal arguments - and I was starting to wonder if there was any plan to perhaps clamp down on the board or perhaps enforcing the usual ban on political and racial threads. I'm sure some will ask for finger pointing - but I'd hope the moderators discretion would make this not needed. Just seems that stepping in now could save trouble for piles of locked threads, etc... if the downward trend continues. While there have been some great and informative threads, there seems to now be a trend toward EEx2 evolving there. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that though.

Glen
 
I'm with you - I backed off after realizing we're getting MUCH more into politics than any weather (or even recovery) related.
 
I'll third that. If nothing else, we should at least restrict participation to registered members and begin more strict moderation.


BC
 
Yes, the heated political debates should end...

I don't mind discussions about FEMA or whatever, but I have seen a few comments like "I doubt Gore would have done any better", "Bush is too busy killing troops in Iraq" (<-- the one was deleted)... And other statemes that only try to provoke a debate. Those are the comments and discussions that need to stop. To be honest, most of those comments are coming from ST members rather than "Guest" or "Anonymous" users.
 
I'll third that. If nothing else, we should at least restrict participation to registered members and begin more strict moderation.


BC
Click to expand...

I agree, it is starting to heat up on the political debates, also the personal attacks by a few are getting out of hand.
 
Quote by Glen Romine:
While there have been some great and informative threads, there seems to now be a trend toward EEx2 evolving there. Maybe I'm the only one that thinks that though.
Click to expand...

You're not the only one, the trend is real. The truth of the matter is that much of the discussion about the aftermath of Katrina has ceased to be even remotely weather-related. That said, I'm not in favor of closing the board down, not yet. The Katrina board continues to be a useful resource for getting the very latest news about the ongoing catastrophe, and as long as that holds true, I think it should stay up.

But I can see the writing on the wall. If the deterioration continues, the forum's days are definitely numbered.
 
I don't think we close it, but keep the non-members out and PM the members who are going more into fights than weathertalks...
 
LOL... I have noticed all of these "political" discussions sneaking into the Katrina forum as well. To be honest, I don't think the Katrina forum should be ended just yet... But rather keep most of the political debates outside of it. For instance, the "NAACP" (which I am guilty for even replying to) has been focusing more on civil rights than Katrina.
 
Coming from international look at it, the Katrina Board/Thread is probably the single best place on the net for information/links on the Katrina Disaster. Leave it up there for a while yet.
 
Certainly "politics" are part of the cleanup process, but that's not the purpose of this forum...
 
Politics will play a role with any disaster. ST is trying to get away from political discussion but this is difficult to do in the Kat thread as just about any topic there will have some sort of political overhang whether it be pre-storm preparartion, gas prices, looting, clean up, rebulding, etc.

Even in our regular forum there are numerous storm chase topics that at the very least are germainly effected by political decisions such as the roads we drive on, speed limits, gas costs, NOAA funding, diversity in meteorology, cell phone driving laws, etc, etc. Remember the Santorum bill? It is very difficult to completely devoid ST of political discussion unless we gut all the forums less the Map Room.
 
The moderators are discussing this issue. I do agree we are seeing a decline in S/N ratio, and we are evaluating this in light of what is best for the board.

Tim
 
I have seen some deteration in the thread with some politics but I don't know if it's necessary to take away the ability to criticze the governments response to this disaster. Disconnecting the political element is probably easier said then done in this circumstance and closing it off to guests will do little since most of the politically charged posts I've read are from ST members. I'd like to see the thread contintue with guests allowed to post, it's become an incredible one stop shop for information regarding the disaster.
 
I'll go with that. Pretty much most of this stuff can now be discussed on the B&G. You could lock it but, I do recommend at least archiving it.
 
I see the board has just been closed. Very good timing, I applaud the decision.

I was just about to post the following in the "winding down" thread:

The Katrina board's time may have passed now, but it was great while it was going strong. Kudos to everyone who contributed to it. The board was a genuine public service, and I'd like to thank Tim and all the mods who were responsible for keeping it going. In the first days after the storm I found the forum to be an invaluable resource, a real goldmine of information. True, much of that information was available elsewhere, but only here could you find it all gathered together in one place, alongside a lot of colorful but often insightful commentary. Many thanks for providing a place for all this to happen.
 
Thanks for bringing the open Katrina forum to a close. While I don't want to try and suggest that I didn't find the content there interesting and informative - there was an increasing trend, particularly from a few ST members, to post material there that would have been in violation of TOS were it posted anywhere else - and I feared this would eventually start to ooze into the other areas if left unrestrained. Hats off to Tim and the mods for firing up the Katrina section and providing a timely one-stop-shop for the latest in Katrina related issues. Also, thanks to all those who contributed quality posts.

Glen
 
I agree with Glen. The board certainly helped to raise funds and awareness, and provided a supportive environment for good works like the Storms of 2005 DVD. It was a great credit to Stormtrack.
 
Thanks for the special Katrina board (and for closing it when its time was over). I found a lot of info that I wouldn't have had time to search for on the internet. I agree that some of the posts were not quite to StormTrack standards but this was a special situation.

I would recommend keeping the entire section together in the archives rather than trying to move different sections to different places. I may come back to the Katrina board in the future and other people researching the storm on the internet may want to view the archives as a complete section. I do suggest leaving the FIRST-HAND chase reports as they are in the Katrina section but possible copying and pasting them into a thread that can also be kept in the chase reports section.

Bill Hark
http://www.harkphoto.com
 
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