Request for the Upcoming Season

[DoctorHurricane2003]

When a storm is out there, instead of having one huge gigantic thread where everything is mishmashed and its easy to get lost in, and the advisories thread, can we have it set up as the following (the following is an example):


Tropical Storm Alberto (01L) General Discussion Thread.

Tropical Storm Alberto (01L) Advisories, Models, and Analyses Thread.


That way, people are lost going through 50 pages of one thread trying to find what they want. All of the official/professional information is in one thread, while the general discussion that you can easily pop in/out of is in another.

I also propose that this starts once a system becomes a Tropical Depression. For Invests, we can keep one thread.

Thoughts?

[Evil Jeremy]

good idea. lets see what the mods say.

[benny]

Don't they have a tendency to get mashed up anyway? I mean you can get the official stuff anywhere....

[cycloneye]

Interesting idea doc.However since 2004 we haved been posting the advisorie thread with a sticky as those are for advisories only as well a recon thread with all the data from the planes.But last year I made a discussion thread about the recon data that was very good.

About the long threads,as you know I haved been making those long threads=comments,sat pics,models thread ones with Katrina leading the way in terms of pages with 228.About=Tropical Storm Alberto (01L) Advisories, Models, and Analyses Thread is almost the same as those I make with the addition of analyses word that you add but as I said the word advisories is eliminated because of the official storm2k advisorie thread.

But again your idea doc can be considered and more than that tested as soon the first disturbance gets organized to a depression.

[senorpepr]

Personally, I like the idea of advisories in one thread, recon (if applicable) in another, with comments, metsat, and model discussion in a third thread. That way, the wobble-watchers have their own home while the advisories are seperate.

[benny]

I concur.. three threads

[hicksta]

here we go agian!! wobble watchers!!! left right up down !! ahaha my head.

[senorpepr]

here we go agian!! wobble watchers!!! left right up down !! ahaha my head.

LOL... as long as they don't make a poll, we'll be alright.

[Matt-hurricanewatcher]

I like it the way it is...Easy to save the page to look back on.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

What I was going for was that all of the discussion was to be placed in 1 thread. If we could take things out of that and combine them with the advisory thread, that would be VERY nice.

So, in other words, what the posts in the Tropical Storm Alberto (01L) Advisories, Models, and Analyses Thread would look like is to have absolutely no comments on them (moving all to GD thread). We would have, when the advisory package is issued, a post for each individual item (Public Adv, Marine Adv, Discussion, and Map), then for each model run (usually 00Z, 06Z, 12Z, and 18Z), post the model information/maps at that time.

I'm still not completely certain what I mean by "analyses"...since we have the Tropical Analysis board. We could post, though, Hurricane Local Statements in the thread, Dvorak Estimates, and Area Forecast Discussions from Local NWS WFOs. In terms of posts from users on the board in the thread, we could let that evolve...either no posts at all, or maybe some analyses on specific things in the thread from the professional mets. We could see how either one goes, but I don't think that there should be comments at all from general users.

Recon I agree, should be a third, separate thread on its own since there is so much information provided by that specifically.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

Oh also, I have no idea where the Sat Pics/Radar Pics should go. I do highly suggest though, that there be a limit on how many are posted (we don't need 300 of the same thing posted in one thread)

My whole idea for this is to get things as efficient as possible, and as to not waste bandwidth with users posting items multiple times

[senorpepr]

Oh also, I have no idea where the Sat Pics/Radar Pics should go. I do highly suggest though, that there be a limit on how many are posted (we don't need 300 of the same thing posted in one thread)

My whole idea for this is to get things as efficient as possible, and as to not waste bandwidth with users posting items multiple times

You make some good points, Doc. I'll rattle some ideas through my head and then post here with what I have. I agree, we need to hash out some idea of how this upcoming season will flow and "hopefully" reduce the multiple threads regarding the same topic. However, we'll never eliminate that. They are just too many people that are trigger happy that want to be the person who announces to the forum the said storm now has said pressure. Gotta love those quickly locked threads: "OMG!! WILMA IS 882MB!!!!11"

[cycloneye]

Something like this?

TD#1 General Discussion thread

TD#1 Analysis,Models,Sat Pics thread

Sticky=TD#1 Advisories

Sticky=TD#1 Recon thread

TD#1 Recon discussion thread

I used as the example TD#1.

[P.K.]

Can I make a suggestion that people post links to images rather than the actual pictures? As well as slowing the whole board down when it is busy and loading each time I load the thread it also uses lots of bandwidth for whoever's image you are directly posting. This is the reason why I only post links unless I've uploaded the file myself. Also it keep asking me about security certificates or something for https images which gets a bit annoying.

As well as the above it uses more of my monthly download limit than I would like loading all these images I don't necessarily look at.

[senorpepr]

Can I make a suggestion that people post links to images rather than the actual pictures? As well as slowing the whole board down when it is busy and loading each time I load the thread it also uses lots of bandwidth for whoever's image you are directly posting. This is the reason why I only post links unless I've uploaded the file myself. Also it keep asking me about security certificates or something for https images which gets a bit annyoing.

This is something I do agree with. While I, and a lot of other people, have been guilty of this from time to time, we should definately watch this. While hotlinking images doesn't use S2K bandwidth... it DOES use up the host's bandwidth. For example, imagine all the hotlinked NHC graphics that are loading down their webpage. The last thing we want is to crash an important website from hotlinking.

Secondly, while most of use have unlimited cable/broadband, we still need to think about those with dialup.

Finally, while most of us in the states don't worry about this, we should respect those, espeically in other nations, that have restricted "downloading" on their internet connection. Many places only allow a person to "download" (which includes viewing threads on S2K) only so much, and having the same image hotlink over and over again is killing that allotment. A simple link would do the job and will allow the page to load quicker.

[jasons2k]

Here's my $.02 on this issue. Personally, I like the way it was broken out last year with a Recon Thread, and Advisory Thread, and a Model/Pic/Discussion Thread (basically 3 threads) plus the formal analyses found in the discussion forum.

Really, the only 2 issues I had with the thread organization last year were two things:
1) Having 10 or 20 open threads for one storm. I know there is a lot of debate over this. I posted early in the season last year that we should limit our threads or the board would become unmanageable....that suggestion was largely swept aside...but sure enough when Katrina came the board became a mess. I personally like consolidating all the thoughts/comments/amateur predictions to one thread. I would much rather page through a single, 50 page thread rather than hunting through 50 individual threads. If someone is looking for something specific they can always use the "Search" function.
2) Posting threads with non-descriptive/incomplete titles. There were a number of threads with titles such as "Oh my..." or "Look at this..." or "I wonder if..." or "Any rain for....." or "Will StormX make landfall in..." last season. I honestly don't think such "teaser" threads make the board very efficient.

[DoctorHurricane2003]

That could work as well, cyc. If we leave out the advisories in the AMSP thread, there may be more room for some quick analysis in thread-specific items made by pro mets.

[MiamiensisWx]

I have a suggestion, too. Why not make all the threads on a particular storm stickies?

[senorpepr]

I have a suggestion, too. Why not make all the threads on a particular storm stickies?

The only problem with that is... if we have multiple storms. Imagine a couple of active storms in the Atlantic. If we have at least three threads per storm... that's at least 9 stickies. That doesn't include the other handful of stickies regarding rules or various things. Before you know it... the first page becomes mostly stickies, pushing all the "new" threads to the second page, which isn't customer-friendly.

[Scorpion]

Gotta admit last year was way better than 2004, when there was absolutely no organization and there was a new thread for every new vortex.