Regional or National Cold Spell Threads?? (Poll closes at midnight/ Please Vote)

Ahorseofaman

snow ghost wrote: »

True democracy over this matter, would need to ensure equality and freedom of choice.

As in, keeping regional threads open as well as a national thread - that way posters would have the freedom to choose which thread to visit or to post in.

Agreed, nonsense posts are creeping into the forecast thread because as well as their own area people are curious about what is going on everywhere else and going to the forecast thread and then posting there.

goodies

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Is there any way to make only certain people post in the model discussion thread?

With the greatest of respect you could exchange details and message each other privately and not use a public forum. There are many many people who are interested in these events. Coming from an academic background myself I often find the most interesting discussions grow from new students asking questions. It is most important to make people feel safe enough to contribute.

Ahorseofaman

goodies wrote: »

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Is there any way to make only certain people post in the model discussion thread?

With the greatest of respect you could exchange details and message each other privately and not use a public forum. There are many many people who are interested in these events. Coming from an academic background myself I often find the most interesting discussions grow from new students asking questions. It is most important to make people feel safe enough to contribute.

Also with respect, 3 regional threads are available (plus the possibility of a 4th national)for people to post "will it snow here" posts. The forecast
thread could become cluttered very quickly and frankly become a pain in the hoop trying to find what we are looking for.
regards
Patrick

fricatus

One national thread for predictions and analysis, and four or five regional ones for the chit-chat.

I've no interest in wading through ten pages of "OMG it's snowing in Castlerock, Dublin 36!!!" to get to what Black Briar, maquiladora, darkman, MT, Weathercheck, etc. are saying.

TheInquisitor

goodies wrote: »

TheInquisitor wrote: »

Is there any way to make only certain people post in the model discussion thread?

With the greatest of respect you could exchange details and message each other privately and not use a public forum. There are many many people who are interested in these events. Coming from an academic background myself I often find the most interesting discussions grow from new students asking questions. It is most important to make people feel safe enough to contribute.

Goddies i understand what you are saying and i am at most an amateur enthusiast who only has taken a more involved interest in the weather in the last few months. I did that by watching for months other peoples views forecasts etc and then i started to delve in myself by posting my own charts and views. And loads of my views were completly rubbished which i thought was excellent because i learnt more, but that was in a slack time when there's at most 20 people posting in the forum. Thats when its easy to follow the discussion.

Right now there are almost 500 people in the weather forum and everything of value , all of the charts/forecasts peoples views are getting lost . Its almost 1-2 proper posts per page. I have always had time for questions about what im saying, where do we get the models from etc but right now if i post an answer to 1 person , it'll be lost in 5 minutes and there'll be another person on that'll ask the same question.

Thats why i feel we definitely need a general Chit chat/ general questions national thread and a advanced discussion thread.

Also your point about privately messaging each other ? Im trying to have a discussion about the weather and give some resources that i find.

irishmotorist

Think of the people who are near a province border. They won't know if snow is coming :eek:

df1985

id prefer a national thread but can understand the frustration of someone not from dublin wading through page after page of dublin related chat/comments. perhaps a greater dublin area thread?? that could encompass places like bray/greystones/blessington in wicklow, out to leixlip/maynooth in kildare, ashbourne/dunshaughlin in meath, up to louth?

just a suggestion-that would be 50% of the the total posts easily and people from other areas wouldnt be annoyed by all the "dublin" chat.

fricatus

irishmotorist wrote: »

Think of the people who are near a province border. They won't know if snow is coming :eek:

Waterford being a case in point. There are suburbs scarcely a mile from the city centre which are actually in Leinster.

goodies

thank you The inquisitor for taking the time to explain to me and I totally understand it must be very frustrating for those who are really fascinated with weather and are wading through the "will it snow in ballyheigue" posts. I suppose I don't want to be confined to those threads either is my problem! I am neither fish nor fowl :mad:

super_furry

It wasn't broken, so don't try to fix it.

TheInquisitor

goodies wrote: »

thank you The inquisitor for taking the time to explain to me and I totally understand it must be very frustrating for those who are really fascinated with weather and are wading through the "will it snow in ballyheigue" posts. I suppose I don't want to be confined to those threads either is my problem! I am neither fish nor fowl :mad:

I suppose the best option then would be for some strict moderating and all IMBY posts etc are deleted immediately

HellFireClub

TheInquisitor wrote: »

I suppose the best option then would be for some strict moderating and all IMBY posts etc are deleted immediately

I don't think we need to go reinventing the wheel here... No need to delete posts, if someone posts and doesn't have their location in their profile, ban them until they add their location, they'll surely work it out for themselves when they land at the page that says they have been denied access until they add a location. IMBY posts and off topic waffling, trolling, etc, warn once and then ban as happens in every other forum on boards and seems to work fine.

Pangea

Think this thread is actually stealing a bit of the thunder of whats really in store ,and that is a great snowfest for many
Lets all stop bickering and look forward to whats coming.

HellFireClub

Pangea wrote: »

Think this thread is actually stealing a bit of the thunder of whats really in store ,and that is a great snowfest for many
Lets all stop bickering and look forward to whats coming.

I hear ya but it is annoying to see loads of posts saying, "blizzarding down here", and the poster hasn't the cop on to say where they are posting from, hopefully mods will use a bit of shock and awe to sort out the forum as things get much busier as they surely will...

downwiththatsor

HellFireClub wrote: »

I hear ya but it is annoying to see loads of posts saying, "blizzarding down here", and the poster hasn't the cop on to say where they are posting from, hopefully mods will use a bit of shock and awe to sort out the forum as things get much busier as they surely will...

Not sure how difficult it might be but if there was a pop up or something that required a location to be inputted if one is not already in someones profile then that might make people alter their profile to include a location to prevent the requirement for the additional info each time.
Might not be practical / possible but just a thought.

hot buttered scones

Hi. I've followed (well lurked really) this board through the last two cold spells and found it both informative and great fun, so thanks to all for all your contributions. I only registered recently, but if the the regulars don't mind, I'd like to give my point of view.
I can see both sides to this discussion. Firstly, it appears the lack of a national chat thread is encouraging OT posts in both the forecasts and models thread. It also appears to have reduced the banter (e.g. sure it only ever rains in Cork etc.). However, it appears the main concern for people who want the regional threads is to judge the weather conditions locally without having to trawl through pages and pages of posts that aren't relevant to their area.
My suggestion would be to a national general chat thread , and a national models/forecast (non-chat) thread, with regional threads (possibly including a separate one for Dublin) for posting current conditions in your area. This way the majority can have what they want. I do realise though that this means even more threads than now, but it makes sense to me anyway
Apologies if something similar has already been posted.

Danno

Firstly, locations in the posts are better cause m.boards.ie users do not see the avatar and details of each user.

Secondly, there are too many regions setup, one for the North and West, one for the South and East for this event would suffice as the forecasts suggest two waves of snow over the coming days, the N&W first, the S&E second.

Thirdly, keeping MTC's thread 'clean' is a great suggestion as it will prove to be a great diary in years to come.

Pangea

Danno wrote: »

Secondly, there are too many regions setup, one for the North and West, one for the South and East for this event would suffice as the forecasts suggest two waves of snow over the coming days, the N&W first, the S&E second.

Good Idea :cool:

whiteandlight

What about having
1. national discussion thread,
2. a models/forecasts thread (strictly modded)
3. seperate regional roads/weather/travel updates.

Any of the options being suggested though will require strict moderating...

foxinsox

Musicmental85 wrote: »

What about having
1. national discussion thread,
2. a models/forecasts thread (strictly modded)
3. seperate regional roads/weather/travel updates.

Any of the options being suggested though will require strict moderating...

what he/she said ^^^^

I like a National Thread for chatting because it's interesting to see what's happening all over the country..

Experts only Thread... no mere peasants like me allowed make silly comments

Roads and Travel Conditions - what road to take to get home for the dinner

recyclebin

I prefer the national thread. I find it very useful as you get to see trends right across the country.

The regional ones mean reading through numerous threads to get a national perspective. Provinces are just imaginary boundaries. Depending where you live you need to look in two or three different threads just to get an idea of the weather trends.

whiteandlight

foxinsox wrote: »

what he/she said ^^^^

I like a National Thread for chatting because it's interesting to see what's happening all over the country..

Experts only Thread... no mere peasants like me allowed make silly comments

Roads and Travel Conditions - what road to take to get home for the dinner

She

Ya, ultimately we know its impossible to predict exactly what the snowfall will be in each individual area but it'd be nice to have somewhere local to shout off that "Its snowing" or the road mx is like a bottle. But we all still have somewhere to see what happening all over

dav3

Another thing that I'm sure annoys the majority of people on here are the "I hate snow/I hate cold weather posts". Certain people will try to hijack the thread by telling other people they should be cheering for warmer weather, do they realise that people on here can't control the weather? maybe a human sacrifice will appease the weather gods?

The majority of people will get excited about the prospect of snow and extreme cold. The experts and weather fanatics will always get giddy at the prospect of a once in a lifetime event. I just don't understand people who come on to the weather forum complaining about extreme weather and complain about people posting about it. Most of the time they are throwing a strop because they can't go on holiday or go to the pub to see their mates and want everyone to be as miserable as they are.

So if it all kicks off, I know we have the thaw thread, maybe a sticky can be set up for these people to complain as much as they like. They can all be corralled into one place.

Slidey

Poll is flawed, dense populace in Dublin will buck the poll in their favour

ro_chez

dav3 wrote: »

Another thing that I'm sure annoys the majority of people on here are the "I hate snow/I hate cold weather posts". Certain people will try to hijack the thread by telling other people they should be cheering for warmer weather, do they realise that people on here can't control the weather? maybe a human sacrifice will appease the weather gods?

The majority of people will get excited about the prospect of snow and extreme cold. The experts and weather fanatics will always get giddy at the prospect of a once in a lifetime event. I just don't understand people who come on to the weather forum complaining about extreme weather and complain about people posting about it. Most of the time they are throwing a strop because they can't go on holiday or go to the pub to see their mates and want everyone to be as miserable as they are.

Ah, those folks will get their just deserts in the coming days

OliveOil

I'd go for Three threads:

One for MT's forecasts

One for the experts to discuss the charts etc.

One for general chit chat and "any chance of.."

:D:D Can't wait

nacho libre

i prefer regional threads, but i thought it was only fair to call for a poll.
i think it's natural enough to have a slight bias towards your own region, as long as you're not overbearing about it, but the main appeal of a regional thread from my perspective is, the info' you want is more immediately available, than having to read through pages and pages you may have no interest in. for instance tonight i could come in and catch up on whats going on for Ulster and Connacht fairly quickly, but if there was one unified thread i'd have had to wade through loads of pages to do so.

demakinz

OliveOil wrote: »

I'd go for Three threads:

One for MT's forecasts

One for the experts to discuss the charts etc.

One for general chit chat and "any chance of.."

:D:D Can't wait

General chit chat thread for everybody--because when the west/north is getting snow everybody will post there- when the east is getting snow everybody will post there, etc etc....

Have the serious thread for charts-forecasts with a mod warning of no chit chat or what ever.

It looks like a country wide snow event so lets all have fun and share our views/excitement together.