Wx Infinity Forums

All,

As most already know, our time here at KHOU is more than likely coming to an end. I have personally been with this community for over a decade now, and to see how much we have grown, along with the impact we have on the local community has been nothing short of incredible. While times have changed, this community not only persevered with the support from our long-standing members but from the countless individuals who have joined since. That is why the moderating team is asking you, the community, what to do next. We noticed the overwhelming support in the other thread about keeping the forum alive, but how we accomplish that is complicated.

The largest issue is financially supporting a forum that not only supports general weather talk but also handles the large impact events where thousands and thousands of new visitors stream in. This involves having some sort of dedicated server that ideally can accommodate our changing bandwidth needs. Even from a conservative estimate, the board will likely cost $100-200 per month to run, and that doesn’t even include the possible impacts a hurricane or other high impact event could have on the site.

That is why we want to know from you, what the best course of action should be. Should we take the forum to another website where donations and advertisement support it, move it to some sort of social media-based platform like Facebook, or should we even consider letting the board die? While we, as moderators will continue to donate our time, we alone cannot support the costs of running a separate site. This is why we are trying to spark a conversation to try and gauge how much support there would be. Please let us know your suggestions and what you would like to see next. Thanks everyone, I look forward to the comments and I hope this post did not come off too "preachy" or "needy". We wanted to lay it all out for everyone and let the community decide what to do next.

I would be willing to pay for access to this great resource!

I would also be willing to contribute a small fee. Perhaps a Patreon site with different levels of contribution possible?

I don't remember if I have donated to this forum, or not, I do support others, and will apologize right now if I haven't done my duty. That said, I would be happy to support a new forum with periodic donations, but would think that putting such a forum behind a paywall would lead to it's rapid demise. That, and as a local weather forum, sort of owe it to the community to remain accessible for such weather emergencies, for any assistance and information it can provide.

Facebook and other social 'things' are horrible options, IMO.

The Admins may want to check with the Admins of the Gulf Coast Weather forum (http://stormcastforums.com/) and see how they do it. IIRC, it's 100% donation-supported, and a very lively forum.

Thank you for keeping this forum a great source of Southeast Texas weather information!!

I’ll chip in.

I'll chip in too

I vote a strong NO to facebook or any social media platform.. The forum layout is by far the best for this site.. I will also contribute to help keep it up and running!

Alright thanks for all the responses everyone. I will talk to Srain and the others more to try and see what we can bring together. Please continue sending in your responses they do help.

I will too. To much of a resource to let go.

We thank everyone for their responses both in this and the other Topic. It is clear that the majority of folks want to keep some sort of Weather Forum Platform such as the php platform we were provided by KHOU in 2010. The truth is that the current php platform is extremely out of date and unfortunately there was no strong commitment from KHOU/Tenga to maintain the upgrades that have been needed for many years. The current platform lack the modern security requirements and in fact isn't that stable. We have experienced down time events throughout the history of this php platform as well as recently. We have had support from KHOU, but is parent company is a big National Operation with many Media Markets across the Country. I want to make it very clear that our local KHOU folks have been extremely helpful throughout the KHOU Weather Forum History dating back to 2001. They have been faithful to our Weather Community and honestly would like to maintain that commitment. Unfortunately in the current situation, the Parent Company is calling all the shots.

We will continue to explore options for keeping the Weather Forum alive and look at different platform possibilities. As Andrew stated, the financial aspect of a monthly dedicated server and hosting fee, maintain and upgrades of a platform and making sure we have enough bandwidth during High Traffic Events would have to be a priority.

For those that have reached out to us via this Weather Forum, social media feeds, private messages, texts, e-mails and phone call offering your encouragement, promise of support and just a good neighborly "what can we do to help" has been nothing short of amazing. That support goes to the highest levels of the Weather World, be it public, private and media. More importantly it's been you, our members, friends and followers throughout the years that have touched our hearts so much. We have known that this Weather Forum is important to so many across our local area and the Region, but the outpouring has extended well beyond and across the Country. Thank You All!

We ask that you keep your comments and input coming. I know for a fact that the powers that be and the entire local KHOU Team is monitoring what we are discussing very very closely during this time of transition. We ask for your patience as we attempt to come to a solution that will not let this Weather Forum die. It's too important to so many and we fully understand that.

I have to say I haven’t checked this site lately as the weather has been rather uneventful. However, this has been my source of expert information for many many years, and while I offer nothing in the way of any sort of weather knowledge, I often send friends a link if they want the best information during precarious weather. I remember feeling lost when WWL lost their forum, and now there is a danger of this forum being dismantled. Please, I implore you to find a way to communicate with the concerned folks out there who read the forum in silence. The expertise found here is very valuable, why, I remember boasting to friends that I had known who Jeff Linder I was, before he became famous!

I wouldn't mind moving the community to Storm2k, if they would be willing to let us have a southeast Texas subforum or thread. I know many of us, weather professionals and lay folk, already frequent that forum. Storm2k seemed eager and welcoming enough to accept us when the KHOU suddenly went down a few days ago.

The most important thing is keeping the community together. I work in the weather everyday and have been depending on this weather community since Hurricane Ike. The forum the community uses doesn't matter.

Even so, it would be sad to see all the posts on this forum disappear. They offer valuable historical insights of people going through major metrological events. It be shame if they were lost to history.

I wanted to provide an Update of where we are as of this morning regarding the future of the Weather Forum. With KHOU's permission, we have been able to backup all the data from this platform and the dedicated server, but we believe that data may be useless due to corruption and an extremely out of date platform. Several Upgrades from php have not been performed over the years which likely impacts the data we have saved for historical purposes. Andrew worked diligently on completing that task the past several days.

We are exploring the possibility of a new platform away from php that will be extremely user friendly and that will be a cleaner, easier and an updated modern platform with many more functions than what we currently have and will actually look tremendously better. We do want to prepare folks that the historical data may not be useable or transferable even if we stay with a php platform. The folks at S2k are and have been an extremely longtime ally for the Weather Forum and we actually work in tandem when issues crop up both on their side as well as ours. That relationship will continue regardless of what the future holds. Truth be known, our two Weather Boards are the longest active Boards still around. The Admins and Staff at S2k fully support our Weather Forum and will in the future.

This coming week we will be talking and exploring operations that can host our Weather Forum with a dedicated server that is large enough for a smooth and fast operation and is big enough to handle high use events. We also want to explore any technical support that will be needed as well as a change in domain names to transition to a new Weather Forum. We will be looking at the monthly cost of operations and provide that information as we have the final details. It is our intention to be completely transparent in the cost of operation of an independent Weather Forum. We owe that to our Members and anyone that would potentially donate to maintain the operations.

I want to personally thank the folks at KHOU locally. I believe there are still some "behind the scene" activities exploring options and if there can be a future with KHOU/Tenga and maintain the Weather Forum. Frankly, we believe it is an uphill climb and without a secure platform (HTTPS versus our current HTTP in the URL) that Tenga is requiring, we do not believe that will be possible before the current server host contract expire on December 15th.

This week will bring a lot of activity to finalize where we go in the future. The Thanksgiving Holidays are nearing and many of us will be busy with Family and Friends. After that December begins and the clock/calendar will be against us to be operational before the final end of the current forums.khou.com end. We are working as quickly as possible to come up with a workable solution...if we can. We absolutely want continued discussions about the situation and welcome everyone's input.

Two things.
1) A big thank you to all the professionals and just regular weather nerds (said with affection) who have contributed here over many years. I grew up in Houston and my interest in weather is directly related to experiencing so much of it while living in Texas. I've lived in locations (LA, CA) where I've gone years with very little "weather." I didn't like it.
2) I hope KHOU can find a solution to keep this forum in house, but I'll follow this group of weather experts on to the next destination because you guys/gals provide great info.

I have a selfish question. How will we know how to locate whatever platform you guys chose? I afraid of losing my connection to this valuable source of info. BTWI would donate just like I do to Wikipedia every year..

I would suggest the Vbulletin platform. Most forums I belong to have this platform which is user friendly and probably the securest one out there. Of course this cost money. Any forum I have been a Moderator/Administrator at used Vbulletin.

texoz wrote:Two things.
1) A big thank you to all the professionals and just regular weather nerds (said with affection) who have contributed here over many years. I grew up in Houston and my interest in weather is directly related to experiencing so much of it while living in Texas. I've lived in locations (LA, CA) where I've gone years with very little "weather." I didn't like it.
2) I hope KHOU can find a solution to keep this forum in house, but I'll follow this group of weather experts on to the next destination because you guys/gals provide great info.

The new site would still feel like the same board just with an updated feel and look. It will also be more versatile, easier to use, and more secure. The last thing we want to do is change the dynamics and feel of the community though and that will be key. At the end of the day we still want the new forum to be a place for enthusiasts, meteorologists, and anyone else to come and talk about weather and be properly informed.

nlosrgr8 wrote:I have a selfish question. How will we know how to locate whatever platform you guys chose? I afraid of losing my connection to this valuable source of info. BTWI would donate just like I do to Wikipedia every year..

When we decide the final location of the new forum we will make sure to make a post here and on social media letting people know. We will try and post a week or more before this forum is closed on the new location to give some time for the changeover.

Heat Miser wrote:I would suggest the Vbulletin platform. Most forums I belong to have this platform which is user friendly and probably the securest one out there. Of course this cost money. Any forum I have been a Moderator/Administrator at used Vbulletin.

We are looking at paid platforms like VBulletin, but the latest version has not been as polished and the reviews are not nearly as good. I have a couple of other options I am currently looking at that can provide similar features. The key here is to get a platform that is easy to use, mobile friendly, and looks good. As a community we don't need a lot of the plugins or add ons that some other boards have.

I'm definitely in for contribution. This is the first place I go whenever we have a weather event here (which is frequent) and really is an invaluable resource.

I would contribute, as well.

I'm sure y'all have thought of hitting up some companies as Gold, Silver, or Bronze sponsors. Heck, TEGNA may even be up to contribute half of their annual expense of this forum for the new forum for a couple of years.

They can think of it as 'alimony.'

Not sure anyone would want, but I can set up this forum on my host/server and setup current mods with permissions. Just another option. Let me know. Would be glad to help.