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.