2nd idea pool. Nathan needs ideas

[Skywatch]

I'm helping Nathan Parker expand the WeatherBug Backyard Weather network. 2012 alot of changes are being planned and Nathan wants ideas. I know my previous post didn't see much action but can we get some ideas I can share with Nathan? I'm shure many of us are are part of WeatherBugs PWS "backyard weather" network just the same as we are with Wunderground. As contributers we probably have ideas on improving the backyard network and Nathan wants ideas so imput is well appriciated.

Also I'l try to get Nathan to join WXforum so we have support from WeatherBug.

Thank you.

[Scalphunter]

it been an waste of time with Nathan. Every couple of months he has "an new idea" and nothing ever happens. if you take  time and go thru the  40 or so  groups he has  now you find that no one goes past the main  blog page. On some of the groups  no one has posted on them for over 2-3 years. I find weather bug lacks both leadership an direction and is there just to take your money. The backyard stations are just an gimmick to get people there to buy their product. So what ever ideas  that are given they  seem to just fall in the bit bucket or for  us old timer the round file.

John

[Skywatch]

Nathan's always helped me. He cares. You have to know this, WeatherBug is like any major weather service, changes aren't easy or cheap. I can assure you Nathan is listening but probably want to accumulate more ideas before anything can be done. And WeatherBug isn't trying to sell you anything. You buy stations anyware. You can get free software like Cumulus or WUHU to send data to them. Membership is free. I don't know where the whole money gimmick or buy their product deal came from but I've always found them to be great. Sorry you had a bad experience but I've been happy with them.

[saratogaWX]

Sounds like a set of lively discussions are in the offing ..

wxbugnathan has joined the forum and we look forward to the discourse.

My sole experience with WXbug was almost 10 years ago when I was first starting the station.  At that time, there was no VirtualVP, so I could either run WeatherLink (the first software for the DavisVP+ I ran, and still run) or WXbug, since only one could have the serial port for the Davis console.  At that time, I chose to use WeatherLink since it had the weather-tags functions so I could put up a website, and WXbug could show me the data, but not let me publish.
Things may have changed substantially over the years.  I know with the advent of VirtualVP, I now run 6 software packages on my Davis, but I'm kinda strange that way (also helps me develop template software for weather websites).

From my standpoint, I prefer weather software with lots of weather-tags available for processing in your own webpages, and the ability to upload to a variety of data ingress sites (CWOP, WeatherUnderground, WeatherForYou, etc).

Best regards,
Ken

[SkiMedicKC]

I like the weatherbug desktop, and use the mobile version frequently...I am very annoyed that I can not use it to access my backyard station data.  That function has been broken for quite a while. 

I would like for users to have the ability to view a map of all the stations (personal and professional) to select the one they want to have as their default.  If that station is down for some reason, then it would automatically switch to the next closest station.   Perhaps wxbug can just pull data from CWOP to get a larger pool of stations.

[smorris]

I'd offer the same suggestions that I've offered in previous queries and when contacted directly by Nathan in October:

Integrate the site better! Your backyard blog cannot be tied to your weather station feed and web cam feed. Nathan's suggestion was to put my Weather Underground Badge on my blog page... And you can't get directly to the update status page from anywhere! I had to access it via another weather application and then once there bookmark the page.

There is no Mac version of WeatherBug Desktop, although it has been coming "soon" for a long time as far as I can tell.

The whole site is just hard to navigate.

[Scalphunter]

I can assure you Nathan is listening but probably want to accumulate more ideas before anything can be done. And WeatherBug isn't trying to sell you anything.

  For how many years can you assure he is listening as you can see there are some of us here who has been around for some time and been there and done that, But I guess for an 19 year old you know everything. Gee your parents starting to get smarter yet?  As to the money end they say those who supply weather data can use Weatherbug Pro for free. The catch is you have to subscribe to it first. Well if that isn't taking your money what is. In the mean time they if they really use it are getting your data for nothing. They made an statement that the had put weather station in every schools so school kids can learn and study  the techology. Yet I can not find it in any schools in Alaska. Last time I check we are part of the US even tho most people don't thinkso. I asked why this was not done after reading the statement. No answer to to my question. Why ?? Not important enough  and also off the beaten track so who cares.
  One day when one of their  clowns who either works for them or has  his group was confronted about something his answer was he was going to always be rigth and we will be wrong.  Good attitude for running an business or associated with it.

 As to the free weather bug it lists my  station and then you ask for the next closest station it list some city that over half a world away. Weather cams shows  som place in BC  yet I know there couple closer then Hartley Bay. Yeah  they offer free suff but it buggy hate to see what you pay for.


John

[Skywatch]

John

You remind me of Flag who got booted of 2 months ago for insulting comments if you recall.

 I find your reply insulting and disrespectfull. No one told you to buy WeatherBug Pro. You spent your own time and money. And if you think it's a crime to be 19, maybe it's just as much of a crime to be what ever age you are. How about that!

You may not like something but others do it's all opinions. And you calling me a "know it all" for being 19? You need to shut it!

Before I got into weather I knew nothing. But the one thing I learned most about weather stations and weather watching is how many jerks are associated with this hobby. I try not to start arguments, but when someone says something personally demeaning to me like "For how many years can you assure he is listening as you can see there are some of us here who has been around for some time and been there and done that, But I guess for an 19 year old you know everything. Gee your parents starting to get smarter yet?" This absolutly pisses me off. And I will come after you for it. Here on WXforum I demand the same respect I try to give others. John you can appologise for that immature remark of yours or get ready for a steamed argument.

I don't want to argue. But I'm not affraid to get my point of respect across.

[saratogaWX]

But I guess for an 19 year old you know everything. Gee your parents starting to get smarter yet?

I can see you feel strongly about the topic John, but I do request you refrain from personal slurs against other posters.

MckTXaws .. I urge you not to dive into something you may find insulting.  Flame wars are not encouraged nor tolerated here.

Ken

[Scalphunter]

NP Ken but  the texan lad seem to have this problem with wanting respect  as an excuse when other disagree with him. Yeah I remember Flag. But I  seem to like to exciser my rigth to free speech which is guanteed to me according to the white man paper called the Bill of Rights. I think it #1 in the bill of rights. Oh I forgot that only applied after 1948 when  the law making  us Natives  citizens.  Any way  now days it be either Political Rigth or be  banned.

 Anyway I won't waste any more time on here.  I made some friends and those who I don't consider friends it no lost.

[saratogaWX]

Hi John,

Speech is indeed free, but per the rules of the forum, just a bit constrained.  Personal slurs, attacks, denigrations are among the items not allowed as it tends to take focus from the debates on the facts.  Polite discussion and expression of opinions is strongly encouraged.  Behavior that escalates or encourages a flame war is strongly discouraged.

You have the right to express your opinions and relate your experiences with the proviso that it follow the forum registration rules. 

[wxbugnathan]

I thought I'd respond to a couple threads at once in this post, then I'll go on to address some of the other suggestions next.

One of my colleagues will be joining this site shortly and chiming in more on the company-side of things, so I'll leave most of that response for him. I will say that mckTXaws is correct. WeatherBug is a major weather organization, and WeatherBug Backyard, while a good part of WeatherBug, is just one fish in a very large sea. Feel free to visit our parent company website, EarthNetworks.com, to see all what the company has been doing. You can see we have quite a bit of projects going on, and our fingers are in a lot of pies at once.

Now for a little background about myself. I am a 21 year old full time college student, and in addition to college, I also work for WeatherBug overseeing the Backyard Community with a couple other colleagues, and I answer all of the support emails for Backyard Stations. On top of that, I am the CEO of a tech firm that's about to get heavily involved in a project, plus I'm an IT director for a real estate firm, and I also have a handful of web design clients I work with regularly. I am usually up late at nights, plus I also carry an iPhone on me when I'm out and about to attend to business (and I'm usually on it almost constantly!). I love each of the places I work and would hate to give up any of them. The work keeps me extremely busy, yet productive. When it comes to answering Backyard Station support requests, I will email, not hesitate to call, chat, Facebook, text, tweet, FaceTime, or any other method the individual needs to ensure their Backyard Station issues are resolved. I do care about our user base and work as hard as I can to ensure their issues are resolved.

Additionally, over the past couple of years, I've had a few illnesses come my way that's pulled my health down a bit. Nothing life threatening, but serious enough where my health has set me back from having the strength to really put in my full effort into projects that I've needed to tackle. It's been tough. I'm trying to get over that speed bump in my life and really bounce back into full productivity.

With that said, I realize that the Backyard Community (and other Backyard-related projects) needs serious updating.The Backyard Community in its current state is confusing, fragmented, unconnected, and stagnant. We could do much better to improve it and make it a better place for our members. I want 2012 to be the year we do that. I've promised you better for too long now and haven't delivered. This time, I want to make things right. I've got a great CTO and colleague I'm working with, and we also have you, our over 3,000 members, and together, we can make a difference. We can make the site and the experience better for everyone.

I'm not going to promise overnight results. I'm not going to say we're going to wave a magic wand or snap our fingers and everything just "improves". What I will say is, we're ready to take things to a whole new level. We're ready for a change. And we need your help. We need your help to give us feedback. Tell us what you love and what you loathe, and we're ready to listen. We want this to be YOUR site. We want YOUR input. We may even ask you for help beyond general feedback and see if we can get some of our community talent involved to help make a difference. Who knows?

Here's what we want to work on at WeatherBug Backyard this year:

1. Simplification of the site. The first and top priority is to simplify the site and make it easier to use for our end users. We're going to scrap what doesn't work, keep and refine what works, and overhaul the foundation of the site first. We're going to make it a breeze to get where you need to go, to feel more at home, and to get things done such as publishing Backyard Station data to our site. We're also heavily looking for inspiration. We'll be drawing from sites like Wunderground and other sites who's Backyard Station documentation "just works". We're going to make things simpler.

2. Better integration of existing features. We're going to work as hard as we can to better integrate everything under one roof. I'm going to heavily talk with teams to make it easier to signup and edit Backyard Station information, integrate Backyard Station data into people's profiles, plus I'm going to heavily work with our teams to get Backyard Station data better integrated across the board in all of our offerings. We know you want it, we know you need it, and we're going to work as hard as we can to deliver it.

3. Exciting new features. After those other two parts of the agenda are taken care of, we'll work to rollout exciting new features into the site. Top on our list is Backyard Webcams, and we have a few other things up our sleeves we believe you'll like as well. We want to bring a rebirth of exciting features to the site, so any feedback you have on what else we can do would be much appreciated.

Back to some other discussions.

As for the "WeatherBug Plus" comment, obviously WeatherBug Plus is optional. There's other ways (and really better ways) to access Backyard Station data than with WeatherBug Plus, but WeatherBug Plus is just one of the places to view Backyard Station data. We don't force anyone to pony up the $20 first time subscription for it, and as we've stated, all years afterwards for those sending us data, it's free. That's really the best way we can set this up right now. I'll be first to admit that WeatherBug Plus is showing its age, majorly. It was released way before I came to work for WeatherBug, so I had no feedback in the development of it except as an end user. I myself don't like how Backyard Stations are disconnected from our other stations on it, and we could make the Plus part easier for Backyard Station owners. We realize all of these shortcomings and we want to rebuild WeatherBug from the ground up in a new version called WeatherBug 7. We want to build a fully cross-platform (PC and Mac), easy to use, fully integrated WeatherBug desktop app that resembles our current WeatherBug.com, just sitting on your desktop. We've got some excellent inspiration for the backend codebase for such an app. It's going to take time, it surely won't happen overnight, but when such an app does launch, we'll make sure it's worth the wait. We'll also post some updates on the Backyard Community as soon as we start the development process so that we can gain as much community feedback on the app as possible.

As for the comment on weather stations in schools, we've never claimed to be "in every school". There's many schools in the US and world we're not in as of yet. Our WeatherBug Schools program is a package schools purchase from us. We don't just look up every school in a bunch of phone directories and start shipping them weather stations. If your local schools do not have WeatherBug, then the best thing you can do is call your local schools and suggest them you would like them to check into adding a WeatherBug package to their schools. They'll get in touch with us, and the right reps will assist them. We don't know the name of every school out there. We need your help to spread the word for us.

I hope this answers a few questions and lets you know where we're at. My colleague will be aboard later to chime in with some additional input and answer some more questions, and we both look forward to this discussion and learning as much from all of you as possible so we can really make a difference this year.

it been an waste of time with Nathan. Every couple of months he has "an new idea" and nothing ever happens. if you take  time and go thru the  40 or so  groups he has  now you find that no one goes past the main  blog page. On some of the groups  no one has posted on them for over 2-3 years. I find weather bug lacks both leadership an direction and is there just to take your money. The backyard stations are just an gimmick to get people there to buy their product. So what ever ideas  that are given they  seem to just fall in the bit bucket or for  us old timer the round file.

John

Nathan's always helped me. He cares. You have to know this, WeatherBug is like any major weather service, changes aren't easy or cheap. I can assure you Nathan is listening but probably want to accumulate more ideas before anything can be done. And WeatherBug isn't trying to sell you anything. You buy stations anyware. You can get free software like Cumulus or WUHU to send data to them. Membership is free. I don't know where the whole money gimmick or buy their product deal came from but I've always found them to be great. Sorry you had a bad experience but I've been happy with them.

I can assure you Nathan is listening but probably want to accumulate more ideas before anything can be done. And WeatherBug isn't trying to sell you anything.

  For how many years can you assure he is listening as you can see there are some of us here who has been around for some time and been there and done that, But I guess for an 19 year old you know everything. Gee your parents starting to get smarter yet?  As to the money end they say those who supply weather data can use Weatherbug Pro for free. The catch is you have to subscribe to it first. Well if that isn't taking your money what is. In the mean time they if they really use it are getting your data for nothing. They made an statement that the had put weather station in every schools so school kids can learn and study  the techology. Yet I can not find it in any schools in Alaska. Last time I check we are part of the US even tho most people don't thinkso. I asked why this was not done after reading the statement. No answer to to my question. Why ?? Not important enough  and also off the beaten track so who cares.
  One day when one of their  clowns who either works for them or has  his group was confronted about something his answer was he was going to always be rigth and we will be wrong.  Good attitude for running an business or associated with it.

 As to the free weather bug it lists my  station and then you ask for the next closest station it list some city that over half a world away. Weather cams shows  som place in BC  yet I know there couple closer then Hartley Bay. Yeah  they offer free suff but it buggy hate to see what you pay for.


John

[wxbugnathan]

I like the weatherbug desktop, and use the mobile version frequently...I am very annoyed that I can not use it to access my backyard station data.  That function has been broken for quite a while. 

I would like for users to have the ability to view a map of all the stations (personal and professional) to select the one they want to have as their default.  If that station is down for some reason, then it would automatically switch to the next closest station.   Perhaps wxbug can just pull data from CWOP to get a larger pool of stations.

I know how frustrating it is with the mobile version not displaying Backyard Station data. We do have a current work around at M.WeatherBug.com on our mobile site, but ideally it's much better to use a native mobile app.

I have just messaged off my colleague over this department, and once I receive an official word from him, I will post it here so as to have the official status of where we're at here.

As for your map suggestion, are you talking about having that map in the desktop or mobile app? We've been pondering over putting a map (similar to the one at WeatherBug.com) in our next major release of our desktop app, but we haven't thought about putting it in our mobile app. It's something I could suggest to developers though once I know exactly what you're looking for.

[wxbugnathan]

I'd offer the same suggestions that I've offered in previous queries and when contacted directly by Nathan in October:

Integrate the site better! Your backyard blog cannot be tied to your weather station feed and web cam feed. Nathan's suggestion was to put my Weather Underground Badge on my blog page... And you can't get directly to the update status page from anywhere! I had to access it via another weather application and then once there bookmark the page.

There is no Mac version of WeatherBug Desktop, although it has been coming "soon" for a long time as far as I can tell.

The whole site is just hard to navigate.

Better site integration is definitely high on the list, and I clearly understand your concerns there. We've got some plans to develop an app you'll be able to place on your profile that'll be able to integrate your Backyard Station data (and eventually your webcam data). We just need to do a little more research on the technical aspects of it, but we're starting to get a better idea on how to pull this off.

What are you referring to on the "update status" page? I'm not following you there and could use more clarification as to what you mean by that.

With the exception of WeatherBug Alert for Mac, there's no "full" version of WeatherBug for the Mac yet. As a full-time Mac user myself, I find this sad as well. We'll be delivering it in version 7. It's going to take an entire re-write of the program to make it happen though. There's no way to pull off a simple "port" of the application. We've been watching what another major software developer did with their application (they were in a similar boat to us) and we'll probably do something similar. I'm certainly not going to promise anything "soon", but we know what we need to do, we just have to work to make it happen as time permits.

[SkiMedicKC]

I like the weatherbug desktop, and use the mobile version frequently...I am very annoyed that I can not use it to access my backyard station data.  That function has been broken for quite a while. 

I would like for users to have the ability to view a map of all the stations (personal and professional) to select the one they want to have as their default.  If that station is down for some reason, then it would automatically switch to the next closest station.   Perhaps wxbug can just pull data from CWOP to get a larger pool of stations.

I know how frustrating it is with the mobile version not displaying Backyard Station data. We do have a current work around at M.WeatherBug.com on our mobile site, but ideally it's much better to use a native mobile app.

I have just messaged off my colleague over this department, and once I receive an official word from him, I will post it here so as to have the official status of where we're at here.

As for your map suggestion, are you talking about having that map in the desktop or mobile app? We've been pondering over putting a map (similar to the one at WeatherBug.com) in our next major release of our desktop app, but we haven't thought about putting it in our mobile app. It's something I could suggest to developers though once I know exactly what you're looking for.

I would like it in both versions;  if I'm traveling, it would be nice to have easy, visual access to local backyard stations on a mobile device.

[smorris]

What are you referring to on the "update status" page? I'm not following you there and could use more clarification as to what you mean by that.

Thanks for the response, Nathan. You and I talked back in October when I was getting the Lightsoft Weather Center (LWC2) API from you to work with (works great, by the way.) At that time you said that the update status was just for verification of the site working, and not really a user page. However, it is linked directly in WeatherSnoop's setup pane, which is where I found it. Once I did, I bookmarked it to check for data uploads when I get the all too frequent WeatherBug upload error. Here;s the link to my upload status.

http://data.backyard2.weatherbug.com/data/ecv.aspx?ID=p11642&NUM=23238

Thanks,
Steve

[wxbugnathan]

What are you referring to on the "update status" page? I'm not following you there and could use more clarification as to what you mean by that.

Thanks for the response, Nathan. You and I talked back in October when I was getting the Lightsoft Weather Center (LWC2) API from you to work with (works great, by the way.) At that time you said that the update status was just for verification of the site working, and not really a user page. However, it is linked directly in WeatherSnoop's setup pane, which is where I found it. Once I did, I bookmarked it to check for data uploads when I get the all too frequent WeatherBug upload error. Here;s the link to my upload status.

http://data.backyard2.weatherbug.com/data/ecv.aspx?ID=p11642&NUM=23238

Thanks,
Steve

I see what you mean. Yeah, I have this on the Backyard Stations page and will place it more prominently on there when I re-write the documentation so people can check data status. I'm also going to try to get us to re-build it whenever we overhaul the Backyard Stations registration form so it's more integrated and easier for end-users to understand. That'll take a little more time, but it's something I do want to do.

[WeatherHost]

Don't really have much to say where a vendor is a Moderator and can remove comments critical of their product.

[Weather Display]

yes, that is surprising he has been made a moderator of this new section of the forum
considering he has only joined the forum
also I was not impressed with the comments made by mckTXaws over some legitimate concerns made by scalphunter
I did not see the need for comments like that on this forum, e.g telling someone to shut it, etc

[saratogaWX]

We've had a tradition of making an official spokesperson for product as a moderator for that board (if it's requested), so it's not unusual.  AFAIK, the moderators have honored our policy of leaving user content unchanged (the good and the bad) unless it contains profanity (in which some characters are substituted to keep the G-rating of the board).
If any moderator uses the power to remove comments that are only critical, then the moderator powers will be removed.  The admins do receive notification when a moderator edits a users post or removes a posting.

I agree that both mckTXaws and Scalphunter would have been better served by thinking more before posting.  We leave them up for what they are -- visceral posts and examples of how not to behave.

Best regards,
Ken

[George Richardson]

"We've had a tradition of making an official spokesperson for product as a moderator for that board (if it's requested), so it's not unusual."

Actually, that seems to be a rare tradition. In fact tinplate, a major contributor to this hobby especially the Davis branch, seems to be the only one.

In my opinion, at least in this instance, this is not a good decision.

George Richardson

[weatherforyou]

Actually, that seems to be a rare tradition. In fact tinplate, a major contributor to this hobby especially the Davis branch, seems to be the only one.

Actually I am the moderator for the WeatherForYou/PWSWeather section.  Also wxtech is for The WxTech Dream Machine and SLOweather for WeatherElement, both of which are their projects.  I haven't seen WU participate which is why they wouldn't be moderator of their board.

[saratogaWX]

And meteorlogica (Dr. Tim West) is moderator for the WeatherFlash board as author of that program.

Not all the authors are regular visitors to their sections, unlike Joe and Chris

On the forum, there are 6 global admins (four founders + a courtesy id for Gary Oldham, founder of the prior forum) Since 3 of the founders have had reasons to prevent their active participation, we had asked Chris (SLOweather) to become admin so there are generally two of us who do the housekeeping on a daily basis.

The moderators for specific forums were done primarily to both honor the authors of the program/service they provide and provide identification that they can speak authoritatively in that area.  They have all adhered to our guidelines of modifying/removing posts in their area only in the case where the posting is in flagrant disregard of the registration agreement

You agree, through your use of this forum, that you will not post any material which is false, defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, vulgar, hateful, harassing, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, threatening, invasive of a person's privacy, adult material, or otherwise in violation of any International or United States Federal law. You also agree not to post any copyrighted material unless you own the copyright or you have written consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, and solicitations are also forbidden on this forum.

To date, except for a bit of auto-censor on profanity offered by the forum software itself, posts have not been admin/moderator modified in my memory, and there have been some fairly ill-thought-out posts left in threads as (primarily) what not-to-do.

If you have issues with either the administration or moderators, please do speak up about what you feel needs correction.

Best regards,
Ken

[WeatherHost]

Actually I am the moderator for the WeatherForYou/PWSWeather section.  Also wxtech is for The WxTech Dream Machine and SLOweather for WeatherElement, both of which are their projects.

And meteorlogica (Dr. Tim West) is moderator for the WeatherFlash board as author of that program.

Are any of those 'for pay' services?  If not, they're not vendors.

I gave up on WB many years ago when their 'free' products were loaded with AdWare.  I also inquired about one of their stations.  To say it was exorbitantly overpriced would be an understatement.  Several thousand dollars as I recall.

[wxbugnathan]

I like the weatherbug desktop, and use the mobile version frequently...I am very annoyed that I can not use it to access my backyard station data.  That function has been broken for quite a while. 

I would like for users to have the ability to view a map of all the stations (personal and professional) to select the one they want to have as their default.  If that station is down for some reason, then it would automatically switch to the next closest station.   Perhaps wxbug can just pull data from CWOP to get a larger pool of stations.

I know how frustrating it is with the mobile version not displaying Backyard Station data. We do have a current work around at M.WeatherBug.com on our mobile site, but ideally it's much better to use a native mobile app.

I have just messaged off my colleague over this department, and once I receive an official word from him, I will post it here so as to have the official status of where we're at here.

As for your map suggestion, are you talking about having that map in the desktop or mobile app? We've been pondering over putting a map (similar to the one at WeatherBug.com) in our next major release of our desktop app, but we haven't thought about putting it in our mobile app. It's something I could suggest to developers though once I know exactly what you're looking for.

I would like it in both versions;  if I'm traveling, it would be nice to have easy, visual access to local backyard stations on a mobile device.

Thanks for the comment. I've sent this request onto the developers for consideration. I'm almost positive it'll be showing up in our next major desktop version, but good suggestion for the mobile apps as well.