ST's Future Discussion

[John Olexa]

I'm kind of guilty as well. I've been here since the beginning? Dec 2003 and have less than 500 post. But I visit & read all the time. I thought by getting a photo section added where we could post our storm images it would get a lot more participation going either by posting images or commenting on images. I was just spending some time looking through the members section... we really have a who's who of storm chasing here!!! Just about all the big names are members, some still post but most don't. Wish I know what the answer was, even though I don't post a lot I would still hate to see it disappear. Heck I can remember getting the old newletter mailed to me, folded twice & stapled LOL.

In another forum I ask if anybody else was having trouble logging in when we were having trouble a few weeks ago & one person answered " Stormtrack changed a few yrs. back - became less welcome to amateurs like me"

 

[NLabun]

Lurker here. I've contributed exactly nothing to the body of knowledge or the community of ST, but I'm grateful to have learned so much from everything posted here. So I just wanted to comment on this.

What was so great about ST in the past, from what I've seen, was that there was a healthy mix of experience: some beginners, lots of intermediate level chasers, and some veterans and experts in the field. In the past few years we've watched the numbers of all of those levels dwindle, and now we're left with only the most dedicated and knowledgeable maintaining discussions, such that there is little to discuss anymore.

That said, I'm not sure the character of ST would be compatible with a shift to social media like FB, which as someone said earlier isn't really designed to allow comprehensive discussion. I think trying to migrate to FB and killing the forum would largely dissipate what remains of the community, as it would lose its base, which has always been robust, compelling discussion. A site like Reddit may be more suited to that purpose, but it's much harder to build a community there; coupled with other forms of social media that are more community based, it could work well. To keep ST alive in some form is definitely worth a try, IMO.

Just my 2¢. I defer to the judgement of active posters.

 

[Marcus Diaz]

DING DING DING. Tell him what he's won Bob!!!!!!

Hopefully a DVD bundle from Shane Adams himself!

 

[Dan Robinson]

A few more thoughts.

Facebook's place seems to be for chasers reaching out to the general populace, not to interact with other chasers (aside from those in one's own close circles). For example, Danny's success story is due to maintaining a quality informational weather page geared for the residents of Chicagoland and northern IL (correct me if I'm wrong there). Most of the followers on my chase page aren't chasers (though there are a few who do participate there, which by the way I greatly appreciate, in case you happen to read this).

I know chasing is about storms. But there are peripheral things that make it enjoyable. One of those was the camaraderie of a coherent community that we had ten years ago. We see a little remnant of that in venues like Chasercon, but Stormtrack (and to a lesser extent WX-CHASE) was, by far, that community. I don't mean "community" in the eye-rolling, cringeworthy "holding hands around a campfire singing kumbya in perfect agreement" sense, but community in the sense that we are all chasers sharing a common interest in storms, and driving long distances and making life sacrifices to keep seeing them.

For ST to work, the value has to be apparent. One of the biggest ones is the fact that even now, the domain has a Google Pagerank of 6. That is extremely good, on par with some major newspaper sites. Everything that gets posted here ranks very high in search engines. Links back to chase accounts on your own site give your site a big boost in SEO and resultant traffic. Traffic remains very robust here, even if it's not what it was before. At the very least, search engines still see ST as a valuable enough site to rank it high for many storm-related search terms. Being a member and making quality posts here has a direct benefit for your own name and internet presence.

There are more than just chasers who read and find people and information here. Media producers and other business owners have been known to use ST as a place to help find what they are looking for, even if it's just from a simple Google search.

I'm not saying that ulterior motives should rule ST's potential comeback, but I think if more people were aware of some of the very practical values here, it might tip the scales in opinions.

 

[Shane Adams]

Please think of more items you feel would bring value.

(1) REAL NAMES
(2) Decide if this forum remains free to ALL (NOT 12-15 people doing all the financing) or becomes a paid membership forum for EVERYONE.
(3) Immediately delete all accounts that (1) are not real names, (2) have been inactive for more than six months, (3) have ZERO posts, and (4) if the forum becomes a paid membership forum, all members who (a) refuse to pay or (b) fail to pay on time per month within a reasonable grace period.

Before going forward with content, the foundation of this place needs to be set in stone. I for one do not want anything to do with a forum full of bots, nicknames, lurkers, or forum-joining junkies who join just to join. The participation list should reflect the membership list.

 

[rdale]

Is it really that expensive that it's necessary for every use to pay? Seems there should be some cheap options...

 

[Bob Schafer]

Ya know, there is very little ever said about raising funds, but this was the first time the site went dark. That means that people are contributing without even being asked, and when funding comes to the forefront of the consciousness donations come pouring in, at least based on the comment that Mark Blue made. I don't think funding is really an issue. A minimum of effort to raise money is all that is needed, at least as we stand today.

 

[Rob H]

Is it really that expensive that it's necessary for every use to pay? Seems there should be some cheap options...

No, I'm fairly certain Tim is paying for a dedicated Linux server. I'm not familiar with vBulletin, but I'm guessing whatever he has setup now is overkill. The most taxing thing on a site like this will be full-text searches, but Google searches seem to work really well for this site.

I just want to add that I don't like raising money to just keep something limping along. If Tim (or someone he hands the keys to) gets involved, and we see some effort put into running the place, I'd gladly chip in - provided that the hosting makes sense. There's no transparency into what the current costs are and what they provide, so it's hard to say.

 

[Danny Neal]

A few more thoughts.

Facebook's place seems to be for chasers reaching out to the general populace, not to interact with other chasers (aside from those in one's own close circles). For example, Danny's success story is due to maintaining a quality informational weather page geared for the residents of Chicagoland and northern IL (correct me if I'm wrong there).

You are correct. The minute I stopped trying to cater to other chasers and catered toward the general population is when my "stock" significantly rose. I will talk to just about any other chaser under the sun, but all of my sales/support come from my page and the general populace. The discussion about chasing and storms themselves are lacking, but doing day to day weather updates and such gets me by. The page itself has actually transformed into a business as I have gone all over the state to train different organizations and companies on severe weather and have been the keynote speaker in a couple of presentations as well. I think resurrecting this forum would be the best way to have everyone stay in contact in an organized matter, social media only supports selfish motives.

 

[John Wetter]

I have to agree with most others that with good leadership and things being fresh, there is still a place for ST. $20 a year certainly seems reasonable to me, that's not even a half tank of gas now. I think it needs to be in harmony with social media as Skip has stated. Use of real names needs to be the policy. I've thought that the moderators have done just enough moderating. Going back to 2010-11 which was referred to, the people who got tossed basically deserved it. The social media cliques exist because human nature is to surround yourself with people who are like-minded, and not to challenge your ideas which happens in a larger forum like this.

 

[Mark Blue]

I've been thinking about a few members I know who haven't chimed in yet. I wonder if a bulk of those who are involved in this thread decided to message a couple of other members they know who aren't posting, if we couldn't double the idea pool for future suggestions. Is that a worthwhile effort or a waste of time?

I could coordinate the effort if those here didn't want to fiddle with it and just wanted to send their 2-3 names my way, since I have access to the members email addresses. Just another thought.

 

[Rob H]

I've thought that the moderators have done just enough moderating

Certain moderators seem to have a Laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing, and others seem to have more of a vision for how discussions on the forum go down. Here's the thing - if you want to foster a community, let the community handle things on their own. Science-minded people love putting rules and constraints on everything, but that's a quick way to end up with bland posting, a lack of content, and a lack of interaction. It's almost as if this forum suffers from those things...

I also think these situations won't happen as much if we go back to the real name policy. It was an interesting experiment, but people post better when their real name is attached to things. Sean Casey posted here, Reed Timmer posted here, Tim Samaras posted here - no reason anyone should feel the need to hide behind a pseudonym. Especially if we have things like chaser partner threads where strangers are meeting up with each other and road-tripping.

Is that a worthwhile effort or a waste of time?

Having a discussion about it and establishing a council to reach a quorum is a waste of time Just do it. This is a supposed to be a community, and if notable people are absent, just shoot them a link and prompt them "what do you think?" If they care about being a part of this community, they'll come and post.

edit: the above goes for anyone thinking about this, it's not limited to Mark

 

[Andrew Pritchard]

I haven't posted in this thread yet, or on ST period except for a few reports threads contributions over the last couple of years. I don't know that I have anything valuable to add to the discussion at this point other than adding another "I've been thinking about the forum lately and would be sad to see it go" response. I really really miss the long winded forecast/now/reports threads. I have come back periodically on severe weather days just to see if there was anything going on discussion wise at ST but often found a sad thread with one or two responses covering a potentially big chase day. Obviously I am part of the problem, but I miss the interactive discussion. Posting my own forecast in a thread that won't be seen or receive any additional input just hasn't been appealing. I can't speak to any great ideas on how to get more than just myself interested in posting in these threads again, but that's the one thing that would get me back here real quick. The ease of Facebook has really worn off at this point, as I don't really care to sift through those 100 comment threads from small groups of chaser friends skimming for some decent discussion. I miss having one central location where one could have a decent discussion about a single day with the usual crowd. Flying through facebook and twitter feeds has it's advantages - twitter in the short term especially... but for in-depth discussions with multiple people, the Stormtrack discussion threads were really the place to do it. Whatever ST transforms into, and whatever method it chooses, the forecasts/real-time discussions/and detailed chase reports would be what bring me back regularly.

I guess I've just been kind of nostalgic for the early 2000s chaser community interaction. I kind of walked away from the chaser community a few years ago, as most of it started to weird me out for any number of reasons (I know I'm not alone, either) but darn it, I miss this stuff.

EDIT: I will add that if the forum is to stick around, some organization of the sub-forums would probably do some good. With minor contributions these days do we really need 11 different "weather" sub-forums? Probably not. With lower contributions, I think scaling back a bit couldn't hurt and keep discussions from being difficult to track down or stumble on to.

 

[Clarence Bennett]

From my point of view, it just feels like everything has already been done. Aside from rehashing old issues, I don't think there are any new topics to discuss here. Forecast discussions certainly are pathetic now. Honestly the biggest reason I don't contribute is because I see people like Skip (not calling him out in any negative way) typically thoroughly cover nearly all of the critical issues with most severe weather setups, and I don't feel like I have anything meaningful to contribute without duplicating what they said.

I think all of the ideas sound great and I'd love to see it go back to how it was with the camaraderie, but what used to be a hobby, a simple love for meteorology has now tried to become a business for so many of you. It used to just be a handful, but after the "Storm Chasers" craze, it seemed everyone wanted to make a buck $$$ off their adventures, whether it was image sales, video sales, or gathering a following on Facebook, so they could self promote and for me it killed it. It drove a lot of our community to become, snarky, arrogant, selfish, and greedy. No one wants to share information anymore, share possible targets, share their images, talk about an upcoming setup. As a community, we've self destructed to a certain degree. I've watched it happen since 2008 and it slowly bled us all out. It isn't a competition, it is mother nature. You guys can change the forum, add a page to Facebook, set up a pay site...but until the attitudes change, it will still be the same thing.

I quote Jeff Duda up above because I feel the exact same way. I think Skip does a fabulous job, his detail is incredible, his thoughts are well spoken, excellent, but when I log in and read his essays, I think to myself, "what else is left to say?" and I click X in the upper right hand corner and move on. It's a thread killer and it's overwhelming. Dan, perhaps you should get a core group and start up a brand new forum. It is either time to let this die or bring in the hammer...reminds me of a failing business hanging on to the old business model...my two cents.

 

[Skip Talbot]

NOW threads didn't go anywhere. The MISC threads are supposed to include the NOW posts, but that concept didn't seem to latch on. The changes in Target Area structure and rules were hard to keep track of and turned a lot of people off I think. It's probably worth reverting back to an original format, or would that be another change that people have to learn?

I agree on using real names. I think that was an executive decision to drive traffic to the forum, but the members were overwhelmingly in favor of keeping the real name policy. If we do go back to it, we'll probably have to let those with nicknames keep them to be fair. Demanding them to change or be booted is the heavy handed moderation that I think would stifle participation. As long as they are productive posters, it shouldn't be an issue to keep those with nicknames around.

$20/year per member is way too much. The site could easily run on $1/year from each active member and there'd probably be some left over for some sort of Stormtrack project, meeting, upgrade, or sponsorship. In its current form, the site could run for $0/year per member if somebody hosts it on their own site.