Hi all

Thanks for all your feedback regarding the way that tropical cyclone threads have run in previous seasons. The team of moderators and admins have taken all this on board, digested it all, and had extensive discussions about the path forward that we believe the tropical forum should take.

The main rationale behind making these changes is to ensure that we keep a clear balance between ensuring new members feel welcome and able to post, and not "annoying" existing members unnecessarily, with spammed posts.

Initially, these guidelines will only apply to the tropical forums (the existing Tropical and Central Australia forum and the new Tropical Lows and Cyclones forum). However, if they work successfully, they will be rolled out across the whole Weatherzone forum.

The changes that will be implemented (effective immediately) are as follows:

* All forum members will be limited to one post per sub-forum in any 10 minute period. This is to limit spamming, and ensure that threads do not degenerate into "chat". This will also encourage the use of the edit post facility. Unfortunately, the forum software precludes us from making this thread-based. Hopefully the addition of the Tropical Lows and Cyclones sub-forum will go some way to alleviate this. Users will be able to post concurrently in the general chat thread in the Tropical and Central Australia sub-forum and in any cyclone-specific thread in the Tropical Lows and Cyclones sub-forum.

* To allow for this, the editing time for posts will be extended to 20 minutes.

* Localised threads will be created during major events, and moderated to show local content only. All forum members will be allowed to post in these threads (regardless of their physical location), but the content of the posts in these threads must relate to the specified geographical area.

* Threads will be split when they reach a certain post count, at the sole discretion of the moderators.

It is also worth reinforcing at this time that all forum members should be familiar with our forum guidelines , particularly regarding attacks on other members. To this end, attacks on new forum members will be treated with a zero tolerance policy, and bans will apply.

Finally, just a reminder on when TC threads will be created:

Each Area of Responsibility will have its own seasonal cyclone discussion thread to talk about developing systems.
Specific cyclone threads can not be created until a system directly threatens the coast or a watch/warning is issued on the system. Finally, it is up to mods/admin to decide if tech threads are created.

If anyone has any questions about these new guidelines, feel free to post in here or PM me directly.

Thanks

Matt Pearce
Weatherzone Forums Admin

How about trialling a web based chat room for people to converge on and chat to free the forums up?

Thank you Matthew for the information. Quite a few of my suggestions and others from other people have been listened to by the looks of it and the 600 seconds time out from each posting will stop quite a few trolls dead in their tracks and I believe it is an excellent idea.

Well done guys.

I appreciate the effort that goes into running the forum.

Hey Thomo that is a good idea but I don't think the WZ Servers are up to it after what happened last year.

Maybe as a suggestion we could start a Weatherzone Facebook Page to chat in and have a stickied link in the new forum? Just a suggestion. Oh and make Thomo the moderator for it too .

I second that thomo, not only would it weed out a lot of the one liners on the forum but it would be great for learning purposes too. They have a similar setup in place for one of the USA forums I visit for the hurricane season. This year with Irene I just idled in their chat room and learned so much over that period, newbies were asking questions and the more 'experienced' members were nice enough to try and answer them when they had time.

I'm surprised there is not already a weatherzone Facebook chat.

These guidelines are a great idea. Being a newbie myself i enjoy reading the posts and discussions and would hate to be excluded. Admittingly most of the time i have been a lurker because i really have nothing of substance to add to the threads i am reading. I agree that the Yasi thread last year was a joke and could clearly see the frustration that was being felt by people that have a clue in the forum. I will however say that the Trav Nitso live coverage was even worse for spamming so thank god it didnt get to that.

I don't like that Idea, alot of people here despise facebook, that will split up people in to seperate groups. A Spam/Chatbox/shoutbox would be cool for little tid bits, much like twitter enforce a character restriction, if it could be implemented it could be located on every page you view within the forums.

I like the idea of restriction of 10 minutes.. the problem with editing is, during peak times the numbers of people posting made it rack up pretty quick, so if you did edit your post, no one could probably see it unless they read all the posts.

just my ransom musings at this time of night. If Weatherzone made a chat room it would be responsible 24/7 for what happened in their. Maybe build up a chat room independently and in the future time be linked with no responsibility from here. Its a great idea just I dont expect or see WZ implementing it in the future

bber36, the best way to get involved is to ask questions. No matter how dumb you think they are a question means you need some help and that is what this forum is/should be based on. I am the firm believer that the only dumb question is the one that hasn't been asked. We where all new here at some stage and have all asked questions that with more experience now seem a bit silly but the truth is we didn't know so had to ask.

Trolling is looked on as a banning offence here and the Mods and Admins take seriously any complaints and soon sort out any issues before they become a problem.

If you don't want to ask a question via the forum then please feel free to PM me and I will either answer it, if I can, or pass it on to somebody who can for you.

Very good advice SBT!

Yes RD, a forum stands or falls on the ability of members to help newer members.

So this season if anyone can help someone then step out of your comfort zone a little and offer some help and don't leave it up to the few of us who do go out of their way to make people welcome. In the end it will make for a much better forum and much happier members. I am building slowly a couple of resources that people can be pointed to help out. More later.

I greatly support these new guidlines. I noticed last year the new members were coming onto the forum during the time when Yasi hit the coast and were asking questions that never got answered. I don't know everything and sometimes I'd like to ask questions which should be obvious to me but aren't and I feel stupid to ask them. Glad this is happening.

I just had a quick look through the yasi thread again and like I think it's great we have people asking questions And wanting to learn it's awesome. But for the people who ask stupid ignorant questions like - what times the next Bom warning for yasi???? Countless times I saw questions like that. Like come on its just pure laziness and it probably is quicker to just look on the Bom page for the information instead of asking it on a forum. Also another question I saw in the middle off the panic - what's that blob in behind yasi? So with 10 000 online watching the biggest and most dangerous cyclone to hit north Queensland and there are people who come onto a yasi thread asking about a bunch off clouds in Fiji......it's very frustrating.

Other than obviously dumb questions like those above I'm hoping more people join the forums and add to the conversation! It's a great forum and there are great people and personalities on here

I have just been through the impact of the new forums re wait 600 seconds (10 minutes) until you can post again.
While I have been a great supporter of change within the forums, I am truly concerned that the new rules will end up being counter productive and drive good people away.
All I can say is test them. You will see what I mean.
These changes will bring the zone back into an experts lounge where 500 word treatises will rule... and only a 500 word reply will suffice.
Trav and others have been demanding this..... I can understand their frustration but goodnight to regular chat. I can understand the rules being enforced during an event... but so much can change in ten minutes....to take out the option of posting within that time frame is both ridiculous and dangerous.

PS: said delay was within the cyclone lounge, I've also had to wait 10 minutes here... an area set up to allow people to fire off questions. Bloody hell mods... what are you thinking? You truly need to modify this system. The arguments were for streamlining threads like Yasi when they went off... and that's fine... but you are killing every other thread's intimacy and immediacy.
Selectivity please.... who is going to wait 10 minutes for an answer in this day and age ?
So why is this happening? Is it to take pressure off the mods ( and to be fair to them WZ wont cough up the cash to update a forum system that was first written last century).

But in the end, unfortunately, in persisting with this new system across the board you will kill both the vibrancy and collectivism the zone sought to be.


PS: And after 9.9 minutes how redundant is a post?

boomer
This decision was taken after much thought and consideration (between mods, admin - based on suggestions posted in the trop forum) and will be here to stay for the time being.

The reason it wasn't rolled out forum wide is to see what impact these changes will have on the forum during the coming season. If there are no issues, it will be rolled out forum wide. If there are issues, we will reconsider our options. I need to adress a couple of your points however:



This forum has never been about 'regular chat', it isn't a chat room. I think you are going a bit over the top in regards to 'only a 500 word reply will suffice'. The whole point of imposing a time limit is so people think more about what they post and to discourage chat.




I disagree. If people want the most up to date information during an extreme weather event, they can visit the BOM page. I think it's silly to suggest that limiting posting to 1 post every 10 minutes is 'ridiculous and dangerous'. There are multiple ways to get up to the minute information. Besides, you can still go back and edit your post for up to 20 minutes afterwards.



The new rules apply to the 'Lows and Cyclones' forum as well, as mentioned in the very first post in this forum. Again, admin may decide to lift this restriction depending on how this 'trial' goes.



Obviously these changes won't please everyone. But I can tell you this - admin has not received ONE COMPLAINT regarding these changes. Not one. If you have issues with the changes, I suggest you email them directly.

And I disagree that you think the 'vibrancy and collectivism' will be killed. Yasi showed that smothering the forum with posts only leads to overloads, and pages upon pages of mindless and repetitive drivel. Impossible to moderate and not at all pleasurable for anyone to read or contribute to.

I have no problems with the 10 minute rule and have said as much previously. In fact I was one of the first people asking for it to slow down the trolls Boomer.

Quite a few forums use similar times to stop spamming of forums. Some less and some more. But in all cases it doesn't halt the flow of posts, just the flow of posts from single members.

An extreme example - at one stage I (as Maxibuzz) held the record on Whirlpool for the most posts in a single thread - the Aura Thread (which i hated by the way) which was around 1200+ posts in 14 days in a thread that was over 1000 pages long before it was culled into 4 versions. Now I don't post any where near as much these days, and haven't been active on Whirlpool since 2005 but do we really want to see that happen here during another Yasi event?

OK I can see where a smaller unit may be worthwhile like 5 minutes during an actual crossing in your location where you are trying to provide 'live' updates but the 10 minute rule is fine with me for general run of the mill days.

Can I ask if the mods can activate the timer on a thread by thread basis? For example, the general cyclone thread may be 10minutes, but the whitsunday coast thread (say where the cyclone is currently crossing) could have only a 2 or 3 minute delay?

I welcome the change definitely a step forward in weeding out one liners and spam but I do foresee issues with the 20minute edit time. Such as people saying something nasty and then editing to remove the comment before mods get a glimpse. So a question would be are edits recorded or not? Im guessing not.

Post edits are not recorded unless they are reported via the Notify button in which case we get a copy of them...So if someone posts something out of line use that button and we will have something to work on. Agree with RD here - we did discuss this at length. I personally would love to see it on the thread by thread basis but the current software does not allow it. I'd love to see the forum software updated and have been hassling for that to happen - but it does not look like happening any time soon. I'll keep onto them though All of this is trial and error - if something isn't working we'll definitely try to work to fix it ASAP...All we ask for is reasonable / proactive feedback..."Bloody Hell Mods" doesn't do anything to help fix it up - positive suggestions are a lot more helpful. Remember we are all weather followers just like everyone else on here...we all want this to work as well as it can

Nah, you mod's do a good job as it is. I'm sure we'll survive the changes this season

In response to RD's missive.
Okay so lets forget the chat word. Perhaps "debate" would have been more appropriate. I agree WZ is not a chat room, nor should it be. What it should be is a forum where there is room to debate.
Right now, with 10 minute waits on posts, that forum has been restricted phenomenally.
I would a suggest a change of five minute waits and edits ( and only on hot threats as identified by the mods... all others should remain as per previous years).
Why (partly)? RD says that for up-to-date response we should look at BOM. Excuse me if I think this is a little lame. TC Tasha is a prime example (other models were way ahead). My house was in the firing line, they had no idea a TC was there until they walked outside. Others in Innisfail during both Larry and Yasi (until they lost power) were able to warn of debris areas.
As for there having been not one complaint, I find that extraordinary.
This system will drive good people away. No doubt WZ will lose its primacy.
As for my opinion re RD... one of the very best mods I have ever seen.... I just do not happen to agree with him on this one.

Much activity before the season. The past season showed what a success Weatherzone Site was. Even though a few problems did arise from the ungodly chat,.... people were interested in being a part of the site.

I don't know weather it is the case still, but weatherzone put in place a rule where by the more posts you make the higher up the scale you become, this must be taken into consideration when it comes to the amount of one liners people are doing.....they were being given a treat for their efforts.

I do hope the site continues in good favour, I would not like to see anyone take advantage of the discussions being made on this important topic: by advantage I mean starting up their own facilities in opposition to weatherzone, and promoting it to other users through weatherzone.

Just the same have a good up and coming wet season, and may the best advice be stable enough to keep everyone happy!!!!!! cheers SB

a new forum was created because this forum doesnt have the software to allocated time limits to specific threads. hence a new forum and that limit applies to all threads in that forum.
the reason is plain and simple. for people to stop and think about what they are posting instead of countless one liners. a time limit also enables people to then refrain from posting and hopefully sit back and read what others have written before they can post again.
in the case of someone new asking a question, hopefully the question is asked within that time limit.
so 1. it stops multiple posts and clogging
2. teaches people to sit back and read what others are writing and hopefully learn at the same time.

That seems reasonable Mick10, it will take time for eveyone to learn the ropes, but it should do the trick. Just the same, a lot of junk conversation can go into more than 1 liners. lets see what happens, hopefully only the serious will do the discussing and the odd person will watch. The rest will move on. Weatherzone no matter what, will have to face the challenges of being popular, this in turn will leave it wide open to a lot of problems. If they are prepared to grow with the popularity, it is win win for all in the game of weather.

I might be making a pariah of myself in saying this, but a 10 minute sin bin for making a post, ANY post? Ludicrous. some people in this thread seem to think that the problem with the yasi thread (as an example) was people asking about a blob out there east of yasi. This won't stop that. it will stop them repeating the request, not the request.

At the height of the storm I would have loved to have been able to post updates (in partocular as our house disintegrated around us and we escaped during the eye, if quick fire posting annoys you get a chatroom organised and have that moderated at certain hours.

admittedly as the storm was approaching there was some serious trolling going down about people being stupid for staying (even thuogh in a lot of cases people had to work on the tuesday before and escape by then was impossible.


Having said that overall I thoroughly enjoyed being updated regularly by any and every post in that thread and sat glued to the computer and read every post no matter how thick and fast they came.

10 minutes seems abit long maby 5 mins could be better? i understand that you need to keep the trolls out and loads of them popped up during yasi i was concerned that many new peoples questions were not answered (the not stupid questions) i know you mods do your best but i feel that10 mins i a bit 2 long to wait to post again hence mu 5 min suggestion.

I tend to agree. Have to see how it goes but it's going to make for some very long drawn out discussions!

I think 2 mins - 5 mins should be the time but 10 mins is ridiculous.

I think a few people are missing the point of the 10 min limit...



Because posts are limited to 10 mins you can go back and edit your previous post and add the extra information.
10 mins does go very quick.
The suggestion of 2 mins is ridiculous... It will take the average person almost that just to post once....

I don't think that limiting post to every 10 minutes will stop the chatting. I might be totally wrong here but I will put it forward just so I can understand better any way.

After thinking about it this morning, allowing 20 minutes to edit your post will allow 20 minutes of chat to go into your post. That is if this is not monitored properly.

For example I might post, then another member responds to my post with a question to what I actually meant.Therefore I go back and edit my post and give the said member the answer to his query, he then re-edits his post and wants more info, I go back and edit, etc etc, others join in within their posts, before we know it we are watching each others posts and there is your chatting. If it does work this way I am sorry to blow any loop holes open.

I wonder if 5 minutes would be more appropriate especially if there is dramatic developments in progress.

Sorry to throw this one up, but it may not work this way or it may just be a petty thing that wont be a problem.

At the end of the day I just go with the flow and respect the decisions of the Mods.

Cheers

Col.

why dont we see how it works over the season first, no point thinking what could happen. this is only a trial anyway and would be changed if it doesnt work but we need to see if it works first

Thanks Shummy...Look guys, all this is open to change as we go along - let's see how it pans out with the first event eh? Trust me, we will be watching, listening and learning. We'd love some more flexwith the forum software but until the next upgrade it 'aint there..so working with what we have, and you guys throwing in your thoughts...I am sure we can get this to a point where it works well for the majority of posters

Thanks Mathew - great ideas for trialling.

Perhaps one way of overcoming the Yasi frustrations (particularly for those of us who went through it)could be that new members have viewing rights only for their first 5 days. The advantages are:
1) Avoid clutter and frustration during peak times;
2) Give new members the opportunity to see if this style of forum is for them;
3) Enhance their own knowledge by reading info first prior to making their first post (many already join and don't make a post for some time after joining).
4) Prevent server crashes.

I really like these ideas ('cept for the 10 minute rule, I think that is a bit of an excessive time limit, especially if there were say, several cyclones around at once or something it might be a bit annoying to contribute to all of them). I joined during Yasi earlier this year, but while reading the thread and seeing all the sh*t in it, I decided not to do much - well any - posting during that time as it was cluttered enough already.

I like the idea FNQ2 (Tom) posted about only having viewing rights as a member for the first 5 days, that would really stop the influx of members that post a couple of spam posts during an event and then just go away forever. Only people interested in talking about the weather would remain as most events that those people sign up to talk about are generally over after 5 days.

FNQ2(tom) and bobri both have good points and ones that I raised earlier on in the discussion when i put forward the point about Whirlpool and not being able to post in certain lounges until you reach a pre approved post count. But this has one huge drawback. let me explain - As happened during Yasi myself and may other where able to offer flood and evacuation advice, updates, warnings and rainfall figures and observations to new members and provide flood maps from TCC, evacuation contact numbers and addresses etc when Yasi looked like dipping further south than it ended up.

New members wouldn't be able to ask vital questions if they have a 5 day restriction imposed and after all isn't that what the core of this forum is about? Helping people during weather events like Yasi?

OK hands up , I was among those who got carried away with the whole thing, again as it turns out I do get a little carried away during a cyclone, but limiting new members the ability to post is counter productive and no I am not a huge fan of the entire forum wide 10 minute rule either.

10 minutes in this sub forum - Yes. But as happened to me today after posting in one forum i then tried to answer another members question about a weather station in the bloody Lounge of all places only to hit the 10 minute rule.

I say again, the 10 minute rule should only be enforced within the sub forums that spammers will cause problems (i.e this one) and NOT forum wide. That is just taking the restrictions too far guys.

SBT... I think it goes without saying I agree. Good example.... I reply to you here but would like to talk about the thunder cracking over Bartle Frere... no can do both.

Hi SBT
Just to let you know the Mods are aware of the problems happening with the 10 min rule and are trying to address it before the real wet starts.
Mick 10 has advise the Admins and no doubt are trying to fix it, everyone needs to be aware that at the momemt it is a glitch they are trying to resolve.
Lets be patient and hope they can resolve it before our Cyclone season gets underway.
Frustrating I know, its happened to me frequently in the past week or so but we just have to wait till they find the problem and are able to fix it.

Admin has removed the 600 second blockout until further notice while we try to figure out what is going wrong.

thanks for your patience guys, sorry its been a drama.

Thanks Mick, admin and mods. Sorry for being so impatient. As per usual you are onto it.

Hi guys,

I posted this earlier but I think this is the more appropriate forum (apologies):

I am sorry if this suggestion has been proposed earlier..... How about letting the members decide whose input is unnecessary. If members were allowed to "like" or "dislike" someone's comments (similar to Yahoo and Youtube) the website can monitor who's contributions are not appreciated by the masses. If a member accrues more "dislikes" than "likes" temporary posting restrictions can be placed on that member. I don't know if the system could be that simple but at least the concept is worth considering.

We've considered it but the current forum software doesn't allow likes/dislikes unfortunately.

Has this now been reinstated? I posted in the Lounge this morning and then was not able to post in Central Coast and Whitsundays thread until the 600s had passed.

Thanks for the heads up Mick and it's good to see the admins taking notice of members comments.

hi firepac,
no it hasnt been reinstated that i know of. send me a PM if it happens again, what threads you were in, and what time. i can then forward it onto admin.
cheers,
Mick

Happened to me last night a few times MIck (sorry cannot remember exact threads)

ok thanks boomer,
again let me know if it happens again. same as above.
will send a message to admin to check it out first thing.

Whats the general felling about the Northern hemisphere Hurricanes/storms in this forum ??

I was under the impression that if the event was not in our AOR it went in the World forum ..

Cheers

maybe the forum could be renamed 'Australian Tropical Lows/Cyclones' or something similar, to prevent further confusion?

international storm systems should still be discussed in the world forum. sorry about the confusion guys.