Proposed amendment: Rule 6: Links

[Jeff Miller]

6. Links. Lists of links exceeding ten lines are not appropriate for the Stormtrack forums and are prohibited. Link lists should be submitted to the Stormtrack links area.[/b]

Reference to the following thread:

This thread

Reason for proposal: Rules too strict to allow for exceptions of quality links which in specific situations can better serve the needs for the stormtrack community.

Support: 5 Stormtrack members have voiced objections to the current regulations stating they are too strict and that the poster in question should not have had his list removed due to the content and situation at hand.

Proposed Amendment

Links. Lists of links exceeding ten lines are not appropriate for the Stormtrack forums and are prohibited. The exception being links that directly contribute to an ongoing severe weather situation or are judged as quality content by the administrator and the moderator team. Spam or non quality links are strictly prohibited.

I know I am not a moderator or staff member here but I felt a need to voice an opinion. I do realize that most likely ( I would hope) that this is under discussion in the internal forums. I wanted to mention this here to see if anyone else is in agreement, not in agreement, simply does not care, and just get a feel of the general opinion. I completely understand and accept that this proposal will most likely NOT be accepted in its current form. The main goal of this is to bring this to quality, professional discussion in hopes it might bring a positive change.

Thanks for the consideration.

 

[Bobby Lang]

While I agree the rule could use some tweaking, I would purpose something like:

Links
Links that are deemed to be inappropriate for the Stormtrack forums by either administrators or moderators are prohibited. Links are allowed under these conditions but not limited to:

1. Assisting in the ongoing discussion at hand
2. Links that directly contribute to an ongoing severe weather situation (Jeffery)
3. Links that are judged as quality content by either administrators and the moderators of Stormtrack (Jeffery)[/b]

Reasons:
I disagree on the 10 lines of links & then it's prohibited. Lets just keep it simple and any link deemed inappropriate by either administrators and the moderators of Stormtrack should be removed. What if a spammer gets through and posts 1-9 links to his or her website? According to the rules, there would be very little to stop that spammer. The only line of defense that we have would be either:

Originally posted by Rule #14
14. Authority. The Stormtrack forum Administrator reserves absolute control over the forum, including but not limited to modifying operating policies and access privileges without notice; removing, editing, or closing any topic at any time; and suspending or deleting any user for any reason.

<div align="center">Or:</div>

Originally posted by Rule #4
4. Quality. High post quality is a hallmark of Stormtrack membership. Users are considered to be in violation if they (1) contribute excessive numbers of "one-liners", "LOL", and "smilies" -type posts; or (2) post in Bar & Grill without a corresponding number of quality chase/weather posts. This will result in warning, suspension, or termination without notice.

Hopefully that way, links that are helpful to the thread at hand are allowed, but the bad links are blocked and removed. Also, on Stormtrack's homepage the links link says that the page is not updated. Even if links go on that page, I bet many people wouldn't bother looking at that page since it says that it is not updated.




This way hopefully you get the best of both worlds without putting an arbitrary number to reach before it's removed.

 

[Jeff Snyder]

Just something to keep in mind... Perusing a couple of threads indicates that some folks are saying that our rules are too strict, or that we have too many rules (someone elsewhere likened it to the tax code/law). The easiest way to deal with this is to have a simple rule (no more than 10 links) that is enforced on all. I'd love to have a complete rule that allows for different exceptions, but many seem to think the rules are complex the way they are. The situation becomes murky when we start 'selectively' enforcing the rules. We have allowed for exceptions in the past, especially for the historic events (such as the Katrina and Rita forums), but selective enforcement tends to create problems that cascade into all sorts of problems.

We appreciate the feedback, and we are working on a possible alternative to this issue.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Keeping the rules an acceptable size is indeed tough. While I don't have a problem with adjusting our links policy, we would need an innovative one-line rule that gets the point across.

Historically, the 10-link limit was imposed back in 2004 to keep static information and easily-Googlable details out of dynamic, fast-breaking threads.

Yeah, the stormtrack.org/links section is dead. I know we had Pat Kerrin working on that awhile back, but most contributors fell off during the past few years as the forum became the central part of the board, and we don't have anyone to keep up on it.

One idea that we brought up was to continue the restriction but maintain a stickied, permanent "links" thread in one or more forums that could be updated and added onto without any restriction (no Viagra links of course). Additional posts could be added to it to serve an ongoing situation (and these posts would show as "new" messages, so users would see it). This is a plan that I think would work quite well, and the links wouldn't disappear into obscurity as each thread ages; they'd be part of a stickied thread. Hopefully mike geukes will add some comments here as we would want his inputs on this.

Tim

 

[mikegeukes]

I have posted many of links, to this forum. Sometimes it goes over 10 links, when I find something of interest. I post links to different subjects for people to learn from the links,

I do not like to write a summary of stuff I find, its easier to post links.

During and after severe weather, there are often many links to various media, and nws statements. I suggest you waive the 10 links rule when it comes to severe weather.

On my blog, I have numerous links to weather analysis, and forecasting sites;
http://www.chaseseason.blogspot.com/

Mike

 

[Dan Robinson]

I propose we keep the links rule as-is and allow a special exception for Mike Geukes. He has a long-standing reputation for researching useful, relevant information and posting his findings.