ST's Future Discussion

[Jacob Ferden]

My experiences with Facebook have echoed what Clarence shared. Everything is contained inside little high-schoolish cliques and fiefdoms, not unlike a bunch of mini-CFDGs. If you're not in those 'in' crowds, you're an outsider and just plain out of luck. That is what makes a place like ST so valuable. No wonder so many new chasers hit the ground running not under the wings of experienced chasers, but with a 'team' and their own Fan page. Where else can they go? I'm also admittedly a little sour on how every aspect of the universe is assimilating into the Facebook empire.

I deleted my personal FB account and no longer even want to have any presence there. I have a friend-less private account that I use to manage client FB pages as well as my own chase page, but that's it.

I'd also point out that making ST a viable place is going to be a give-and-take. Those of us who benefited from it for so long (as I did) did so on the backs of people that took the time to contribute. It's now our turn. Ultimately, a critical pillar in whether ST survives or not depends on the willingness of the more advanced chasers to maintain a presence here, even if the 'mutual benefit balance' isn't always in our favor.

Part of the issue on Facebook is that most people only have one account that they use. As a result, they basically are going to use it as an "anything and everything" of their lives. So inevitably, they are going to interact primarily with people they are close to, as I do. After all, who really wants to know what so-and-so's cat has been up to lately? Facebook is quite good at what its creators envisioned, I think. However, for something as content-specific as chasing, it comes up short in many areas. Just my two cents.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I support social media integration to benefit/interact with that user base, but not to make ST a FB-only entity so that a Facebook account is required to participate.

I'm not sure if the current forum software supports FB logins, but that's one way to easily bring in FB users while maintaining the autonomy of the site.

 

[Jeff Turner]

I built my Facebook page at first only to market my books. My friends list is mostly family and old high school friends. Do I use it? Not much, for me Twitter is better to market through. I do like using it for some community groups I am in like CERT (Community Emergency Response Team. I am one of the recognized "weather nuts" outside of some who are in RACES too) but little else and they do not allow commercial themes or advertising. The groups that I am in - two to be exact - use it more to disseminate information than anything else. Facebook = Wasteoftimebook in many cases - I am not one to post pix of kids, pets, or religious messages and in all honestly I could de-friend 75% of the friends without ever noticing. Obviously I am no big fan of Wasteoftimebook but it can have its uses.

Stormtrack is interesting and I use it for CERT and since I like the weather - I am not a chaser nor do I wish to be one. But if the issue is growth of users and accounts one must realize the "hard core" chasers and "weather nuts" are not a huge group in relation to most groups you see on Wateoftimebook probably. Here the folks are the ones who "know what they are talking about" as opposed to the usual Wasteoftimebook poster who does not have a clue - look at some of the NWS office pages and who posts there from the citizen side of things!

So I would like Stormtrack to stay but the ultimate point is that it can only get so big and a Facebook presence in some form is probably the future.

 

[Shane Adams]

Here's a few stats that are relevant to the discussion. ST currently boasts 5,261 members, 806 of which are *active* members. And out of that 806, maybe a dozen are participating on this thread, which holds the future of the forum itself in the balance. I'd say that's all you really need to know to figure out the course from here.

First off, I'm quite content to let this thing die. There's nothing of real value left, and this includes the decade-old archives. Within that vault resides priceless knowledge, chasing gold. But nobody needs that anymore. Today's chasing society doesn't use currency for success. It's become so automated and so automatic, there's simply no purpose for the tons of experience and knowledge locked within these old walls. So I digress....

This forum, IMO, just needs to die. It was down for 3 days with no notice. I didn't see one mention of it anywhere, except a lone snarky one-liner on FB, which was showing zero actual concern/anger over its absence.

Playing Devil's Advocate now, I see some major issues with trying to keep this sinking ship afloat. First off, I think it's wildly unfair to expect a core of a few dozen or so individuals to foot the bill so the other 790 can continue to use this place. If members are going to be actively solicited for payment (under threat of extinction of the forum itself), two things must happen immediately:
(1) Lose the "whoever can fit through the revolving door" membership policy
(2) Make it a pay site and require ALL members to pay a fee, or have their accounts terminated

The main reason I've lost all interest in trying to keep this thing alive is, I get really tired of the same 12 people being involved in every discussion. The membership VS participation on this forum is putrid, and after more years than I should've spent trying to toe the line, I'm simply over it. Especially if it becomes a pay site, because that will mean the mass exodus of the majority of all memberships including the bots, lurkers, and 1-post wonders, let alone what quality members are still left. I think we've established that technology has eliminated the need for knowledge, so along with the devaluing of the once-coveted archives, this also means that lurkers "here to learn" are no longer acceptable.

If this place plans to become a pay site, then it just needs to be a pay site. I think a few of you ponying up all the dough to run this dumpster fire while the other 800 sit on their collective ass is ridiculous. I think the owner's participation on this forum is ridiculous, because for years now it's been exclusively as his own PR man to explain his long absences. It's time to just let it go Tim. You clearly haven't had the focus (or maybe even desire) to run this place for a long time, and you've turned down repeated requests for others who are interested, excited, and present to buy it from you. It was a good run for a while, and obviously this was the most successful storm chasing forum ever. But its time is over.

 

[James Gustina]

Kind of echoing Shane, I do feel like just going straight to a pay site would be the only reasonable way of making this forum worthwhile. Having the few "dedicated", for lack of a better term, members on here pony up to keep this alive would be ridiculous. Stormtrack is also suffering from the same issues that the other offshoots struggled with, which is a core membership that continues to post/comment on threads making it into a sort of cyclical conversation in every thread. The multitude of people from across the community that posted here died out around 2011. Add in that forecast threads on here are usually 1 or 2 post affairs barring large outbreaks and it's almost ridiculous to keep ST going in the bulletin format. A lot of the forecast discussions themselves to tend to be short on anything big in terms of solid chase forecasting, something of which I am very much guilty of as well. The advent of more advanced tech, both in terms of forecasting (high-res convective models) and photography (anyone can chase with an iPhone these days), has sadly made the ranks dwindle. I could see trying out Facebook but I'm just not sure if it'd work.

 

[Dan Robinson]

A few things are clear in this discussion. One, the consensus is "let it die". Two, if this place is to continue on, a small minority of us are going to have to foot the bill to give it another chance at life. And three, item 2 is never going to be possible without a change of ownership.

I think this place could be made into something great. It's obvious that only a handful of us are willing to take that vision and see where it goes. There is a lot of precedent out in the world for lost causes that were doomed if not for a few remnant people who stayed to turn it around. If it fails, it fails - so be it. I can live without this place too, but it sure would be a monumental shame to see it die without any real effort to try some fairly straightforward things out first.

 

[Shane Adams]

A few things are clear in this discussion. One, the consensus is "let it die". Two, if this place is to continue on, a small minority of us are going to have to foot the bill to give it another chance at life. And three, item 2 is never going to be possible without a change of ownership.

Number two is why number one exists. And number three is why number two will never happen.

I think this place could be made into something great. It's obvious that only a handful of us are willing to take that vision and see where it goes. There is a lot of precedent out in the world for lost causes that were doomed if not for a few remnant people who stayed to turn it around. If it fails, it fails - so be it. I can live without this place too, but it sure would be a monumental shame to see it die without any real effort to try some fairly straightforward things out first.

I've been where you are, so much that it caused me to leave the forum in 2010 (hence my 'member since 2011') avatar note. Fact is, I was a charter member in 2003. The fact there are only a few people willing to put forth the effort is why this place just needs to die. The vault? The goldmine of information? How many people who really need that information are looking for it? How many are truly accessing that area of this forum and actually gleaning knowledge from it? It's a bronze-aged collection of precious metal that today's people just don't value.

You know the one thing that would change my opinion of this? LOTS of people coming out of the woodwork to say "NO!!! Don't kill this forum!!! We'll participate!! We'll be involved!!! We'll make sure it's not the same dozen people who've been carrying this train wreck for the past few years that has to sustain it!!!"

But then I come back to reality, and realize that will NEVER happen. This place is dead. Unless you want to demand a fee, delete every membership that doesn't comply, and then congratulations.....you're now the proud owner of an exclusive forum of 12 people who have nothing to say to each other.

 

[Dan Robinson]

I'm with you, Shane. One reason I left FB because I was tired of talking to myself. I'm not interested in doing that here either. I have better things to do. The idea is that maybe with some quality restructuring, we'd attract a user base made up of old and new that would make it worthwhile for everyone. If after a year (or a chase season) that isn't happening, then we pull the plug with no regrets.

It may be that society is just extending the high school mentality into adulthood, and any effort to bring people together around a common theme isn't possible anymore. Facebook is society saying "You're only worth being a part of a group if we like you and we think you're cool".

 

[Skip Talbot]

There shouldn't be any real issue in keeping the forum alive I'd think. Somebody should be able to piggy back it off of their own chase page. Heck, I can install vBulletin on my $7/mo host that has my personal chase page. Given the lack of activity on here in the past couple years, bandwidth shouldn't be an issue running it off a personal site.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Does anyone know the status of donations to this point? Is the amount that Tim paid covering just a month, or a year of service?

 

[Marcus Diaz]

Man, here's what I think. First off, let's get someone else to run the place. No offense to Tim, but poking your head in twice a year is not going to cut it. You need an admin that's willing to stop by at least once a day to check out what's being posted, and "trimming the fat". Delete inactive accounts, maybe delete some of the older, obscure threads, and archive the forecast and reports threads that are noteworthy. Yes I know, better said than done. After a new admin is appointed, get a good solid group of moderators to help keep the place clean. I think there's a few members here that will donate to keep the server running, me being one of them.

Diversify the discussion. This site doesn't have to be 100% about weather. In fact, I'm a member of a very active motorsport forum. Its probably 1/3 motorsports, and 2/3 of everything else. All from about 1200 members. Not a lot of it is personal, but the stuff that is is separate and easy to avoid.

How about we bring back the targeting game we played a few years ago? Put some incentives to play and make it real time? There's something there, too.

There's gotta be a good way to funnel people between Facebook and here. Me personally, I don't use Facebook at all. Its just not my thing anymore. But I'm sure there's a way to make a Facebook page that isn't annoying. I think some of the active minds really need to put their heads together to keep this running. Surely if the ownership changed to someone willing to work on the site, people might change their attitude a little?

 

[David Wolfson]

I'm one to throw in my two cents (when perhaps one cent or no sale would have been better advised) but I'm thinking this needs time to work out a resolution. IMO there is definitely something valuable here in ST that needs to continue. In that regard I've made a contribution of the discussed share so that, together with a modest core of others, the site can be maintained while its future is worked out in a sensible and considered way over the next year.

Facebook and the other social media are designed to maximize chatter and message distribution -- not considerate content. That's how they make their money, and not something that ST has to emulate.

 

[Jeremy Perez]

I'd hate to see ST go away and have made a contribution as well. I've learned much from the archives and content since I joined. Along the way, I hope I've added some useful content, but have to admit that I'm not the kind of active participant that is most likely needed.

 

[Mark Blue]

Does anyone know the status of donations to this point? Is the amount that Tim paid covering just a month, or a year of service?

From what I've been told Dan it will be enough to pay the bills next year. That however doesn't really get us where we need to be with fresh leadership and new ideas for the future. I believe any value the ST brand had has been deeply affected to the point that it would be a fire sale if it were to change hands. I also wonder if a leadership change would be a breath of fresh air into the ST lungs or if it's too little too late? I guess I prefer to see the glass as half full rather than half empty.

 

[Sean Ramsey]

I would love to see ST stick around but I have a hard time seeing it being a thriving board if it isn't managed effectively going forward. I don't see it ever being what it once was, but maybe managing the membership would encourage some older members to return and post while not flooding the place with new members who stick around for a week under some username (bring back real names).

As far as content goes, I think maybe some of the older stuff should be archived so we can start fresh conversations. I love the weather like everyone here, but I get lost in the scientific part of the discussion and most of it goes over my head, and frankly I don't have any interest in the nuances. But I do enjoy the discussions on photography, public safety, the reports from everyone's chase, etc. Unfortunately most everything has been covered in the past that I want to talk about so I feel like I may be starting a discussion that was covered seven years ago, so I don't start threads like I probably should.

If there is a change in management then it is up to all the members, more than just 12 people to create the discussion and encourage it. If that doesn't occur, then nothing will help ST survive.