nwhhc statement on hat system

[vbhoutex]

Some of our conversations with authorities could result in some changes this year as to how we do things in our forecasting area here at S2K. Everyone who posts a "forecast" on this site will be asked to adhere to those changes also if they are made.

Please don't limit free speech here. I fear that would be the wrong way to go. Things worked out great here last year. I was very impressed with the board experience. The only area I would work on is making sure the servers stay up during crucial moments. Other than that everything was great. Maybe a disclaimer pinned at the top of the forum stating that this is only a discussion board would do the trick.

Free speech will not be limited here(though I am sure some would argue otherwise). The only limiting is going to be "style", obvious disclaimers, and limiting of obvious "kooks", especially when we are in a storm situation. If you say Hurricane X is going to go into Miami as a CAT5 at 5pm on thursday and can back that up with good data it will be allowed. If someone comes on the site and says no, Hurricane X is going to be a TS and miss the entire East coast, that will be allowed. What will not be allowed is someone coming on here, making their forecast look just like what is issued by NHC and stating forecasts they can not back up. We had one yesterday. Great One came on the site under his 50th or so alias and stated "TROPICAL STORM 1 HAS FORMED, blah, blah, blah" and made his "statement" look as close to NHC's as he could. Whether it had been GO or someone that had never been on this site it would have been deleted. The reasons are stated above and there was no back up to the "forecast".

[Stormsfury]

Some of our conversations with authorities could result in some changes this year as to how we do things in our forecasting area here at S2K. Everyone who posts a "forecast" on this site will be asked to adhere to those changes also if they are made.

Please don't limit free speech here. I fear that would be the wrong way to go. Things worked out great here last year. I was very impressed with the board experience. The only area I would work on is making sure the servers stay up during crucial moments. Other than that everything was great. Maybe a disclaimer pinned at the top of the forum stating that this is only a discussion board would do the trick.

Free speech will not be limited here(though I am sure some would argue otherwise). The only limiting is going to be "style", obvious disclaimers, and limiting of obvious "kooks", especially when we are in a storm situation. If you say Hurricane X is going to go into Miami as a CAT5 at 5pm on thursday and can back that up with good data it will be allowed. If someone comes on the site and says no, Hurricane X is going to be a TS and miss the entire East coast, that will be allowed.

Good discussion, good debate, solid information with foundational backing is encouraged ... people like MWatkins, Derek Ortt, wxman57, and many others do so. I've seen some really good threads during the off-season of discussion, sometimes "heated" but respectful (that is encouraged, too.) ...

What will not be allowed is someone coming on here, making their forecast look just like what is issued by NHC and stating forecasts they can not back up. We had one yesterday. Great One came on the site under his 50th or so alias and stated "TROPICAL STORM 1 HAS FORMED, blah, blah, blah" and made his "statement" look as close to NHC's as he could. Whether it had been GO or someone that had never been on this site it would have been deleted. The reasons are stated above and there was no back up to the "forecast".

50th time this month, maybe ... attempted 50,000 times in the last 2 years. caught every time ... and GO's style is simply plagiarism and fairly easy to spot.

SF

[Derek Ortt]

for example, Chad

s2k probably receives roughly I would estimate 200,000 page views per day. That is fairly high traffic without a doubt. However, many of those come from the same people.

What I am saying is relatively few, compared to those going to the NOAA sites of course, or to EOM sites. . To date, relatively few view NWHHC as well for storm info (most we've had is about 15,000 visits during Frances and Ivan per day). The relative is compared to the 30 million that viewed the NHC site (though I suspect that number of hits is all files served and each of their pages contains about 50 files)

[chadtm80]

Gotcha.. However during cane season we are CONSIDERABLY higher the 200,000 page views per day

[LSU2001]

Chad,
I think he was talking about his website not storm2k. Im guessing here but if you read Derek's last post and his first post, I think thats what he is saying.
Tim