This is unacceptable.

[Bryce Stone]

Carrie asked:

am I on the \"soon to be discarded list?\"

Tim V. answers in this post, which it seems many people have not read, but which is easy to find in another thread in Information desk:

We are not going to dip a strainer into the userlist to weed out non-chasers based on credentials. That will be done on new applications (and to what extent is still in debate). But as long as a person is a currently a member here, abides by the rules, and respects the slant of the board, they're welcome

Several people have expressed worry about losing their membership, but if you're already a member you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Tim Gonyo]

Everyone,

Well, I've decided its come to the time where I give my two cents on this subject. I've been wanting to reply for awhile now, but have been holding back, but cannot any longer...

Here is how I see it, and this is a very logical viewpoint:

1) ST was reorganized for a reason. There were problems with the way it was, and it had to be fixed. I applaud Tim for making the changes he did. The forum was turning into chaos.

2) On to the politics and religion viewpoint. Why would you want to discuss something where people already have an established viewpoint? You can argue up 100 pages of posts, but in the end you will see the two sides won't have changed their minds at all. And its not just politics that I see this on, its any topic that turns into a debate. Debating turns into a chaotic environment that pushes people into anger. Its very hard to convince people that their viewpoints aren't right. It's human nature to stand your ground and continue battling. So lets leave politics, religion, and other debates off of this forum. Why can't we engage in friendly conversation about topics (i.e. discussions) in the new Bar and Grill?

3) On to the newbie and "weather weenie" thing. ST has been serving chasers since 1977. Bingo. You all knew this when you first came to this board, you signed up anyway after reading the rules and regulations, and now people are saying that nonchasers and weather weenies should be allowed to have memberships. For one, to be a chaser, you don't have to drive 10,000 miles a year and see 25 tornadoes. There is nowhere on this site proclaiming that. A chaser could be someone who ventures out around his locale pursuing local severe storms. This person would in fact be a "storm chaser". He is pursuing a storm. And its not that hard for a person to attain that chaser "status". Almost every state has at least (1) severe storm per year that is chaseable. There is also nowhere on this board that declares you can't be a member if you are a new chaser, (i.e. newbie). I believe even newbie chasers have information that we can learn from. Everyone has different perspectives, so I am open to hearing from anyone, whether it be a veteran chaser or a newbie. But, all in all, this site should stay catered to storm chasers and not just "weather enthusiasts", since that was the basis for ST originally, and it appears it still remains that way, so we need to let it be.

4) Also, a lot of you are angered by the 60% post ratio in Bar & Grill. Yes, I agree we need a place to talk about topics that don't coincide with storm chasing and weather, but we don't need page after page of debating, politics, and religion. Most people who are 60% and up were the people that would persist in the copius topics debating politics and religion. And if you read the first page of the post, and then go to the last page, you could pretty much assume what would be going on in the end without even reading it. You know what I mean? It's the same senseless babble over and over again. Bar & Grill needs to be used as a off-topic discussion forum, not debate-land. There are the people that are worried on what they will post about in the chasing off-season. There is a lot to post about. (i.e. autumn cold fronts, ice storms, sleet storms, snowstorms, torrential rainfall associated with winter storms, warm fronts that produce winter thunderstorms, cold waves, blizzards, dense fog, etc). And all that stuff can be chased if you want. A storm chaser does not end with thunderstorms and tornadoes. Remember, Webster's definition of a storm is "An atmospheric disturbance manifested in strong winds accompanied by rain, snow, or other precipitation and often by thunder and lightning." So basically, you can chase a lot more, hence being lots of stuff to post about thats weather-related in the off-season.

Well, I believe I've summed it all up pretty well. Who thinks these arguments hold some truth?

-Tim

 

[Michael Auker]

No offense meant by my using the term "weather weenie", I also am one. I'm not sure I belong on here either; the depth of knowledge displayed by the other members is amazing! However, I'm pursuing a degree in which a major component is meteorology. Maybe someday I can add my two-cents worth.

 

[Melissa Moon]

Originally posted by Chris DeRosier
I can't understand if I should even be viewing the boards anymore. I feel a bit insulted by being called a \"weather weenie\".

What I'm saying, I guess, is if I find this site a learning tool, I don't feel it necessary to be labeled a weenie.

Chris I think you are taking the term "weather weenie" the wrong way. "Weather weenie" is a term for someone who is merely hardcore into weather. I know scientists at NSSL who have referred to themselves as "weather weenies". The head of the met. department at OU frequently uses the term. So, when someone is calling you a "weather weenie", it's not a bad thing at all. It's kind of like "weather enthusiast" but a bit more ambidextrious because you can be a weather weenie and be a professional in meteorology or a chaser or just an enthusiast. I proudly call myself a "weather weenie".

 

[David Wolfson]

... Me, Sparticus! I mean... weather weenie! Most of the members of the board have been in one way or another since they said their first two words, "ook! cowd!" Members should bring a little more to the table than just that, is all.

 

[Rob_Davis]

Originally posted by Aaron Kennedy
Chris, no offense should be taken from being called a weather weenie... I can proudly proclaim myself as one too.

Whoa! *light comes on*

I just figured out what Aaron's avatar is all about!

 

[Aaron Kennedy]

lol!!! I never thougt about that. I'll have to add some wx to the background.

Aaron

 

[Bill Tabor]

Originally posted by Aaron Kennedy
lol!!! I never thougt about that. I'll have to add some wx to the background.

Aaron

I suggest having that little "weenie" running in the background with a Wizard of Oz type tornado nipping at his heels.

 

[Rob_Davis]

Originally posted by Aaron Kennedy
lol!!! I never thougt about that. I'll have to add some wx to the background.

Make sure he's running towards the tube, not away! :wink:

 

[Dave Kaplow]

When I saw the new ST, and read the new rules, my first thought was â€Thank you, ST - you really listened!â€, because it appeared that my (and many others) advice had been taken regarding the hidden forum and whether or not it was an appropriate solution to the situation. But I can’t believe we are having flames wars already! Surely it should be obvious that an entirely new ST (this is STx2, after all) needs time to settle down and organize itself? Why immediately complain? For god’s sake, wait a bit and see how the new rules work themselves out. If you’re still dissatisfied after a month or so, then is the time to bring it up for discussion. Come on, the “only chasers†rule is really not that much of a departure from what we had before. Let’s see how it works in action before we complain about it. Immediately posting about how horrible the new rules are, before so much as a single person has been denied entry, this accomplishes very little, IMO. Why get all worked up about a theoretical problem that may not prove to be all that terrible? C’mon, chill out a little... Please?

And that’s all I will say about this for now. Moving on...

I have to say that I like Mike U’s idea for an “advanced concepts†forum. The type of topics he envisions are just the kind of thing I’d like to see more of. But I am going to go out on a limb and make a radical statement: I don’t believe such a forum would need to be limited to a subgroup of ST members. Think about it... Why on earth would a person who doesn’t know much about storms want to post in a forum specifically titled “Advanced Concepts� The idea would be to keep the level of discourse high enough so that uneducated and inexperienced chasers simply wouldn’t want to post there. Make it clear in the rules that posts asking for explanations of basic terminology will not be tolerated. If you don’t understand the conversation, you have no business jumping in. No explanations of basic concepts would be given in the “advanced†forum, you either understand it or you don’t join the thread, period. Violators get their posting priveledges revoked. With proper moderation such a section would be a great addition to ST. It would provide exactly what the vets have been asking for, without any of the limitations that seem to alienate everybody else. Every member would have access to read all posts, and everybody would initially also have permission to post - but with the knowledge that any post demonstrating a “less than advanced†grasp of the subject matter not only will be deleted from the thread, but will get the poster banned entirely from the forum. I think this would be enough to keep most inexperienced chasers on the sidelines. After all, they can always still post in the regular weather lab forum.

I firmly believe this could work. I definitely see the need for an advanced area. There is just too big a gap between say, a highly technical discussion of the origins of RFD, or an examination of the latest changes to one of the numerical models, and the kind of laid-back and accessible thread typically found in Weather and Chasing/Weather Lab, for instance threads called “best storm of 05" or “weirdest weather experienceâ€. Moving the technical threads to their own forum would increase the S to N ration significantly, and entice more knowledgable people onto the board. I think it should be considered, but without any restrictions other than what I have described. I think the proponents of a closed forum would be very surprised at the results.

Note: I realize that asking for a new forum right now is a violation of my own advice about seing how things work out with the new board before asking for changes. I am posting mainly in response to Mike Umsheid's previous posts, because I believe he has a good point, but is also wrong about the need for restricted access. I should add that I myself would, at least for the moment, likely be mostly a lurker at any "advanced concepts" forum.

 

[Kevin Scharfenberg]

I've been on the internet for over 10 years, and some things never change. Wide-open forum memberships allowing a wide-open range of topics ALWAYS go through growing pains like this (and many of them don't survive). Many "wild west" boards fracture when a certain number of users get tired of all the flame wars and noise, and they frequently start their own new forum with exclusive memberships and constrained topics, yielding charges of elitism and snobbery by the other folks. And the world goes round and round. To his considerable credit, Tim V. is trying to compromise here, and I wish more people would give it a chance for awhile to see if it works out, but of course whenever there is change some people will be very unhappy. In the end, it's Tim's decision to make.

NOTHING is stopping anyone who doesn't like the rules here from setting up their own board. That goes for people who think there is too much "noise" AND people who want a wide-open membership and no constraint on topics. This is NOT your personal chat board unless you are paying to operate/use this board; Tim is granting you the priviledge and he's decided to take a compromise approach. There are thousands of other boards to discuss religion and politics. There are also places (e.g., chat rooms) to discuss the line of showers crossing Lower Bavaria. This is a board about storm chasing. I'm sure the mods will offer some leeway and if a post is off-topic, just lock it or ask members to bring it back to storm chasing.

The tricky part is judging potential future members and how much "noise" an existing member is contributing. In the latter case, some boards/e-mail groups have standing policies that every member has to post X number/percent of "substantive" posts over a given period to be retained, where the quality is determined by council/committee. Obviously that opens the door for politics and personalities to get involved. Tim has offered a numerical approach (everything not chase-related is noise and goes in the Bar and Grill forum), and I like it because it doesn't discriminate.

As for admitting new members, I can think of quite a few highly experienced chasers who have contributed nothing but noise and garbage to forums. On the other hand, I've seen some really sharp "newbies" who ask good questions and provoke good discussion. There's no good way to get around it without either admitting everyone or hurting a few feelings. If I were to run a board, I'd admit everyone, but have two buttons next to every post. One button would be for other users to report a "noise" post, and another to report an "offensive" post. If X percent of users report a post to be "noise" or "offensive" it would be classified as such, and a user will be suspended if Y percent of their posts are classified as noise/offensive. Essentially this is what the moderators are trying to do but qualitatively instead of quantitatively. We'll see if it works (I hope it does!). I would be okay with trying to admit some people who are just "interested" in storm chasing as long as they are willing to listen more than talk.

Tim has made it clear he wants to clean up the board and get Stormtrack back to its roots - storm chasing. There were not discussions on religion and politics in the old paper version of Stormtrack, and I'm sure many people submitted articles that were rejected for publication, so I think he's made progress. Or at least I'm willing to give it a chance. I would also throw in support for Mike U's idea for an advanced concepts forum.

 

[Melissa Moon]

Originally posted by Kevin Scharfenberg


As for admitting new members, I can think of quite a few highly experienced chasers who have contributed nothing but noise and garbage to forums. On the other hand, I've seen some really sharp \"newbies\" who ask good questions and provoke good discussion. There's no good way to get around it without either admitting everyone or hurting a few feelings. If I were to run a board, I'd admit everyone, but have two buttons next to every post. One button would be for other users to report a \"noise\" post, and another to report an \"offensive\" post. If X percent of users report a post to be \"noise\" or \"offensive\" it would be classified as such, and a user will be suspended if Y percent of their posts are classified as noise/offensive. Essentially this is what the moderators are trying to do but qualitatively instead of quantitatively. We'll see if it works (I hope it does!). I would be okay with trying to admit some people who are just \"interested\" in storm chasing as long as they are willing to listen more than talk.

I like this idea. I really do feel it's unfair not to give everyone at least a chance, because you never know who the good contributor is going to be out of the sea of applicants. I was actually trying to think of a good way last night to quantify this so that it would be objective, so I really like this idea. The only question is how to quantify as to when it is considered "noise" or "offensive". I'm assuming a certain number of users would have to click it as being noise for it to count? I think it would work as long as the number was high enough to get rid of any personal reasons as to why someone would click it as "noise" or "offensive" (you know, like say Joe Blow is mad at Jim Bim for something and purposely clicks the button to try to get Jim Bim off the board).

As far as the religion and politics thing goes, I can see how the majority of people agree with one another that it is better (or in other words "safer") to ban those subjects because they are indeed sensitive topics. While I agree with Kevin that it ultimately is Tim's board and anything that he says goes, I still don't like the idea of certain topics being banned from the "Bar and Grill" (because essentially that is a board where people can talk about anything they want not being related to storm chasing, and "anything" under normal circumstances would include those 2 topics). Perhaps it is the Libertarian in me speaking when I say that. My philosophy is more like "if you don't like them, ignore them". I know most people disagree with me on that, and I am not going to take any kind of action to change Tim's orders on that (or create any problems for that matter...I'm quite docile about it even though I disagree) but that's just how I feel about it. Yeah, there weren't any articles in the old paper Stormtrack about either of those two topics, but there also weren't any articles about anything else that IS permitted in the "Bar and Grill" thread.

Anyway, enough about that. About Mike's idea; yesterday, I was against it because I thought that it would create problems (you know, someone who feels like they are qualified to post on the board doesn't get selected and then the elitist accusations go out). But I thought about it some more, and I somewhat changed my mind. It would be neat to have some very technical topics reserved for experts only, because I know my meteorological education would benefit from reading it, and others feel the same way. However, I think it would only work without creating some problems if someone could come up with a nice standardized non-biased way of selecting candidates to post on that board that everyone (or most everyone) could respect in order to minimize the chance of politics ruining what could be a good thing.

Finally, I think that the solution to the problems recently occuring with stormtrack is not housecleaning to make the board more "chaser-exclusive" with new members (cause heavin forbid; many chasers are the culprits for noise and flame wars). I know I've said this before, but I think a much more effective solution would be better policing (like, for example, with Kevin's suggested method) that gives everyone a fair chance but then eliminates those who do cause problems.

 

[Bill Tabor]

I love the idea of an 'Advanced Topics' area. Seems that would keep a lot of folks happy with high quality posts. Somehow this area would have to be screened - not sure how & weather that would be closed - selected membership, or open with strict rules. The buttons for noise and flame may not be an option with the software - not sure.

Perhaps an area should also be included for newbie chasers, or wannabe chasers, or even weather enthusiasts. People will have to hammer all that out.

 

[nickgrillo]

Originally posted by Bill Tabor
I love the idea of an 'Advanced Topics' area. Seems that would keep a lot of folks happy with high quality posts. Somehow this area would have to be screened - not sure how & weather that would be closed - selected membership, or open with strict rules. The buttons for noise and flame may not be an option with the software - not sure.

Perhaps an area should also be included for newbie chasers, or wannabe chasers, or even weather enthusiasts. People will have to hammer all that out.

Are you talking about an 'Advanced Area' such as the private forums that we were arguing about before the change?

 

[Dave Kaplow]

Originally posted by nickgrillo+--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(nickgrillo)</div>

<!--QuoteBegin-Bill Tabor

I love the idea of an 'Advanced Topics' area. Seems that would keep a lot of folks happy with high quality posts. Somehow this area would have to be screened - not sure how & weather that would be closed - selected membership, or open with strict rules. The buttons for noise and flame may not be an option with the software - not sure.

Perhaps an area should also be included for newbie chasers, or wannabe chasers, or even weather enthusiasts. People will have to hammer all that out.

Are you talking about an 'Advanced Area' such as the private forums that we were arguing about before the change?[/b]

Sort of. Mike U proposed a closed forum of the kind that was under discussion on the old board. I am proposing a compromise. I believe there is a good argument for an advanced topics forum of some kind, but I think it should initially be more or less open to all, and certainly always open to all for viewing purposes. An elite group clearly isn't going to be popular with the membership as a whole, so I'm thinking we try it initially without the elitism. Look, nobody wants to make themselves look dumb in a public forum. If we have a place clearly marked out for advanced technical discussions, and we work hard to weed out anyone whose posts are of an obvious less-than-advanced nature, I believe the forum could end up being more or less what the vets were asking for. But the forum as I envision it would be self-policing entirely. I like the idea of "noise" and "offensive" buttons that could be used to flag inappropriate posts (in fact I suggested something very similar in my last post on the old board) but mostly I think that the very existence of a clearly marked "advanced topics" area will act to intimidate the inexperienced and keep them away. Keep the discussion at a very high technical level, clearly labeled as advanced, and I believe there will be very little noise. Intense moderation will be necessary at first, perhaps made easier by the aforementioned noise buttons, and problem posters will no doubt have to be banned, but I believe eventually a consistently high quality veteran-oriented forum would emerge, and be appreciated for what it is by everyone here. There is simply no need for elitism. Most of the chasing newcomers here are more than happy to acknowledge their lack of experience. I doubt if anyone will be in any hurry to display their ignorance for all to see by posting in an advanced topics area. Most will respect it, and learn from it. What the non-veteran membership objects to is mainly the idea of some subgroup of self-selected uber-elite chasers being granted special privileges in secret. It was not the "advanced" part that people objected to, it was the forum's hidden and secretive nature. If the advanced area is implemented out in the open as I suggest, I don't believe there will be any hard feelings from anyone. It will draw in true experts that we can all learn from, and would be a real asset to the site.