• After witnessing the continued decrease of involvement in the SpotterNetwork staff in serving SN members with troubleshooting issues recently, I have unilaterally decided to terminate the relationship between SpotterNetwork's support and Stormtrack. I have witnessed multiple users unable to receive support weeks after initiating help threads on the forum. I find this lack of response from SpotterNetwork officials disappointing and a failure to hold up their end of the agreement that was made years ago, before I took over management of this site. In my opinion, having Stormtrack users sit and wait for so long to receive help on SpotterNetwork issues on the Stormtrack forums reflects poorly not only on SpotterNetwork, but on Stormtrack and (by association) me as well. Since the issue has not been satisfactorily addressed, I no longer wish for the Stormtrack forum to be associated with SpotterNetwork.

    I apologize to those who continue to have issues with the service and continue to see their issues left unaddressed. Please understand that the connection between ST and SN was put in place long before I had any say over it. But now that I am the "captain of this ship," it is within my right (nay, duty) to make adjustments as I see necessary. Ending this relationship is such an adjustment.

    For those who continue to need help, I recommend navigating a web browswer to SpotterNetwork's About page, and seeking the individuals listed on that page for all further inquiries about SpotterNetwork.

    From this moment forward, the SpotterNetwork sub-forum has been hidden/deleted and there will be no assurance that any SpotterNetwork issues brought up in any of Stormtrack's other sub-forums will be addressed. Do not rely on Stormtrack for help with SpotterNetwork issues.

    Sincerely, Jeff D.

Signing up to SpotterNetwork & quality of reports

Joined
Feb 6, 2006
Messages
975
Location
Reading, England
Hi all - a genuine question here, based on the sheer number of SN 'dots' visible these days - what is the process for signing up to SN nowadays? I recall when I did (back in 2009, I think!) that there was a quiz/test - are today's sign-ups still required to pass a test of any kind? As I mentioned in the other thread about quality reporting, there used to be vetting of storm reports - but I guess that is just not possible now (or, at least, requires a large amount of time to do so)...whilst I see a lot of good reports coming in, there are also some rather dodgy ones at times (e.g. I saw a funnel cloud report yesterday which just said 'to the west' or similar...the report was a good 20-25 miles east of the line of showers, and so you could suggest that the recipient of the report might 'know' this - but, really, the report should at least mention whether it is close-by, distant, or, if known, give a distance.

The large number of dots on the maps these days makes me wonder how many really know how to report, read the storm, etc...and how many have signed up to see whether the other dots are. Personally, I leave the marker off until it's time to report.
 
Just login and take the training / test.

Reports are vetted - but that's for their content. If someone says "east" when they meant "west" we don't have the ability to plot radar and confirm :) But anyone looking at that report can easily see.

The vetting removes things like "TORNADO REPORT - I think I see a scary cloud that might turn into a tornado" and that is still active.
 
Just login and take the training / test.

Reports are vetted - but that's for their content. If someone says "east" when they meant "west" we don't have the ability to plot radar and confirm :) But anyone looking at that report can easily see.

The vetting removes things like "TORNADO REPORT - I think I see a scary cloud that might turn into a tornado" and that is still active.
I am locked out of my account because it says I made a low quality report. I have not yet made a report.
 
Do we have to complete the training/tests before we can sign up? I tried to register but SN won't allow me to login or create an account?
 
Just login and take the training / test.

Reports are vetted - but that's for their content. If someone says "east" when they meant "west" we don't have the ability to plot radar and confirm :) But anyone looking at that report can easily see.

The vetting removes things like "TORNADO REPORT - I think I see a scary cloud that might turn into a tornado" and that is still active.

Thx for the info - I do recall seeing a quality mark against reports in the past - which were fed to the reporter - are these still active?
 
I have a question regarding low quality reports. I posted this somewhere else as well. I had a time that I thought was off and they got to me saying I shouldnt change the time stamp. I'm highly capable of sending quality reports since I've been doing this forever. I'm just unsure what I was supposed to do when I thought the date and time were off.
 
My reply still stands :) Leave the time as-is. It is in UTC, and most likely you were changing to your local time.
 
My reply still stands :) Leave the time as-is. It is in UTC, and most likely you were changing to your local time.
So strange. I just logged in just to see if time and date are correct, its spot on. It was 100% not that last time. Never would have touched it. I'm getting older but I know I can still see!! Little annoyed to get a low quality report but it is what it is. Thanks Rdale!
 
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