Ed Dunham
Former Meteorologist & CFHC Forum Moderator (Ed Passed Away on May 14, 2017)
Reged:
Posts: 2565
Loc: Melbourne, FL
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Posting Problems & How To Avoid Them
Sun May 04 2008 12:25 PM
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Welcome (or welcome back) to CFHC. On June 1st the Atlantic hurricane season will 'officially' start, although in a normal season the first named storm usually appears toward the end of July into early August, so this is a good time to review the protocol for site usage. Every visitor and user should review the site Rules and General Information before submitting a post. During the course of the season some of you will probably get quite upset because your post was moved, edited or deleted by a site official, so here are some tips to avoid that likelihood.
Read the various Forum Descriptions. These descriptions should help you decide where to place your post. Remember that any replies to the Main Page Talkback Article should focus on the topics that are covered in the Main Page Article itself. During the off season this rule is not as strictly enforced, but during he active season it is. If you bring up a new subject that is not covered in the current Main Page Article, there is a high probability that your post will be moved or deleted. Allowable exceptions to this include new 'named' activity that develops before a new talkback article can be posted by a site official.
You can post a different opinion (with your rationale for the difference) regarding a particular tropical system, but you cannot criticize the individual that made the post. If you do, your post will be edited or deleted. If you continue to do this, your ability to use the site will be restricted. This rule often includes organizations as well as individuals. As the season progresses, some of you will attack the NHC for their 'horrible' forecast. Don't do this without providing some strong rationale for your disagreement. Keep in mind that the NHC normally provides a forecast every six hours - and not the minute-to-minute update that some of you expect out of the NHC.
Avoid one-line posts that have no useful content. Posts like "I agree" or "Thank you for the info" or "It seems to be moving more to the west northwest now" just consume bandwidth and will be deleted. If you want to thank someone or ask them about something in their post, use the Private Message (PM) capability rather than making a post. Remember that CFHC is not a chat room - it is a discussion oriented site with numerous Forums for specific discussions. An exception to the one-line rule are links that are pertinent to the current discussion that might be useful to others.
Don't post personal information or preferences - this stuff gets deleted. Spam, advertisements, political posts, sports posts, etc., all get deleted.. Use the Everything & Nothing Forum for all other off-topic material. Don't just post something anywhere with the expectation that the Administrators/Moderators will move it into the correct Forum. If we are busy, your post will simply disappear. Don't start a post with "I know this really doesn't belong here but...". If you know that your post doesn't belong in a particular Forum, don't put it there. If you are unsure as to where to post something, ask a Moderator via the PM capability.
Do not post any material likely to cause offense, that is protected by copyright, trademark or other proprietary right - without the expressed permission of the owner of such copyright - or that contains personal phone numbers or addresses. If your post contains material from another source, the origin of that quoted material should be stated in your post. If the sole purpose of your post is to ask a question of a generic nature, e.g., "What does 'shear' mean?", put these types of posts in the Hurricane Ask/Tell Forum.
Disruptive, or bad posts will get moved to the graveyard (as well as any direct responses to a graveyarded post) to serve as an example of what not to post. If a post of yours ends up in the Graveyard, don't worry, mistakes happen. It isn't intended to humiliate, just serve as an example. The News Talkback and the Storm Forum are both strictly moderated - other forums are less strictly moderated.
If you continually post off-topic material in the Main Page Talkback article simply because you are too lazy to place your post in the proper Forum, we are likely to continually delete your posts because we might be too busy to tolerate your laziness. All of the Moderators on this site freely give of their time so that site Users and Visitors can have an enjoyable and informative place to visit. Please respect their actions and requests.
Redundancy: If a poster continually makes the same post, or nearly the same post repeatedly on the same point, it will likely be put in the graveyard and the poster be put on timed poster probation.
Entire NHC Article/Advisory Reposting: Don't do it. The main page has direct links to most of the advisories and reposting them just tends to clutter the site. Your repost is likely to be edited down or graveyarded depending on how much content other than the article/advisory is there. If you quote a specific part of an advisory or article, reposting that excerpt, with discussion, is fine.
Wave Monger - 1. n. A hurricane tracker who pines for storms. Who sees every cloud over the ocean as a potential monster heading for land. Usually tropical waves that have not formed yet. Wave Mongers are usually seen more often in the early season. They deal in hype rather than facts. 2. v. The act of hyping up a storm way before it has even formed. Wave Mongering is usually just another form of an 'alarmist' post. These types of posts serve no useful purpose - don't do it here.
Whinecasting -- Similar to wishcasting, but having someone visibly upset that the forecast was wrong and then blaming everything on anything else. Meteorology is far from an exact science. Don't blame someone else for your lack of common sense with regard to storm preparation.
Wishcasting - Act of "wishing" a storm would come your way to "add excitement". If you are really this bored, you need another hobby. This is not the thing to do. The cliche, "Don't wish too hard... You may get what you wish for", really applies here. Wishcasting and alarmist posts are prohibited. Gut feeling posts without any explanation are not allowed on the Main News talkback articles or in the Storm Forum articles - they will be moved to the Forecast Lounge (or deleted). Alarmist posts will be graveyarded. Some of our users still have difficulty distinguishing between an 'alarmist post' and the 'high probability of reality'. Contrary to urban legend, our more knowledgeable site users do not have the ability to 'change the weather' or to 'make it go away'.
Some of the above may seem a bit harsh, yet every single one of these 'posting problems' will occur multiple times during the course of any hurricane season. The added effort of correcting these infractions of the site rules means that the Moderators will have less time to provide you with the useful information that you are seeking when you visit the site. If you see something that seems improper, use the 'Alert Mods to Bad Post' link to get the attention of a site official. Please try to follow the posting guidelines so that everyone can have a quality experience here at CFHC.
Ed Dunham
CFHC Administrator
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