WXforum.net

Weather Related Organizations => WeatherUnderground => Topic started by: WunderTodd (PWS PM) on April 11, 2019, 05:34:12 PM

Title: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WunderTodd (PWS PM) on April 11, 2019, 05:34:12 PM
Hi there,

Want to take a moment to say thank you to everyone who has brought forward feedback to this forum.

We want that feedback, q&a, and community-helping aspect to keep going.
The best way to do this is not in an 80-something page thread going back more than a year, begun by someone who is no longer with WU.
As such, that megathread is now locked.

Both wunderground-pws and I take time out of our work day (and sometimes our evenings/weekends) to read this forum because of its passionate users -- both the experienced ones with tons of help to offer, and our newer folks who benefit from this.

We want to continue to offer our insight on issues as our time permits.  Going forward, individual threads for each question is probably the best way for us to read and contribute.

While we do appreciate the strong opinions you have on Weather Underground issues, there is no place in either of our lives for the constant barrage of negativity.  For those of you wishing to express negative sentiment around IBM as a company, bemoan the loss of 'The Old WU', degrade us our our teams, or just speculate on why/how a choice was made -- feel free to start an individual thread for those too, but know that neither of us will be entertaining a response in this forum.  Any similar behavior displayed in other threads will be forwarded to moderators for their consideration.

The incredible patience and dedication so many of you have displayed to WU, even during rough transitions as we've worked to modernize our small unit across a large company, is humbling.  We're grateful for your passion and hope you'll continue to provide a positive feedback loop for us to communicate with you.  And we'll continue to leverage your passion here to develop our support channels going forward.

Thanks!
-WuT
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: saratogaWX on May 20, 2019, 11:47:18 AM
Given recent removal of the CSV PWS data download (suddenly), I've elected to un-sticky and un-lock this.

Feel free to give Todd your feedback in this thread.

I am angered and extremely disappointed in the latest 'shedding of functionality' to the WU website.  Removal of the PWS data CSV download function has broken many treasured scripts (permanently) without any advance warning, and no equivalent PWS WU/TWC API functionality to replace it.

This is NOT a way to engender support from PWS data contributors.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: wvdkuil on May 20, 2019, 12:18:16 PM
@all WU managers
In the past half year I remained positive also because we were warned about upcoming changes. Also because Victoria Gardner was always present to assist between us and the development staff

But now you removed the custom search /download without a warning, nobody could make a copy of their data, recent or old. No .csv download kills ALL history scripts that depended on that data, be it the tables or the graphs.

I find your attitude becoming not-tolerable,

The least thing to do is to give all uploaders at least the chance to salvage their data in the coming weeks.

The decent thing to do would be a download of ones own data using the new API-key.

I cincerely hope that our long-term relation will improve, please stop this, you took the wrong turn last Sunday,

Wim
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 12:22:47 PM
WU,
Just in case you missed my post in the other thread. Here are my thoughts on "turning the page."
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36964.msg380328#msg380328

Quote
Ken,
Thank you for removing the WU turning the page post sticky and unlocking that thread.
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=36609.0

To all,
That was the right thing to do given the way WU has neglected this community. They say one thing but do another. Enough chances. I want to see action and promises kept.

WU is not turning a new page. I've been one of the few supporters of WU.  But the recent change to remove the old site before fixing the issues of the new site was a bad move because they promised to keep it up until things were fixed. Also breaking of all weather template scripts without warning is just wrong. Learning that they don't trust us to name our stations is poor judgment, as I thought that was a new site station name bug. It can't possibly take that long to fix decimals. I don't think they want to fix it. I think someone up top is ticked off that made this idiotic decision to begin with.

I feel on this forum we should be able to express ourselves freely with decorum. This means abiding by the forum rules and policies. In the past there were some unwarranted comments and right out lies about WU. That should never be tolerated. I feel the users of this forum should be able to express themselves against the wrongs of WU without fear of being banned. Wxforum.net should not be seen as protecting WU. I never took it to do that but some people did. Perhaps Ken can respond and elaborate on this.

Please post freely with regards to the rules and policies. WU needs to know how upset and disappointed we all are, even those like me that really thought they deserved the benefit of the doubt.

Opportunity (Necessity) is the mother of invention, someone famous once said or something like that. Perhaps some other company or individual will fill the void that WU has created.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: awsum140 on May 20, 2019, 12:29:27 PM
As I said in another thread, WU was getting woobly before.  Once Itty Bitty Machine came along it's FUBAR.  I've given up on any significant improvements happening in anything that even, vaguely, resembles a timely manner.  Pulling the plug on WU unless and until it provides some functionality and responsiveness to contributors needs is the only option available, unfortunately.  Remember, IBM monetizes the data we all so freely upload.  RIP, WU.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 12:58:59 PM
Hi Todd,

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. - Marcellus

UPDATE: And he is gone. Probably off to report to higher ups that this is no way to run an online service. Hey Todd, tell IBM to give you a raise and allow you to hire some decent web developers, with meteorology knowledge.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 20, 2019, 01:58:09 PM
If you use twitter is time for wunderground to actually pay attention.
Tag them and express how you actually feel and use the hashtag:
#ibmandwundergroundfail

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 02:12:40 PM
The OP has 47 Likes. Time to take those back. You can undo those people.

While we do appreciate the strong opinions you have on Weather Underground issues, there is no place in either of our lives for the constant barrage of negativity.  For those of you wishing to express negative sentiment around IBM as a company, bemoan the loss of 'The Old WU', degrade us our our teams, or just speculate on why/how a choice was made -- feel free to start an individual thread for those too, but know that neither of us will be entertaining a response in this forum.  Any similar behavior displayed in other threads will be forwarded to moderators for their consideration.

Your goose is cooked.
Hey. Look at me. Report me.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: crawdad62 on May 20, 2019, 02:58:29 PM
I don't know. I just provide data. I assume this data is worth something and it's in their best interest to at least keep it running so that we are happy to provide said data and in turn provide something in return that keeps us happy. Honestly it too hard to even report what's broken on WU. Mainly because once you do you find many other things that have broken in the meantime. It's almost mind-boggling the width and breadth of the problem. And about the time you think they've got a handle on it it blows up somewhere else. It's like trying to contain the leaky dam with your finger. I can't really get in a twist. I've got software running on my computer. I upload to multiple services. I don't exactly need WU but it's nice to have. I suppose I'll just keep uploading and checking the site every once in a while but my hopes for the most part are over.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: openvista on May 20, 2019, 03:02:10 PM
OK, so let me get this straight.

The data download links have been missing from the website for awhile now (1-2 months?)

See:
https://apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/dashboard-no-download-option (https://apicommunity.wunderground.com/weatherapi/topics/dashboard-no-download-option)
https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33651.msg375288#msg375288 (https://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=33651.msg375288#msg375288).

But the red line is suddenly crossed when WU yanks out the back door, legacy functionality that allows power users & developers, like Saratoga Weather and his script users, to retrieve their data?

You do realize that 99% of WU's contributors haven't been able to download their data for months, right? They never knew those tricks.

And if you read that Wunderground thread I linked to above, you'll see there was no indication from Victoria that this was a temporary removal. She said she had asked but never received an answer from the developers about the removal of the download button. After about a month she just went silent. Although she did suggest people use the API instead, and that programming wasn't as hard as most people think!! Not making this up!

The fact that the vast majority of users were stranded seemed to be of little concern both to WU and many of its defenders here. It wasn't until certain individuals were personally affected that we were all, finally, allowed to express outrage.

Unbelievable.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: saratogaWX on May 20, 2019, 03:10:39 PM
Yes, I saw those threads about the Download link disappearance as they happened.  I'd hoped (given no other feedback from Victoria) that it was just another glitch in the website programming since the function continued to work.  Apparently, the spin-down of the old WU servers finally killed it, leaving us all in the lurch.

I'm making some 'shim' code for the CU-HWS template to allow a 'today' and 'last-7-days' graphs to be done with the existing codebase using the WU/TWC api, but.. since there's no 'month' or 'year' query available, a fix will be a longer term.

I think the WU-History page can likely use my (still in progress) shim code to convert the API response to the CSV format the older code needs.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 20, 2019, 03:35:37 PM
The fact that the vast majority of users were stranded seemed to be of little concern both to WU and many of its defenders here. It wasn't until certain individuals were personally affected that we were all, finally, allowed to express outrage.

Unbelievable.

I dont think is about an individual but about the masses. Not just Ken's template got affected, others have and hundreds of custom sites as well.... At this point it does not matter.... WU said fuk the community and that's the end of it.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: JohnN on May 20, 2019, 03:43:21 PM
Not to beat a dead horse (ehh, who am I kidding? Everyone loves beating dead horses), but I have decided to pull the plug on uploading to Wunderground until they bring back decimals on the new station page. I don't care for the new layout, but I would live with it if the graphs just included decimals. I don't even care if the current conditions box has decimals, I just want the decent graphs back. As the graphs are displayed now, they are useless. I hope Wunderground listens to us because I used to like the website. Attached is an image showing just how useless these new graphs are. I was willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, but these graphs have been broken for too long and I haven't seen any kind of official response to this.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: openvista on May 20, 2019, 03:47:57 PM
I dont think is about an individual but about the masses. Not just Ken's template got affected, others have and hundreds of custom sites as well....

Hundreds of custom sites isn't even a drop in the ocean of WU's 300,000+ PWS contributors. Also the millions of monthly visits they likely receive. That's the 99% I'm referring to.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 04:05:16 PM
99% of users are conformist. They aren't techie and they allow companies to dictate how they are holding their phones wrong. This community is about using technology to the fullest. We should be able to set the course. If not we will evolve with new solutions and WU will become the next Blackberry. Nothing happens overnight. Right now there is someone in their garage or dorm room planning the next thing and this is the opportunity they have been waiting for. I have some ideas, not ready to share them yet.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 20, 2019, 04:05:41 PM
I dont think is about an individual but about the masses. Not just Ken's template got affected, others have and hundreds of custom sites as well....

Hundreds of custom sites isn't even a drop in the ocean of WU's 300,000+ PWS contributors. Also the millions of monthly visits they likely receive. That's the 99% I'm referring to.
Understood. What I am trying to convey is that attacking one person because of a "direct" hit is not accurate... Affecting Ken means affecting all of his user base. When I see Ken speak, I see him speaking for his user base... That aside, we cant be at each others throat and picking at one another.... WU allready flicked us off.... Now as a community we need to stand together and ether we get attention or we dont and we move on. Choose to try and get that attention so the 300,000+ contributors have a chance at hope and see their data again.

By the way I allready said this... The attention in this forum will not be enough. Yall need to breach out to social media.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 20, 2019, 04:06:55 PM
99% of users are conformist. They aren't techie and they allow companies to dictate how they are holding their phones wrong. This community is about using technology to the fullest. We should be able to set the course. If not we will evolve with new solutions and WU will become the next Blackberry. Nothing happens overnight. Right now there is someone in their garage or dorm room planning the next thing and this is the opportunity they have been waiting for. I have some ideas, not ready to share them yet.

Well said! That's exactly it. We need to make that difference!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on May 20, 2019, 05:15:28 PM
I really hope they're bringing all of this feedback and anger to their higher ups. I have no words do express what's been going on with them.

(https://i.imgur.com/oDOkgUg.png)
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: jas340 on May 20, 2019, 05:54:47 PM
Wxforum has just under 15,000 members. I guess less than 200 members post on a regular basis. We are a microscopic community. WU does not need our data. There are lot's of sites that do value our data. The only thing I miss about WU is "rapid fire". I stopped sending my data to WU over the weekend.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 20, 2019, 05:58:09 PM
I really hope they're bringing all of this feedback and anger to their higher ups.
Even if they do/have been, I think it's abundantly clear that they don't care, if they did, this fiasco would have been dealt with long ago.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 20, 2019, 06:25:49 PM
Here's a pic I found in front of WU headquarters....

https://screenshotscdn.firefoxusercontent.com/images/66300b5e-7346-4001-bc1c-02fb284ec52f.jpg
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: sacedric on May 20, 2019, 08:41:17 PM
I can not believe WU could be so tone deaf. Removing the ability for us to download our own data? This may be the catalyst I needed to start logging locally. I wish there was a way to send a message but it seems like it's falling on deaf ears. Painful
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 08:53:13 PM
No need to send a message. Just post here. They are reading all of this as is evident by the site's user controls.

WU has been removing features one at a time for the past couple years. I'm on to them as to why. It is because they are planning on bringing all the features removed back as paid subscription service fees to use our own data.

Time to forge new solutions without WU.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 20, 2019, 10:04:56 PM
WU (two accounts) was very active all day today reading all that has been said in a few different threads. But we got no update. Mum must be the word from the higher ups for now as they scramble as the "S" definitely hit the fan. Yet someone just recently on this forum got a PM from WU. It was probably Ken as the recipient. I wonder what's up?

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on May 20, 2019, 11:47:33 PM
Yet someone just recently on this forum got a PM from WU. It was probably Ken as the recipient. I wonder what's up?
They PM'd me last week wanting to have a one-on-one 30 minute chat to get my thoughts about WU.  It was a busy week with client projects and I didn't see it until after the day they wanted to do it and unfortunately I was not able to participate.

At this point, given what happened over the weekend, I wish I had.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Jáchym on May 21, 2019, 04:29:00 AM
I will rather stay quiet so that Im not banned from this forum...

Let me just say one thing, very shortly and to the point:

Without "us" you would have no data and no business. Think about it again and think about how you behave towards us. Be it support, announcing changes, implementing changes, removing things etc. etc.

I really wish every user now got so annoyed they would stop sending data to you, just like I did 2yrs ago because already back then I felt like you simply dont care about what we think.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: vsakalis on May 21, 2019, 04:43:40 AM
Old WU starts working again, with problems in download!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 21, 2019, 04:48:23 AM
I will rather stay quiet so that Im not banned from this forum...

Let me just say one thing, very shortly and to the point:

Without "us" you would have no data and no business. Think about it again and think about how you behave towards us. Be it support, announcing changes, implementing changes, removing things etc. etc.

I really wish every user now got so annoyed they would stop sending data to you, just like I did 2yrs ago because already back then I felt like you simply dont care about what we think.

As great as a boycott of sending data would be, there are many times more users out there that have bought a $100 weather station (not saying anything's wrong with those) and their only experience with WU is typing in the station ID and password on their little display console. They only did it cuz it was an option during setup, and the only reason they bought their station was so they could see their data on a screen inside their house. These are the people that make up the vast bulk of the WU PWS owners. No matter how hard of a stance the community take against WU and anyone else that would abuse the trust we place in them when we send them data, the vast majority will continue to fuel companies like WU's growing ego. All WU will see is that most users still send data and still seem happy, so in their eyes, what's the harm done?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 21, 2019, 04:56:31 AM
I will rather stay quiet so that Im not banned from this forum...

Let me just say one thing, very shortly and to the point:

Without "us" you would have no data and no business. Think about it again and think about how you behave towards us. Be it support, announcing changes, implementing changes, removing things etc. etc.

I really wish every user now got so annoyed they would stop sending data to you, just like I did 2yrs ago because already back then I felt like you simply dont care about what we think.

As great as a boycott of sending data would be, there are many times more users out there that have bought a $100 weather station (not saying anything's wrong with those) and their only experience with WU is typing in the station ID and password on their little display console. They never only did it cuz it was an option during setup, and the only reason they bought their station was so they could see their data on a screen inside their house. These are the people that make up the vast bulk of the WU PWS owners, and these are the people that don't even know of the atrocities being committed against all PWS owners. No matter how hard of a stance we take against WU and anyone else that would abuse the trust we place in them when we send them data, the vast majority won't even know there's a Rights war going on, and will continue to fuel companies like WU's growing ego. All WU will see is that most users still send data and still seem happy, so in their eyes, what's the harm done?
I see very little to argue with here.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: waiukuweather on May 21, 2019, 05:53:44 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 21, 2019, 05:57:10 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:

If it was an accident, losing them in the first place, then this really shows how little trust the community has in WU and how strong the dislike towards all their recent changes is.

If this wasn't an accident, then that lack of trust is definitely well earned.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 21, 2019, 07:34:08 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:

If it was an accident, losing them in the first place, then this really shows how little trust the community has in WU and how strong the dislike towards all their recent changes is.

If this wasn't an accident, then that lack of trust is definitely well earned.

I think it was deliberate and not an accident because at the same time the old website (horizon) went down and that is still down. If it was an accident they would not have been so quiet yesterday yet very active reading on this forum. If it was an accident they would have said that they don't know what happened and are looking into the matter.

The access to data is but only one more change that they have attempted to take away. Still they lied and took away the old website (horizon) before the fixes were done to the new website, and they promised to keep the old site up until the fixes were in.

The other recent revelation is that failure to able to name your station is not a bug of the new website. They did this on purpose because they don't trust the users in what names they use for their station and they said it was because they can't police it. Which is total BS because a simple reporting system would solve that. How many years has WU existed where you could name your station whatever you wanted and now it's an issue? That just means management has changed and there is new people at the helm and they are attempting to implement their authority from a holier than thou attitude. It was the same argument used last year when they took away station status statement feature.

Let's talk about decimals. Why do we not yet have decimals? How hard is that to fix? We know that they are ingesting the data with full precision as was evident from looking at the old website (horizon) before it went down. So this isn't a new website backend problem. This is purely a display issue as there is a translation of data and rounding that is occurring only at the front end that displays the new website UI. We know the reason this poor decision was made because they told us. They felt that decimals were not pertinent because most systems are not calibrated and/or lack the accuracy in hardware design. So someone at the top made this decision. Yes we are not happy with that. But does that really mean we changed their minds? Maybe that person at the top is really ticked off and still disagrees with us. I'd like to hear confirmation that decimals are really coming back for live data, summary data, historical data and graphs.

I'd also like to hear what the future holds. What is the big plan for WU with yet still all the removed and missing features? Is there going to be a paid subscription service to gain those features back? Like downloading of data in .csv from the UI, editing/deleting bad data, naming your station, being able to do custom and yearly reports, being able to place your station precisely on the map, live auto-refresh graphs, displaying of other sensors like soil and leaf,... etc.


Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: openvista on May 21, 2019, 07:42:40 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:

Just checked my dashboard. Still no way to download data. But as long as some power users can again sneak through the back door and get their data, then WU is "listening"? What about all those users that lightmaster described (which I alluded to on page 1)?

How in the world do you trust an organization that puts its own point person (Victoria) on an ice floe for 2 months without an answer to simple question: "what happened to the download button?" Or maybe they gave her an answer that she hid from the public?

Either way... I wouldn't be rushing to restore my old scripts. How are developers supposed to deal with sort of chaos?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: awsum140 on May 21, 2019, 07:44:18 AM
Great new business model on the horizon.  Contributors freely upload their data then pay for the privilege of being able to access it in a concise, meaningful way. The bottom line is that IBM sees WU as an income stream and wants as much income as they can wring from it, at the expense of those that provide the data, for free, that makes the whole thing possible in the first place.  It may take time, but I suspect that WU will end up in the dust bin of once wonderful services an web sites.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: weather34 on May 21, 2019, 08:34:09 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:


How are developers supposed to deal with sort of chaos?

you dont you just move on to a better solution that you have some control over .
collaborate with software,hardware,web developers on here far more chance of getting something relative to the needs of most enthusiasts and it will allow your own input which may give you some sense of achievement and satisfaction in being able to participate and heard .

i wouldnt throw any more time or energy into using this type of service without some fallback , even other cloud based, api based services just randomly disappear as soon as the popularity increases . only recently i wanted to use a Nest thermostat based api service for our new home in the last few days i discovered the API offered is redundant , quote
“We already saw the writing on the wall in January, but now it's official: Google announced that the Nest API will be turned off at the end of August, 2019. This means that in a little over three months, you will no longer be able to get your own data, that Google has collected in your home, and use it like you see fit.” so you see all faith in these services are diminishing rapidly what was originally released as a flexible service soon becomes a short lived ..

any service is certainly vulnerable when some smart ass accountant comes along and sez  this is unsustainable and non profitable we need to wind this down..

so onwards and upwards lets hope this community can get its heads together and create something but its by far not an easy task but achievable . have a great day all.. brian


Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 08:51:37 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:


How are developers supposed to deal with sort of chaos?

you dont you just move on to a better solution that you have some control over .
collaborate with software,hardware,web developers on here far more chance of getting something relative to the needs of most enthusiasts and it will allow your own input which may give you some sense of achievement and satisfaction in being able to participate and heard .

i wouldnt throw any more time or energy into using this type of service without some fallback , even other cloud based, api based services just randomly disappear as soon as the popularity increases . only recently i wanted to use a Nest thermostat based api service for our new home in the last few days i discovered the API offered is redundant , quote
“We already saw the writing on the wall in January, but now it's official: Google announced that the Nest API will be turned off at the end of August, 2019. This means that in a little over three months, you will no longer be able to get your own data, that Google has collected in your home, and use it like you see fit.” so you see all faith in these services are diminishing rapidly what was originally released as a flexible service soon becomes a short lived ..

any service is certainly vulnerable when some smart ass accountant comes along and sez  this is unsustainable and non profitable we need to wind this down..

so onwards and upwards lets hope this community can get its heads together and create something but its by far not an easy task but achievable . have a great day all.. brian




+100000000000000000000000 This. Can we make shirts that say: I vote for Brian. Please?

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: weather34 on May 21, 2019, 09:12:15 AM
ha please dont vote for me  :grin: you have a solution sitting right in front of you ? hint nanosd
what is quoted at 20 years of data storage capability..that thing does more than you would ever get out of an online service and you have that control if your that serious about preserving your years of  data then thats the path i would take as i do now .. however not everyone owns one but there are solutions already there and have been around for years .
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 09:17:12 AM
they must have listened ..and csv downloads are working again  :shock:

I hope that the community Developer Gods wont use this service any more and we move to something else. It just cant be trusted.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 11:31:13 AM
Galfert, I was being facetious, this was definitely deliberate. You don't do something this drastic and generate so much anger without trying to stem the bleeding. If it was accidentally, bring a large company, someone who wasn't responsible for fixing it would have tried to calm everything down while they fixed it. Even now I have yet to hear about any official response.

Also, there was a lot of hate generated and yet nobody trying to pacify the mob that's forming with pitchforks and torches?? Maybe it's just the cynic in me, but this is starting to feel like everything is planned, even our reactions of anger. IBM now owns 2 competing services... you either use them as competition against each other too make them both better, or you burn one to the ground and get everyone to happily switch. Option 1 it's the better but more expensive route, option 2 is the lesser but cheaper route.... Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy, so they attempt to make everyone hate WU and push everyone away from WU, making it all the more easier to shut it down entire in the not too distant future, making common non-technical users happily switch to weather.com, and the only downside to the company is that they piss off the group of people that they consider expendable anyways.

Now, I may be way off base with all this, and I really hope I am cuz I remember the days when WU was great, but I really feel that everything that has happened is by design, down to the smallest detail, and that no matter what our actions are, we are just playing into IBM's hands.

WU is nothing like weather.com. weather.com is injected in a more professional model. Watson is IBM's baby and weather.com is representing that where WU is like a playground for the like of us...
Shit they dont even put watson on the wu brand! Is branded as "IBM Cloud" which represents nothing. I bet you that they are not trying to phase anything out nor move us to hate wu and phase it out... We are just second hand citizens. IBM will exploit our data to no end and at the end try to monetize it... Shit they are allready way on that path!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: openvista on May 21, 2019, 11:52:08 AM
Since some are dreaming aloud of beating WU at their own game, let's walk through the life cycle of modern tech ventures.

First, someone has a bright idea. See earlier posts.

Then they need money. The PE and VC people aren't in it to save the whales. You'll need to show them how they can get a lot for a little. Guess who calls the shots at that point?

If the idea folks say "we don't really need to turn a profit" then they'd better have deep pockets. Because to do anything at even a modest scale is going to require servers, bandwidth, admins, developers, marketing, etc. Any startup, even one with modest goals, better have a plan to deal with success. Otherwise, eventually, users will start gang raping their brain child.

So... why was it possible 15-20 years ago to have a viable company that was user centric where people would cooperate and sacrifice to innovate or create a genuine community? First, because only a fraction of the world was online. Demand didn't as easily outstrip resources. The culture was fairly uniform. But most importantly, we didn't quite yet live in a world of cosmically-sized entitlement complexes.

In 2019 investors, creators, employees, and consumers expect it all. On the business side that means maximal profit (usually accomplished thru accounting trickery and debt). On the user side that means free stuff forever.

Two acquisitions and a slew of redesigns later (including one exclusively for advertisers), WU still hasn't shed enough features to please the money gods.

For the record, I don't actually think that downloading CSV data really costs WU anything. I think it's just symbolic of corporate culture in general. The way the bosses counter stakeholders who demand more is to institute austerity ("doing more with less"). That, of course, bleeds into performance, communication, loyalty, etc. The snake is eating its own tail.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 21, 2019, 12:35:05 PM
Just picking up on this thread.  I have to say, another WU disappointment.  I still liked to use the wxwuhistory.php page.  I hope our guy Ken can figure something out again.  If not, I can probably label my site as WU free, because they've killed everything.

Any bets they start blocking radar from third party sites?  That's my next bet.  Killing off images to be hosted on other sites...
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 12:36:49 PM
Any bets they start blocking radar from third party sites?  That's my next bet.  Killing off images to be hosted on other sites...

Oh its coming!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: gadget_guy on May 21, 2019, 12:53:19 PM
I'm at a loss to understand why any of us should continue to upload our data to WU.  If download capability does not return in the next 7 days, I'm reluctantly pulling the plug.  Let's see how long WU survives without data
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 21, 2019, 12:54:48 PM
Since some are dreaming aloud of beating WU at their own game, let's walk through the life cycle of modern tech ventures.

First, someone has a bright idea. See earlier posts.

Then they need money. The PE and VC people aren't in it to save the whales. You'll need to show them how they can get a lot for a little. Guess who calls the shots at that point?

If the idea folks say "we don't really need to turn a profit" then they'd better have deep pockets. Because to do anything at even a modest scale is going to require servers, bandwidth, admins, developers, marketing, etc. Any startup, even one with modest goals, better have a plan to deal with success. Otherwise, eventually, users will start gang raping their brain child.

So... why was it possible 15-20 years ago to have a viable company that was user centric where people would cooperate and sacrifice to innovate or create a genuine community? First, because only a fraction of the world was online. Demand didn't as easily outstrip resources. The culture was fairly uniform. But most importantly, we didn't quite yet live in a world of cosmically-sized entitlement complexes.

In 2019 investors, creators, employees, and consumers expect it all. On the business side that means maximal profit (usually accomplished thru accounting trickery and debt). On the user side that means free stuff forever.

Two acquisitions and a slew of redesigns later (including one exclusively for advertisers), WU still hasn't shed enough features to please the money gods.

For the record, I don't actually think that downloading CSV data really costs WU anything. I think it's just symbolic of corporate culture in general. The way the bosses counter stakeholders who demand more is to institute austerity ("doing more with less"). That, of course, bleeds into performance, communication, loyalty, etc. The snake is eating its own tail.

I don't think every new idea has to fit that mold. Yes times have changed and we are more dependent on the Internet but the same opportunities exist today. When Google started they had no idea how to monetize, but the investors thought that they had to build it because what they saw was so great.

Likewise there are other system design models. Like Napster and Bitcoin and  BitTorrent and others, that are distributed decentralized technologies. You don't always need a server farm.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 01:03:18 PM
I am down for doing something on our own. We need servers? I got them! How many?  :twisted:
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 21, 2019, 01:03:33 PM
Let's see how long WU survives without data
Unfortunately, if you upload to CWOP, they'll steal your data anyway.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 01:07:49 PM
I just went and check my stock. I got 4 IBM (HAHAHA the irony!) x3650 fully populated with 12TB SAS and 96GB of RAM. Dual Xeons 16 Cores.
They are sitting in a rack doing nothing. Let put this bad boys to work!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Maumelle Weather on May 21, 2019, 01:08:47 PM
Let's see how long WU survives without data
Unfortunately, if you upload to CWOP, they'll steal your data anyway.

I have not seen my data on WU in several months and I upload to CWOP. I have not uploaded to WU in over 3 years, and have not missed them at all. Good riddance.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 21, 2019, 01:19:10 PM
Let's see how long WU survives without data
Unfortunately, if you upload to CWOP, they'll steal your data anyway.

I have not seen my data on WU in several months and I upload to CWOP. I have not uploaded to WU in over 3 years, and have not missed them at all. Good riddance.

You may not see your CWOP data directly. But your CWOP data is used in forecasting models.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on May 21, 2019, 02:09:10 PM
Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy

You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 02:13:55 PM
Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy

You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

Woooha! Thanks for that little surprise!
You are right I would dare to say that 90% of us don't go to weather.com.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 21, 2019, 02:18:45 PM
Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy

You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

Wow. Yea, didn't notice that. Legally speaking I don't think they have to give any credit since I'm 90% sure us uploading to IBM means they own that data and can do with it as they please, but it's definitely a d*ck move. Also, that interface looks terrible. At least on mobile, don't turn on all the PWS options cuz they all overlap each other.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: catdon on May 21, 2019, 02:30:11 PM
Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy

You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

Wow. Yea, didn't notice that. Legally speaking I don't think they have to give any credit since I'm 90% sure us uploading to IBM means they own that data and can do with it as they please, but it's definitely a d*ck move. Also, that interface looks terrible. At least on mobile, don't turn on all the PWS options cuz they all overlap each other.
Don't know if its just me but checking out weather.com on my laptop, it was very unresponsive...trying to click on the map to add layers etc.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: cmg on May 21, 2019, 02:44:26 PM
Weather.com doesn't require hundreds of thousands of personally owned stations and doesn't require time and effort to keep a knowledgeable community happy

You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

Wow. Yea, didn't notice that. Legally speaking I don't think they have to give any credit since I'm 90% sure us uploading to IBM means they own that data and can do with it as they please, but it's definitely a d*ck move. Also, that interface looks terrible. At least on mobile, don't turn on all the PWS options cuz they all overlap each other.
Don't know if its just me but checking out weather.com on my laptop, it was very unresponsive...trying to click on the map to add layers etc.
Hi
My Android app, WeatherStation does not updates anymore the weather from WU and see no other wu weather stations.
Regards

Enviado do meu SM-G903F através do Tapatalk

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 21, 2019, 03:19:05 PM
Let's see how long WU survives without data
Unfortunately, if you upload to CWOP, they'll steal your data anyway.

I have not seen my data on WU in several months and I upload to CWOP. I have not uploaded to WU in over 3 years, and have not missed them at all.

Good riddance.
Yeah, honestly all I hear is "we're doing this, we're doing that" but nothing happens. It's not like this has only been a month or two.
I pulled the plug last night on WU and have no intention of returning, sad too, I've been with them for 8 years or so even though I haven't used them much the past few years.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 21, 2019, 04:37:13 PM
You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

I just zoomed in on the maps with PWS wind and temps.  I can say for sure my area is data from Wunderground.  I have one neighbor that is only posting to WUnderground, not CWOP.  And his pin is showing.  So Weather.com is getting data from WU.  They are sharing for sure. 
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SoMDWx on May 21, 2019, 05:15:48 PM
Good Bye WU.... YOU were good....once.......Last one out don't forget to turn out the lights.......
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 05:27:02 PM
Good Bye WU.... YOU were good....once.......Last one out don't forget to turn out the lights.......

Best quote ever.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 21, 2019, 05:55:45 PM
When did they add rain and pressure decimals to the new PWS pages?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Gretnawx on May 21, 2019, 08:02:39 PM
You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

I just zoomed in on the maps with PWS wind and temps.  I can say for sure my area is data from Wunderground.  I have one neighbor that is only posting to WUnderground, not CWOP.  And his pin is showing.  So Weather.com is getting data from WU.  They are sharing for sure.

They are the same company so they better be sharing.  From Wikipedia: "The Weather Company is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com, intellicast.com, and Weather Underground. The Weather Company is a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM."
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: txweather.org on May 21, 2019, 08:21:25 PM
You may not have noticed it if you don't go there often, but the WU PWS data is very much being used on weather.com, and without any credit or attribution.

I just zoomed in on the maps with PWS wind and temps.  I can say for sure my area is data from Wunderground.  I have one neighbor that is only posting to WUnderground, not CWOP.  And his pin is showing.  So Weather.com is getting data from WU.  They are sharing for sure.

They are the same company so they better be sharing.  From Wikipedia: "The Weather Company is a weather forecasting and information technology company that owns and operates weather.com, intellicast.com, and Weather Underground. The Weather Company is a subsidiary of the Watson & Cloud Platform business unit of IBM."

We new that :)
What we did not know is that they were sharing data. We thought they kept the data separated and use cwop instead...
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SlowModem on May 22, 2019, 09:03:44 AM
As great as a boycott of sending data would be, there are many times more users out there that have bought a $100 weather station (not saying anything's wrong with those) and their only experience with WU is typing in the station ID and password on their little display console. They never only did it cuz it was an option during setup, and the only reason they bought their station was so they could see their data on a screen inside their house. These are the people that make up the vast bulk of the WU PWS owners, and these are the people that don't even know of the atrocities being committed against all PWS owners.

They may also be glued to TWC because they show local station readings occasionally and they may get to see theirs on TV, expecially during the WU segment at night.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 22, 2019, 09:23:28 AM
As great as a boycott of sending data would be, there are many times more users out there that have bought a $100 weather station (not saying anything's wrong with those) and their only experience with WU is typing in the station ID and password on their little display console. They never only did it cuz it was an option during setup, and the only reason they bought their station was so they could see their data on a screen inside their house. These are the people that make up the vast bulk of the WU PWS owners, and these are the people that don't even know of the atrocities being committed against all PWS owners.

They may also be glued to TWC because they show local station readings occasionally and they may get to see theirs on TV, expecially during the WU segment at night.

Really! I had no idea. I'll have to look for my weather station on TV. Does anyone have any screenshots of what that looks like?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SlowModem on May 22, 2019, 09:54:31 AM
I've been sending WU data for many years.  There have seen several outages on their end, and several on mine during that time.  WU has gone through many changes during that time.

I remember when it was a small operation and the help desk was truly helpful.  But the proliferation of home weather stations and the buyouts and layoffs of WU has changed it a lot.

I don't have a fancy website that uses a lot of codes and stuff.  Just mainly NWS radars and my weather station.  I use a UW sticker for rapid fire indication, with links to WU and PWS weather.

My biggest complaint is that I used to have a webcam but it doesn't work now.  I've tried FTP, and I tried sending it to my website and having WU take it from there but neither work.

They've tried to turn WU into a social media site , and I think that's getting away from their core mission.

Originally, WU was a good site with a worthwhile mission.  Now I feel like their purposeless and they are floundering around.  I hope they get it back on track.  And I hope those of you with complicated sites are able to get your info from WU again someday.

I'll keep sending in my data just to keep the sticker on my website and this forum signature sticker keeps working.  But I'll use pws weather and others for important information.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SlowModem on May 22, 2019, 11:00:10 AM
As great as a boycott of sending data would be, there are many times more users out there that have bought a $100 weather station (not saying anything's wrong with those) and their only experience with WU is typing in the station ID and password on their little display console. They never only did it cuz it was an option during setup, and the only reason they bought their station was so they could see their data on a screen inside their house. These are the people that make up the vast bulk of the WU PWS owners, and these are the people that don't even know of the atrocities being committed against all PWS owners.

They may also be glued to TWC because they show local station readings occasionally and they may get to see theirs on TV, expecially during the WU segment at night.

Really! I had no idea. I'll have to look for my weather station on TV. Does anyone have any screenshots of what that looks like?

The schedule shows that from 5:00 to 8:00 pm the show is called Weather Underground.  It usually has Mike Bettis and Alex Witt or Wilson or something like that.  I only turn it on when there's severe weather happening.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 22, 2019, 01:20:46 PM
I'm just glad I did put WeatherDisplay on my PC.  I was able to import all of my old data from my VWS days through the WU importer.  VWS import wasn't working well.  But the WU import did.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Jáchym on May 22, 2019, 03:12:50 PM
The truth is (gladly) that most services these days have an open-source free alternative - Google Maps vs Openstreetmaps/Leaflet, Windows/Linux, Office / LibreOffice....

It would be nice to create some kind of free, open-source service, similar to WU in its functionality.

The only problem I see is that I am 100% sure together we would be able to create a very good, nice-looking functional website, however this is probably the easier part. The complicated part is the nature of such website - the fact that it would need to collect huge amount of data very frequently, i.e. the HW requirements would be huge... and thats the issue I see in trying such project.

This really is not something that you could run on a home server with one simple backup.... if you wanted to scale it.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: crawdad62 on May 22, 2019, 04:48:42 PM
Jáchym that would be a cool idea. Obviously without as many users but a site that caters to people that are more serious. As you say the overhead maybe over our heads. But I think that's a great idea.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SoMDWx on May 22, 2019, 05:33:36 PM
I agree..... It would take a great deal of computer storage and huge bandwidth to handle such an endeavor. Also creating and buying a good domain name would be crucial also....
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 22, 2019, 06:01:50 PM
It would be nice to create some kind of free, open-source service, similar to WU in its functionality.

The only problem I see is that I am 100% sure together we would be able to create a very good, nice-looking functional website, however this is probably the easier part. The complicated part is the nature of such website - the fact that it would need to collect huge amount of data very frequently, i.e. the HW requirements would be huge... and thats the issue I see in trying such project.

This really is not something that you could run on a home server with one simple backup.... if you wanted to scale it.

Hey Jachym, this below was posted yesterday on the previous page. No idea if he's serious or not, or if it even means anything viable for that matter.

I am down for doing something on our own. We need servers? I got them! How many?  :twisted:

I just went and check my stock. I got 4 IBM (HAHAHA the irony!) x3650 fully populated with 12TB SAS and 96GB of RAM. Dual Xeons 16 Cores.
They are sitting in a rack doing nothing. Let put this bad boys to work!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: konz on May 22, 2019, 06:32:26 PM
Imagine a system that is built for this AND can output analyses in near-real-time, while ingesting thousands of data points per second.  It's scalable in AWS and Azure.

https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-geoevent-server (https://www.esri.com/en-us/arcgis/products/arcgis-geoevent-server)

You'd probably need to build an open source version from the ground up.  Maybe there's a university in Asia or Europe willing to put up the funding for such an endeavor.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: waiukuweather on May 22, 2019, 07:56:53 PM
there are other places already available for your data
e.g
http://www.pwsweather.com
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: jmcmurry on May 23, 2019, 10:17:25 AM
Thanks, I'd forgotten that I've been sending data there and didn't realize that they've made the history available.  Mine is only back to 2011, but that's probably when they began the effort.

- Jim
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Intheswamp on May 23, 2019, 12:16:14 PM
I'm not knocking WU-hoo or the folks with a gripe against them.  It's kind of a "Smith and Jones" thing, or maybe a "Hatfields and McCoys" kind f thing.  Just not a lot of trust and touchy-feely between the two parties.

Yeah, WU is using user data for other purposes other than just on WU.  And yeah, WU has changed a bunch of stuff that screws a lot of stuff up.  And the weathercams just don't seem to work or be as reliable as they used to be.  And yeah, some of us PWS owners are po'd about it all and say/infer irreverent things about WU, kind of a natural human response.  And yeah (again), "reps" from WU come on the forum and say a few things about moving forward and "we're here for you" kind of things.  Then some of us users here on the forum state some issues and demonstrate frustration...frustration which seems to come from a definite lack of communications from WU in the past.  And yeah, the WU "reps" have too thin of a skin and once they hear the discontent they ghost the people that they have prompted a response from.  Until the WU people grow some thicker skin and weather the initial firestorm of messages that follows their initial post I don't think there will be much, if any, constructive conversation here on WXForum between PWS owners and WU.  It just ain't gonna happen.

I will say this, though, when I read the original un-stickied post by WonderTodd/Wut I took exception to this statement that he made..."Any similar behavior displayed in other threads will be forwarded to moderators for their consideration."  Ok, so rather than deal with the negativity he's going to be whining to the moderators?  That's really manning up to the job.<sigh>

I'm been indignant a few times and stopped my feed going to WU.  I'm currently uploading data to WU-hoo and have been for quiet a while now.  No biggie.  It might help them iron things out in their system...probably not, though, being as I think they're just using my data for marketing rather than system maintenance/repair.  I stopped rapid-fire a long time ago....  They can take the data or leave.  Seems, though, that my WU page works pretty well, though I don't have a weathercam uploading to them...and I honestly don't look at it but maybe...once every month or two?  ;)  I'll just let the data keep flowing...unless the threat of reporting me to a moderator rubs me raw after a while...I'm about over WU's weak presence here, so who knows?

We can discuss WU till the cows come home and it's not gonna make a whole lot of difference to WU.  They're going to do what they're going to do...simple.  They may dangle a carrot once in a while and it's up to us whether we try to get a bite of it, we each have that choice.  What you do with your PWS and how, or if, you present it to "John Q. Public" is entirely, and I repeat, entirely up to you.  You control your station.  You either send data to a host site...or you don't.  If you elect to send the data you can do so either happily or begrudgingly.  Bottom line is that you own your PWS and control what you do or do not do with it.  If you hand your data off to a third-party then you've handed it over, it's out of your hands, and the receiving entity can do with it as they wish...the cow will have gone through the gate and *isn't* coming back home.  It's your PWS and your data, and your choice on what happens with both.  If WU works for you, cool!  If it doesn't, well, there's other options. ;)

So WU-HOOOOO!!!!  That's my deranged, discombobulated rant for the morning!!!  [tup]  Now, to my meds....
(No offense intended to the PWS owners, WU, nor to the Smith and Jones, nor to the Hatfields and McCoys...or the cows.)



Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: JohnN on May 23, 2019, 03:58:52 PM
Like I said before, I personally don't care for the new redesign. But seriously, how hard is it to implement decimals for the temperature? Why did you release this new layout before you have something as simple as that implemented? I would even end my boycott if you would just give us the OPTION to use the old layout until these features are properly added. Hell, it doesn't even have to be the default and I'd be happy. But I also have to say, the fact that WU representatives haven't replied to this at all since the topic has been unlocked is seriously eroding the last little bit of faith I had left in you... Every day that goes by without so much as the tiniest response makes it less and less likely for me to consider returning to Wunderground even if they do add decimals back. At least just give us some type of response like "our website is so broken decimals are our last priority and they won't be added for years." Or "IBM laid off 90% of the Wunderground devs, so you are lucky we can keep the site running at all." Because right now, it looks like you just don't care and aren't even trying anymore. But please, prove me wrong. I personally don't mind that my data is being shared with TWC and IBM and whoever else. I also really miss the RapidFire updates. But until I hear anything, I'm done. I probably should re-read this rant, fix up the order, and add some paragraphs, but I'm sure no-one important will read it anyway, so who cares. Based on what I've seen from the WU reps lately, I've already put more effort into this post than they have put into posting on this board lately.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: saratogaWX on May 23, 2019, 06:00:47 PM
Regrettably, the deluge of negative/hostile/shaming posts has caused both our WU reps to cease visiting and responding to items posted here.  I had a long video conference with Todd yesterday, and they have decided to focus on work instead of trying to respond to all the stuff happening here in this and other topics in the Wunderground board.

To the folks who posted about specific problems, I suggest you use the official reporting mechanism for that at https://www.wunderground.com/about/contact-us .  Todd says the support staff (combined with Weather.com support) fields hundreds of tickets a day at this time.

To the folks who continued to rage about all their issues with WU, thinking that anger/humiliation/force was going to engender support, or to those who would "maybe punish the blighters for letting it get in to such a sorry state", or to shame them into response, I say you got your feelings heard loud and clear .. so much so that you've choked off the productive communication avenue.

Todd and Tim will not be following the postings here anymore, and I really can't blame them for withdrawing.

If I find more information about WU's plans/projects, I'll share them in this forum. 

I am genuinely embarrassed by the behavior of a few that has caused this to happen.

Regrets,
Ken 
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: nincehelser on May 23, 2019, 06:16:26 PM
As one of my industry contacts put it, "The forums are soul-crushing".
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 23, 2019, 06:30:03 PM
Most responses, mine included, have been far from anything resembling constructive criticism. As such and since it's unlikely anything good will ever come of this thread, and WU has said they won't be reading them anyway, I vote that this thread be locked again.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CW2274 on May 23, 2019, 07:08:04 PM
Yeah, well, you reap what you sow. This product has been so dysfunctional for so long it's very difficult not to incite the reactions that are being lobbied, right or wrong. If the WU team has "quit" here, so be it, frankly I don't really see what else there is to complain about, I think we've covered all the bases.  Actions speak louder than words and it's abundantly clear the hierarchy has little to no interest on bring this site back to any semblance of usefulness, and the natives are well past being restless. I truly feel sorry for the folks that have to saddle the burden with the negativity, but it's evident we're well past the peaches and creme, and if they can't stand the heat, get outta the IBM kitchen.
I could throw in a few more sayings, but will leave it at that...well almost...2 cents.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: konz on May 23, 2019, 07:15:50 PM
I offered constructive criticism and sometimes not so constructive criticisms.  Not sure how that affects the work that still needs to be done, don't know how they ever expected to follow a free-form list of "requests" from thousands of potential of users.  It was a hot mess of miscommunication from the get go.  Nothing well-defined, nothing documented, no user documentation, duplicated posts here and there, just put it out and we'll fix it as we go?  "Get her!  That was your plan?"  SMH.  I have no sympathy...probably better this way.

https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c1bd0615-51e3-4a3b-9fea-63b6f49be43c (https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/c1bd0615-51e3-4a3b-9fea-63b6f49be43c)
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: konz on May 23, 2019, 07:20:58 PM
Old IT Proverb: If you don't set user expectations, they will create their own.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SoMDWx on May 23, 2019, 08:04:26 PM
"I am genuinely embarrassed by the behavior of a few that has caused this to happen."

If WU left this forum over a few disgruntled individuals, then they have much bigger issues than this.....I , among the "few" here , have seen repeated attempts to make WU be a viable force again in the PWS business. Instead, things just got so out of hand that many have come to the conclusion that things were not going to get better and in such, voiced their anger, frustration, and discontentment....

It would be really super if they could go back to the way they used to work...... :?

Jim
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 23, 2019, 10:21:26 PM
I knew it. I discussed this possible outcome and predicted this in a PM with another member yesterday. I'm not going to say who that other person was and they can step forward and back me up if they want.

If you want to know how I feel right now it is a feeling of damned if you do and damned if you don't. This is in regards to venting.

But seriously WU really should have acted with a bit more professionalism. The minute services went down without warning they needed to have communicated if it was deliberate or an unexpected outage. They did not do this for 2 days before the natives got restless. There is no excuse for that. What did they expect was going to happen with people's reactions with no communication? Then things go wild and they still say nothing.

The fact that they have pulled out and are using Ken as a messenger just a sign of weakness and cowardice and incompetence because they can't show their face. If they were to come back they fear egg and rotten tomatoes would be thrown at them.

But if they came here and apologized and gave us the new game plan, then I as a honerable and respectful person would treat them with respect. I've always given WU the benefit of the doubt. I understand that sometimes you have setbacks. I get the IT stuff they are doing as I myself am in the industry. I know how hard it can be to pickup the pieces of undocumented code of long gone employees. But you still have to do a better job communicating and there is no excuse for that. The storm they created is just that, they created it by staying quiet.

I too am saddened that WU has pulled out. Because I want to be informed. Now we won't know what's going on. We also won't be able to provide feedback. So is this the beginning of the end for WU? Because this is a big change.

Ken is in a difficult position. In some respects I'm sure he too was very upset with his website scripts breaking and his users not being able to enjoy the hard work he put into his weather website software. At the same time he was trying to be the moderator and glue and to keep the community whole and functional and listening and talking to his users and to WU. Of course you want WU to be happy and stick around and help and listen to us. At the same time though this past weekend they really did a lot of wrong. It is never right to just lash out with hate and uncivilized words. I didn't see anything too terrible. I just saw frustrated people wondering with despair.

I don't know how to end this already long post. I'm bewildered. Should we be the ones apologizing to WU? Or maybe they should apologize to us? Maybe both. They don't need to necessarily apologize for the state of their service that they are working hard at wrangling, rather they should apologize for sending the wrong message to us by not having communicated when things went down, because those are the actions that created the anger because it felt like they did not care to tell us what they were planning and had deliberately done.

Oh so I found the ending I needed. We didn't turn turn around and curse them out first. They deserted us first and with their actions made us feel unimportant and expendable.


Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: catdon on May 23, 2019, 10:47:19 PM
So many wu users who were  not  members of this forum before, were steered  here when they were  trying to figure out what was going on and with no information from wu, did a Google search and landed here. Some simple messages on WU about any problems they were having would probably  have been enough. Why they never communicate anything thru their website  baffles me.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on May 23, 2019, 11:12:22 PM
Some simple messages on WU about any problems they were having would probably  have been enough. Why they never communicate anything thru their website  baffles me.

There was a time in the not-so-distant past that there was someone manning the PWS contact email address and she would respond to queries in a businesslike, prompt fashion.  She also authored a blog where those of us who are part of the network could keep up on what was going on at WU.  She left when TWC took over and then the whole blog system was nuked, but the email address was still active but ignored.  Right now there are zero usable contact points for WU unless you barge into the API forum and try to get some attention there.

The primary problem is IBM does not consider us "customers"--we're the product--and they ironically act like they are doing us a favor.  This'll be in a textbook some day as a case study of how to blow up a business without really trying.  Not that it matters; we're just tiny little minnows in the "Watson" ocean.

WU not participating here won't change anything.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: waiukuweather on May 23, 2019, 11:24:44 PM
Ken the guru he is has his scripts working again though via the WU API
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: DoctorKnow on May 24, 2019, 09:00:13 AM
I can't make my Atlas stop reporting to WUndergone! I even deleted the station and password and it's still going... Unreal...

The comments on this site about what has been going on are very mild and patient if I may say so. I think the Wundermap the way it was before all of this started was very good.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 24, 2019, 09:20:37 AM
Regrettably, the deluge of negative/hostile/shaming posts has caused both our WU reps to cease visiting and responding to items posted here.  (a bunch of stuff...)

Thanks for reaching out to them.  Personally, if they don't axe our access to the radar and those images, I'll probably keep sending them data.  The only other wish I have is that they can do something in their API to get back those almanac functions we lost.  Heck, I'd pay $10 a year just to get that.  I'm willing to throw them a bone.

I think the key is if I feel they are willing to work with us a bit, I'm willing to be patient to give them a year to re-design their site and the background processes.  I see it as having nothing to lose.  It doesn't cost me anything to post to their site.  I just need to feel I'm getting something in return.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: rormeister on May 24, 2019, 09:43:45 AM
With all due respect, I'm actually surprised the WU team even bothered to venture into the tar pit. Look back over a year ago when WU had a Trello board dedicated to tracking issues and actually displaying their progress in the queue. I don't recall any tension in the threads on that board. Yet, at the same time, much of the information from them was vague at best. Issues that were ongoing were marked as closed. Then, suddenly, just like Ken's announcement, they go "underground" again and remove the WU Trello board completely.

To be totally candid, their behavior was asking for trouble. Nothing stirs up a hornets nest better than poking an occasional stick in it. Poor communication is not what WU needs to quell the fire in the PWS community. The www.weatherunderground.com homepage gives the general public the perception that everything is running smoothly. Had we been receiving honest responses to our issues it may have been a different story. Vague "We're working on it" with no approximate timeline is simply unprofessional.

Luckily for me, I've run out of my last bag of popcorn. Visualize curtain dropping.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: CBXSteve on May 24, 2019, 10:19:19 AM
But if they came here and apologized and gave us the new game plan, then I as a honerable and respectful person would treat them with respect. I've always given WU the benefit of the doubt.

I strongly suspect that they have been "playing" us the entire time, and that their presence on this forum was part of an overall strategy to appear to be well-meaning but lovable bumbling fools who simply couldn't keep WU running despite their best efforts. They don't want WU as part of their weather sector, but they do want the PWS input.  Furthermore, they don't want lawsuits from the PWS manufacturers which might have the effect of forcing them to make WU viable again. Them appearing to put forth effort but failing helps them on all fronts if those are their goals.

The fact that they appeared on this forum at all is vanishingly unusual. Most companies, and especially most big, successful, companies, bury their programmers so deep they need to pump air to them. They NEVER communicate with end users, but we are to believe that IBM decided to allow the efforts of their hothouse flower programmers to be exposed to this chaos?

No, it's all part of the plan.  Granted, part of the plan could have been to hire rookie and underfunded programmers who were doomed to fail, but no other explanation for this bizarre saga makes sense.

Disconnecting from this forum at some point was part of the plan too. Despair not, lest you increase their satisfaction at a job well done.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 24, 2019, 10:38:43 AM
Honestly, I don't think they had a plan.  Every "piece" I think they tried to clean up or alter, they didn't realize they'd screw up 3 other pieces.  They could fix one, but another popped up.  At a certain point I think they realized they'll never be able to fix all the issues.  Just decided they need to re-design the site like they wanted.  Fix what they can later, or decide it isn't worth fixing.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 24, 2019, 11:07:06 AM
I also don't believe that WU will not be reading this continued feedback. Sure their user accounts here may show that they haven't logged in in days. But there is nothing stopping them from having created new anonymous accounts. Curiosity is human nature. They didn't just walk away.

WU is acting immature and childish. Like reprimanding and a kid that doesn't want to play nice and then the kid runs away to their room...yet they then peek around the corner to see what they are missing. They are acting like its our fault that they left. They are the kid that wasn't acting right to begin with. We have every right to be upset and disappointed.

The bottom line is we still love them, well at least I do. I value WU and I want them to succeed in fixing their website. The potential is there, they had it at one point. They just need to get it back. If they want our support they've got it. Just communicate better, and when they screw up we'll understand if they've kept us in the loop.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: nincehelser on May 24, 2019, 11:08:55 AM
Yeah, they did walk away. 

They're just people trying to make a living.  They don't need the "experts" here.

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: saratogaWX on May 24, 2019, 12:09:07 PM
Amazing theories, however, I think the underlying reasons for the how this happened are simpler (and less conspiratorial) than have been mentioned.  I don't have any inside knowledge about this, but having worked in IT for years before retirement, this scenario is consistent with what I'd personally observed happening before:

1) WU sprang from a university project and was initially constructed by a small team of developers who used the available technologies to create the first instances on dedicated servers (likely some Windows/IIS/ASP given the .asp on the WXDailyHistory.asp page).
2) The then developers expanded the functionality of the site as more and more ingress stuff (PWS data, WebCams, NOAA Weather radio, etc) was added.  There was likely a second team to use the PWS data as part of weather models to refine the WU-based forecasts.
3) The site continued to expand use of JavaScript and added the WU-API for additional functionality and started offering the WU-API to developers for their own apps. 
4) The Weather Company buys Wunderground.  TWC has their own set of developers who'd been busy with weather.com and selling the api.weather.com services to companies as a commercial product.  The Weather Company is bought by IBM, and now we have 3 architectures (Watson, TWC, WU) to try an merge.  Upper management wants to streamline and mandates that the old WU architecture be unraveled and functionality ported to the TWC platform.   Likely, the original developers of the WU architecture/systems have left, and since the development of that was likely sketchily documented, the people to unravel how it all works have to use the code left to understand how it works, then come up with ways to make it work on a different architecture.
5) The change of WU feature set is a result of that unraveling process and the (likely) corporate mandate to deprecate the old architecture and spin down those servers while trying to keep as many features/functions active as are viable.

I've seen many times that when a company is acquired, the IT systems undergo a (usually painful) reworking as the acquiring company now has say of what should be used. 

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Intheswamp on May 24, 2019, 12:53:10 PM
Amazing theories, however, I think the underlying reasons for the how this happened are simpler (and less conspiratorial) than have been mentioned.

DRATS!!!!  #-o  Ken, the plot was just beginning to thicken.  What am I gonna tell those screenwriters in Hollowood that I'd talked into a mini-series drama for Antenna TV?   :roll:

 :grin:
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on May 24, 2019, 01:16:48 PM
I would have to agree with saratoga WX's analysis of the situation. I do not think there are any underlying conspiracy theories just internal corporate policies in play here.
My issue here has been the lack of civility here by a few players. There have been a few old timers and quite a few newbies flaming beyond reason here. It is if the “social media” mentality of key pounding without a second look as to what you are posting and the lack of etiquette has worked its way into the once high professionalism of this group.
There were discussions of free speech on a public forum being infringed. Is this a public forum, did you not need to join? Yes, there were rules to abide by and you agreed to them. If they were not enforced rigidly does that give one latitude to push it passed the boundaries without at least a wrist slap.
I certainly don’t fault the WU group from withdrawing. They are very aware of there issues and do not need to be constantly bombarded with “in your face” comments. It is a work in progress and based on Saratoga WX analysis I can understand why things have happened.
I, myself, am a passive weather observer. I have a low-cost array in my front yard. I observe it on a daily basis as do my neighbors. I do not have a weather cam. It reports to WU, Ambient Weather and PWS. I do not jealously guard my data. I have survived this change fairly unscathed. My station is up and reporting, on the map and in the correct place.
Will this post generate negative reprisals? We shall see?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Intheswamp on May 24, 2019, 02:32:11 PM
Ya know, I'm not an old-timer here on WXForum, but I've been here a few years.  I remember when a hot discussion was about which clamp to use to mount your rain gauge post...those could be really lively discussions.  Or the discussions of the antics we went through to keep birds from pooping in the gauge.  The we had the "Hubble Fix" for webcams...that was thinking "outside the box". ;)  Or maybe it'd just be some joking back and forth between members...or encouragement to someone getting their first station online.  Lots of helping and just general conversations happening.  Now it seems too many message threads have "WU" in the subject line.

Life use to be so simple.  I miss those days.  Kinda brings a tear to my eye like when Travis had to put down Old Yeller.  Or maybe that old heart-wrenching love song they used to play on a weekly TV show....goes something like "Where on where, are you tonight...".  Aw man, I'm gonna start blowing snot...gotta go.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: 92merc on May 24, 2019, 02:45:38 PM
Amazing theories, (stuff...)
Bingo!  Ken states it more elegantly than I.  But I can say the same thing happens in the state government IT area I work.  It's a story as old as time.  Well, as old as programmers anyway.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: ocala on May 24, 2019, 02:55:47 PM
I always used to read Jeff Masters blog on WU.
Then in the summer of 2012 he posted in his blog about how the site had out grown them and they were selling out to TWC. He promised how nothing would change and the new backing of TWC would make things even better.
I knew right then it was the beginning of the end. The original WU was successful because it was run by weather weenies like us. They gave a dam about the product. When corporations take over all that goes by the way side.
They weren't in it for the money. They were in it because of their passion.
I don't know if there will ever be another site like WU but their death started in 2012. What we see today is the continuing slow death of a once great organization.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SoMDWx on May 24, 2019, 03:08:21 PM
Ken's analysis is fairly accurate... bottom line is IBM/TWC/WU/etc. screwed up.....Plain and simple....
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: saratogaWX on May 24, 2019, 03:53:38 PM
I always used to read Jeff Masters blog on WU.
Then in the summer of 2012 he posted in his blog about how the site had out grown them and they were selling out to TWC. He promised how nothing would change and the new backing of TWC would make things even better.
I knew right then it was the beginning of the end. The original WU was successful because it was run by weather weenies like us. They gave a dam about the product. When corporations take over all that goes by the way side.
They weren't in it for the money. They were in it because of their passion.
I don't know if there will ever be another site like WU but their death started in 2012. What we see today is the continuing slow death of a once great organization.

My personal opinion, it the sale to TWC was done largely because the revenue sources to fund WU were drying up v.s. the Weather Company's revenue sources.
WU was using Ad revenue and sale of custom weather products to newspapers (and others), but that couldn't quite cover the costs of infrastructure and staff sustainably given the competition by Intellecast, Accuweather and TWC who had similar revenue sources.
WU's offer of 'paid subscriptions' gift to PWS data submitters cut Ad revenues by removing ads from weatherunderground for logged-in PWS oners (cutting back some potential revenue).  Likewise, the commercial sales of custom forecast pages to newspapers was declining as newspapers themselves declined in physical-print subscribers.  Those, and an increasing cost of the aging infrastructure behind WU likely meant that a 'white knight' was needed to inject funding to continue .. At first, TWC was viewed as that white-knight.  TWC, like any corporation acquiring a pre-built functionality, wanted to streamline and port the WU functions to their existing Cloud-based infrastructure.  The problem was likely that the WU architecture wasn't either easily ported (due to older non/cloud technologies), nor deeply understood by TWC's developers (which I imagine have split into front-end/back-end/data assimilation/API generation groups, as contrasted with the small, integrated team that developed WU in the first place).  This possible scenario would have made any over-arching plan to preserve functions while porting extremely difficult (as we've seen in fact).

Note that the above is only my guess.. not based on any inside-knowledge. 

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: ocala on May 24, 2019, 05:16:46 PM
you're  probably right Ken.
I think if Masters would have approached  the community and laid out the funding issue and asked for donations or a yearly sub they would have supported the cause.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Bunty on May 25, 2019, 03:39:24 PM
When is WU going to get rid of Flash? Never?  And  do away with http stickers?  Never?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Carbon on May 25, 2019, 04:53:22 PM
Like I said before, I personally don't care for the new redesign. But seriously, how hard is it to implement decimals for the temperature? Why did you release this new layout before you have something as simple as that implemented? I would even end my boycott if you would just give us the OPTION to use the old layout until these features are properly added. Hell, it doesn't even have to be the default and I'd be happy. But I also have to say, the fact that WU representatives haven't replied to this at all since the topic has been unlocked is seriously eroding the last little bit of faith I had left in you... Every day that goes by without so much as the tiniest response makes it less and less likely for me to consider returning to Wunderground even if they do add decimals back. At least just give us some type of response like "our website is so broken decimals are our last priority and they won't be added for years." Or "IBM laid off 90% of the Wunderground devs, so you are lucky we can keep the site running at all." Because right now, it looks like you just don't care and aren't even trying anymore. But please, prove me wrong. I personally don't mind that my data is being shared with TWC and IBM and whoever else. I also really miss the RapidFire updates. But until I hear anything, I'm done. I probably should re-read this rant, fix up the order, and add some paragraphs, but I'm sure no-one important will read it anyway, so who cares. Based on what I've seen from the WU reps lately, I've already put more effort into this post than they have put into posting on this board lately.

I echo your frustration. I'm mainly irritated that they removed access to the old website, both through horizon and through messing with the case of the dashboard link, before they fixed the new site. The decimal issue is the main thing plaguing me - I really wish I could understand how they're taking so long to fix it when they're clearly ingesting it properly in decimal form, as evidenced by the old site reporting decimals.

It's a front-end display issue. It's not even the temperature that ticks me off the most, it's the rain rate being rounded to the nearest whole number. After they released rapid fire to the redesign, that was great and all, but rain rate being rounded to the nearest whole number is the dumbest thing ever, making the metric useless. I kept the old site bookmarked to view rain rate data, but that has now been taken away as well, without fixing the issue on the new site. Seriously, 0.45 in/hr is displayed as 0 in/hr, and 0.55 in/hr is displayed as 1 in/hr. Still. Really?

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 26, 2019, 09:28:32 AM
Old WU site (horizon) is up and running again. No map/radar though.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on May 26, 2019, 10:03:52 AM
Old WU site (horizon) is up and running again. No map/radar though.

Nope, it's just intermittent like it's always been. Giving errors here right now, sometimes it works, then it stops working, then it gives a HTTP error, then works again depending on the device, etc. Since they "took it down" it's just been intermittent and working at literally random. Sometimes I spam F5 and it works then it doesn't work anymore, etc etc.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on May 26, 2019, 12:19:48 PM
Some of you are reporting that your station will not report rain in .01 inch increments or is rounded up .05 in increments.  My station does and has always reported in .01 increments.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCAGRASS150 Am I missing something?
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on May 26, 2019, 12:39:14 PM
Some of you are reporting that your station will not report rain in .01 inch increments or is rounded up .05 in increments.  My station does and has always reported in .01 increments.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCAGRASS150 Am I missing something?

The rate. And your module thing towards the top says 0", whereas the charts shows like 0.07"/he right now
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on May 26, 2019, 12:43:24 PM
Old WU site (horizon) is up and running again. No map/radar though.

Nope, it's just intermittent like it's always been. Giving errors here right now, sometimes it works, then it stops working, then it gives a HTTP error, then works again depending on the device, etc. Since they "took it down" it's just been intermittent and working at literally random. Sometimes I spam F5 and it works then it doesn't work anymore, etc etc.

Ah yes I see that now. I'm now getting Error 404: Page Not Found.  Bummer. It's now just like the webcam servers.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: vsakalis on June 01, 2019, 12:36:48 PM
R.I.P old dashboard?
I have a long time to go in... :sad:
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on June 01, 2019, 04:17:55 PM
Some of you are reporting that your station will not report rain in .01 inch increments or is rounded up .05 in increments.  My station does and has always reported in .01 increments.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCAGRASS150 Am I missing something?

The rate. And your module thing towards the top says 0", whereas the charts shows like 0.07"/he right now
I usually go to the graphs. Those have been accurate for me so far.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: catdon on June 03, 2019, 09:17:58 AM
Still waiting for the decimal precision  for temps....I remembered a post  by wu that they were working on it and it would take around "2 weeks"....That was on April 11th.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: crawdad62 on June 03, 2019, 10:40:58 AM
At this point it's probably safe to say what you've got is what you're going to have. Less disappointment. Of course sometimes they break something you've got so.....
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: gvspfc on June 04, 2019, 10:55:02 AM
At this point it's probably safe to say what you've got is what you're going to have. Less disappointment. Of course sometimes they break something you've got so.....

I think you are right, thats it. Although I find it absurd not to have decimals, that's it. Maybe the end of WU is near
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WheatonRon on June 04, 2019, 09:19:07 PM
Minor improvements have been made!

If you scan pages near your own page on WU, some temperatures are now listed in tenths of a degree! Separately, now all 3 of my pws have the Goldstar vs 1 a couple of weeks ago. And I had suggested the words “Forecast For” be added to the heading where the forecast is visible rather than just listing the city and state (see attached screenshot). WU actually made that change, so maybe the life at WU is not quite over!

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on June 04, 2019, 10:10:23 PM
Still no "forecast for" mine, and the nearby PWS table has had tenths all along.  That's what makes this so maddening...they have the data but don't care enough to properly present it.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on June 04, 2019, 10:28:40 PM
I have had forecast added to my station. I can only see tenths of a degree on other stations when using the Android app and highlighting another station. The web based app will not show tenths as of yet for me.
https://www.wunderground.com/dashboard/pws/KCAGRASS150
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: wvdkuil on June 05, 2019, 03:05:49 AM
 [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup] [tup]

This morning, 2019-06-05 T 05:00:00 UTC the .CSV files are available again

I checked my own and some user sites, the CSV files are available for history scripts both for the "Jim McMurry / Ken True" as my own version.
Also the weather34 graphs are OK and the WU-graphs v1.8 from Radomir Luza work correctly also.
Seems that for some users a few days are missing for the yearly CSV, but all other period-files are correctly populated.
The old-style graphs(https://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/wxStationGraphAll)  on the history pages are correct for all periods also.

I hope this difficult period is over and we can continue to use our historical data as it was in the past..

BUT we need to get rid of the "bad bots" as the history scripts are very often misused hundreds of times / hour and that 24/7.
To get rid of those bots should have our priority.

The new dashboard still has no download button but maybe that will be solved also.

Wim
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on June 05, 2019, 03:47:23 AM
The old and improved (hehehe) site seems to be up now, or least hasn't disappeared for a couple hours now.  [tup]
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9 (https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9)
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: westhillman on June 05, 2019, 04:29:59 AM
Maybe its been re-launched as the only means of getting Deg C to one decimal point, which they have been promising for months. 
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on June 05, 2019, 06:34:50 AM
The old and improved (hehehe) site seems to be up now, or least hasn't disappeared for a couple hours now.  [tup]
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9 (https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9)
Yep, looks like it's consistently working now. Good. Not that much harm in bringing it back while they take their sweet time on fixing small stuff like decimals in the new site.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on June 05, 2019, 07:33:43 AM
......that they appeared on this forum at all is vanishingly unusual. Most companies, and especially most big, successful, companies, bury their programmers so deep they need to pump air to them. They NEVER communicate with end users, but we are to believe that IBM decided to allow the efforts of their hothouse flower programmers to be exposed to this chaos?......
Ones like Uniden and Horizon Hobby have their programmers out in the wild. Ready to take all the rotten tomatoes the masses can throw. If you really stand behind a quality product you would not be afraid to engage.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on June 05, 2019, 07:39:46 AM
The old and improved (hehehe) site seems to be up now, or least hasn't disappeared for a couple hours now.  [tup]
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9 (https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?id=KGABAXLE9)
Yep, looks like it's consistently working now. Good. Not that much harm in bringing it back while they take their sweet time on fixing small stuff like decimals in the new site.
Even my webcam is up now for first time in a couple months.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Bunty on June 06, 2019, 03:06:59 AM
The flash sticker for weather conditions have returned.   I don't expect that to last long.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: catdon on June 11, 2019, 07:22:19 PM
Can you imagine the excitement  if and when they fix the decimal fiasco lol...get your 6 packs ready. BTW it's been two months now since they said they're working on it....I'd say it's even money whether it ever comes back.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: crawdad62 on June 11, 2019, 10:11:08 PM
I still can’t believe we’re here moaning about thing and the company responsible is none other than Big Blue. IBM. WOW!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on June 12, 2019, 10:35:40 AM
It has been 48 hours since the forecast location update. The 10 day forecast shows my station however when selecting the calendar tab it shows an airport 60 miles away. Still confused....
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: awsum140 on June 12, 2019, 11:35:11 AM
Being it's IBM, you'd think they'd ask Watson for some help getting these problems fixed.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Mabcmb on June 12, 2019, 12:51:04 PM
My personal opinion is they aren't doing anything to fix WU !!  They have the code already to add the decimal point and everything else they need from the "old" pages . The " old " pages are working without the maps and you cannot sign in anymore but they still have the decimal point in the weather .  All they would have to do is copy and paste the old code into the new format and BOOM it would be corrected . They have taken a one or two day job and made a career out of it .

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]  
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on June 12, 2019, 02:15:08 PM
My personal opinion is they aren't doing anything to fix WU !!  They have the code already to add the decimal point and everything else they need from the "old" pages . The " old " pages are working without the maps and you cannot sign in anymore but they still have the decimal point in the weather .  All they would have to do is copy and paste the old code into the new format and BOOM it would be corrected . They have taken a one or two day job and made a career out of it .

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
If it were as simple as that it would have been done, ya' think. It has been stated before that none of the old system can be used.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Mabcmb on June 12, 2019, 02:37:09 PM

[/quote]
If it were as simple as that it would have been done, ya' think. It has been stated before that none of the old system can be used.
[/quote]

From what I could find IBM has owned WU and  Weather.com since 2015  . So they have had the " code" for over 4 years I believe . I think someone in there team is trying to reinvent the wheel instead of just making things work right . But that's only my opinion .
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: nincehelser on June 12, 2019, 02:44:50 PM
From what I could find IBM has owned WU and  Weather.com since 2015  . So they have had the " code" for over 4 years I believe . I think someone in there team is trying to reinvent the wheel instead of just making things work right . But that's only my opinion .

Part of the problem is that they *DON'T* have all the source code.  Also, many systems were not well documented and the original developers are gone.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on June 12, 2019, 03:16:25 PM
I thought it looked like steady progress. First Rapid Fire came back. Now my Webcam is working as of a week or so. Rome was not built in a day.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: alanb on June 12, 2019, 10:17:42 PM
Part of the problem is that they *DON'T* have all the source code.  Also, many systems were not well documented and the original developers are gone.
On top of that, we don't really know what development platform the old system used or what they are using in the new design. I spent my career in IT starting with IBM mainframes in the late '60s, going through the PC revolution in the 80's/90's, Y2K, Internet based web applications, smartphones. I lost count of the number of conversions, rewrites, application obsolescence and abandonment, false starts, etc. that I was involved with. But major upgrades/rewrites are never trivial, and often there is little beyond conceptual design that can be salvaged from the old system. I'm not saying IBM/WU is blameless in all the criticism they are getting … just that the fixes are probably not as simple as they seem like they should be looking in from the outside. 

… this is just a 2 cent observation from an old f@rt who doesn't really know what is going on at WU. I don't even own a weather station yet (waiting for the Acurite Atlas Elite before I decide what to get), but I sure hope WU is successful. I use WU all the time to monitor other stations in my neighborhood, and for the most part WU is reliable for that purpose. I suppose I may have a different opinion once I have a weather station of my own.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: waiukuweather on June 12, 2019, 11:53:36 PM
the missing decimals is not so much as a fix
it was likely it was not setup in the new api in the first place
and so that needs to be updated (and the underlying database)
and so they will need to wait until the coder who set that up is available
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on June 13, 2019, 12:50:49 PM
I thought it looked like steady progress. First Rapid Fire came back. Now my Webcam is working as of a week or so. Rome was not built in a day.

But it did burn down in just 5 days...
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: boss281 on June 16, 2019, 04:16:54 PM
*DELETE*
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: rormeister on June 16, 2019, 06:18:07 PM
*DELETE*

Shame we can’t just do that to the WU hot mess re-deux. It’s stunning how many other pieces are broken throughout the entire website. If I believed they were actually invested in fixing things, I’d have a much lighter disposition.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: SoMDWx on June 16, 2019, 06:20:26 PM
I have ripped just about anything WU -related from my site and have stopped sending data.....And you know what...It's nice not worrying whether your data is going to be there, time-delayed, not processed, etc...
Best decision ever! Huge load off.....
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on June 17, 2019, 06:12:38 PM
Welp, the Horizon website was officially taken down, just redirects to the main WU page. Other methods still work.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on June 17, 2019, 08:05:16 PM
Yep, Horizon and capital ID URLs Do not work now. This is what I got upset about the last time this happened, because they promised to keep the old site up till they fixed the major issues with the new site. That would include tenths decimals at least and perhaps some others issues like rounding and such. You can see these and other issues here.
https://trello.com/b/qTvFtwYd/weather-underground-issues

Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on June 18, 2019, 01:47:51 AM
Welp, the Horizon website was officially taken down, just redirects to the main WU page. Other methods still work.

Go figure...my "legacy" dashboard is still working.  \:D/
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on June 18, 2019, 05:33:29 AM
I seemed to have lost webcam on old site. Otherwise still as latest "recovery".
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: lightmaster on June 18, 2019, 07:12:14 AM
Ok, at this point, F Wunderground. Not only have they not added decimal temp to the new site, but they've now actively gone and removed it from the old site. Yet another bug as decimals temporary disappear.

June 13th:
(https://i.postimg.cc/4xPhSN7V/Screenshot-20190613-185838-Chrome-Beta.jpg)

June 18th:
(https://i.postimg.cc/TG1cs8k9/Screenshot-20190618-070513-Chrome-Beta.png)
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: mdv on June 18, 2019, 08:25:15 AM
... Not only have they not added decimal temp to the new site, but they've now actively gone and removed it from the old site.


Old site still showing decimals for my PWS.

I notice the Summary table in your 18 June image had no values ... maybe you experienced a temporary glitch.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on June 18, 2019, 09:26:15 PM
Ok, at this point, F Wunderground. Not only have they not added decimal temp to the new site, but they've now actively gone and removed it from the old site. Yet another bug as decimals temporary disappear.
You will find that their "old site" display code will not display "xx.0" as a decimal.  If your temp is (for example) 72.0 it'll display as "72".
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: BKS97 on June 21, 2019, 05:11:59 PM
The WU Sun and Moon widget has shown no data for at least the past week.  Until now, I used it on my website and am hoping it will be restored or another similar one will replace it.

 [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: rrwcf on July 12, 2019, 10:55:46 PM
@all WU managers
In the past half year I remained positive also because we were warned about upcoming changes. Also because Victoria Gardner was always present to assist between us and the development staff


I am SICK of WU's FAILURE to improve their site!  This morning I sent WU an ultimatum then, I posted this on the Disqus "Comment" tab (a lame substitution for the old "Status" feature):

NOTICE TO ALL- I’ve given WeatherUnderground two weeks to respond to my long list of complaints about their so-called “service”.
I’m sick and tired of the drops, losses, lame ads, lost features, empty promises, and their globologna fake-science brain-washing campaign.

IF I DON’T GET at least a response from them, I’ll take my data feed elsewhere.

WHAT YOU’LL SEE: Two sketchy PWS reports nearby and, IF YOU'RE LUCKY, once-in-a-while, I’ll restart my feed until WU drops their “Get” again.

LOOK at my station's historic data. Do you see gaps before the last six months? No. The quality and consistency goes back nearly 10 years. Check the APRS, CWOP and Fundu, and MADIS reports. See how gladstonefamily.net (an independent QC report) rates my PWS.

I’ve been loyal and consistent for a long time, but I’ve reached the end of my patience.

I will be providing high-quality data to some other network.


Problem is: Where will I take my data?  I thought WeatherBug was a possibility, but I don't see that they want PWS data.

Any Ideas?  I am really SICK of WU.

rrwcf
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: OldAlaskaGuy on July 12, 2019, 11:50:35 PM
Good by! [tup]
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on July 13, 2019, 05:10:35 AM
You can send them your data or not. They don't care. Issuing ultimatum is pointless. You aren't the customer, you are the product of which there are over 300,000 PWS. WU can afford to lose a few thousand stations as it might make their website better. WU can't keep up with the volume of data they're getting and it's costly.

If you want to make a difference then only way is to organize a global viral campaign on social media to boycott them. Only if this is successfully executed, will it make a difference. It would have to be picked up by the news media. WU would have to be exposed as being an IBM company (not that it is a secret) and perhaps other IBM services are also in the boycott.

There are plenty of weather services you can send your data to as you are already doing. But there is no true competitor to WU with the notoriety and with rapidfire instant live data.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: ValentineWeather on July 13, 2019, 06:58:21 AM



I’m sick and tired of the drops, losses, lame ads, lost features, empty promises, and their globologna fake-science brain-washing campaign.



Now that's spot on.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on July 13, 2019, 10:53:53 AM
Also, they're slowly crippling the old leftover page, you can no longer go to a custom date or use the previous/next buttons, it loads infinitely.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: rrwcf on July 14, 2019, 04:34:35 PM
You can send them your data or not. They don't care.

Clearly, they don't care.

Here is their response to my note:

Thank you for taking the time to write to us here at Weather Underground.
We have a very small stuff dedicated to support, and it can sometimes take awhile for us to get to responding. I apologize if we’ve taken more time than you deem acceptable to answer your email.
That said, the language, tone, and threatening nature of your email is inexcusable, and won’t be tolerated.
As you stated, you have a choice where you upload your data. You also have a choice to consider your words, political opinions, and other site-bashing rhetoric when contacting Weather Underground.
Finally, to answer your question, we aren’t presently supporting uploading data from previous hours or days. We hope to bring this feature back in the future.
Thank you for being a part of the Weather Underground community.
Regards,
The WU Team


I replied,
Your response references a complaint I sent to you weeks ago.  Are you conflating?

It humors me how you also conflate science and “politics.”  I never mentioned “politics“ -you did.  To me it’s more evidence against you.

Since you are able to see old communication between us, why don’t you dig deeper and see the myriad of messages that I have sent that provided you with important information, site testing (at your request), dialog, and recommendations (many of which you adopted) ?

Since the flack is so heavy, I must be over the target.

Go see how the perception of your “service” has morphed over at WXFORUM.net. The people there are always happy to hear how you handle complaints from data providers.

Do you think I am alone?

I am not YOUR customer. You are MY customer.  People who read your nasty ads are YOUR customers.



Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: WSWeather on July 14, 2019, 09:25:35 PM
I am not YOUR customer. You are MY customer.  People who read your nasty ads are YOUR customers.[/color]

Yeah, here's the problem.  You aren't their customer and they aren't selling you anything...those ads are easily blocked and are sold to advertisers.  You are the product, sold to "big data" customers starting at $200/mo.

If you don't want to be the product you have that option, but it won't make a bit of difference.  Their actions drown out all their words.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on July 16, 2019, 03:51:57 PM
The lower case "id" link just stopped working too. Classic WU is completely gone now.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on July 16, 2019, 04:47:13 PM
No data on mine but webcam is still up lol
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: catdon on July 16, 2019, 04:58:01 PM
The lower case "id" link just stopped working too. Classic WU is completely gone now.
Yup also the forecast page isn't even loading now on IE or edge.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: awsum140 on July 16, 2019, 05:45:52 PM
And what is left?  The new, semi-functional, page and good luck trying to add a webcam.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on July 16, 2019, 05:55:26 PM
Just having a little laugh.

Updated 2020 yrs ago. :lol: :-P
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: noctilucent on July 18, 2019, 03:41:02 AM
The lower case "id" link just stopped working too. Classic WU is completely gone now.

It's not working, but not in the way the above message implies, it now redirects to the new, broken page.  So it's broken-as-designed rather than broken-by-accident.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on July 18, 2019, 08:39:56 AM
The lower case "id" link just stopped working too. Classic WU is completely gone now.

It's not working, but not in the way the above message implies, it now redirects to the new, broken page.  So it's broken-as-designed rather than broken-by-accident.
I did say Classic WU was *gone* after that change. I did imply it was changed by design as WU had already said they'd be phasing out these workarounds. Which is a huge shame. Horrible website.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: PaulMy on July 18, 2019, 08:54:33 AM
Quote
I did say Classic WU was *gone* after that change.
What goes around, comes around... http://www.wxforum.net/index.php?topic=10424.msg100228#msg100228

Try to enjoy,
Paul
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: AboutAndAround on July 18, 2019, 11:59:37 AM
I really just want the decimals back at this point for temperature. What's worse is that they don't even seem to save them internally with decimals anymore either... I tried using the API to make custom graphs on my website a couple of days ago and the temperatures were returned in integer rounded values too! Ugh.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: konz on July 18, 2019, 06:55:50 PM
I really just want the decimals back at this point for temperature. What's worse is that they don't even seem to save them internally with decimals anymore either... I tried using the API to make custom graphs on my website a couple of days ago and the temperatures were returned in integer rounded values too! Ugh.

From the compute side of the equation - it may be faster and take up less space for their systems to store an integer.  That's the only thing I can think of that might shed light as to why the decimals are missing.  Plus, watson probably runs faster too with int data.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: vsakalis on July 19, 2019, 04:02:49 AM
You are right Konz, but if it is like this why they store zero decimal at wind speed and gust? Also why they use 2 decimal in pressure? Why they use 2 decimal in rain data?
Zero decimal or non zero decimal takes exactly the same space of data. So it is not this reason...They havent reason...it is completely stupid. Theu dont care
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: galfert on July 19, 2019, 05:38:05 AM
WU has stated that the reason they went with whole numbers for temperature and wind (and all else) is because of the accuracy of weather station hardware was ±1°F and ±1 mph at best so they felt it was meaningless to show more precision. I'm not saying that I agree or that it is a good conclusion. I feel they don't know the difference between accuracy and precision. They missed the mark in several ways which shows that the people that designed the new UI were not meteorologist. Rain rate in whole numbers is useless. They also forgot to think like scientists which even in the US many use metric.

The whole new UI with its large eye candy graphics was an attempt to dumb down the interface, and it was done by dummies.

They solicited user input last year before the new UI was finished being coded and people like me offered feedback on the new design and they didn't listen. They asked for feedback but what they really wanted was "yes men" and a pat in the back.
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Intheswamp on July 21, 2019, 10:02:27 AM
This thread reminds me of watching this on a loop... ;)
[youtube]https://youtu.be/fsH4usEacJ4[/youtube]
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: Cocute on July 23, 2019, 05:35:42 AM
hello, in new design is possible some parameter in url to show direct in degrees Celsius?
is very bungling load my PWS in fahrenheit and in two seconds auto reload web in degrees Celsius.


Please back online classic PWS view
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: davidmc36 on July 23, 2019, 08:11:45 AM
Classic???? I'm sure bon frickkin schance.

At least the metric "after-load" and sign in came back. Whew!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: vsakalis on July 26, 2019, 05:18:45 AM
MIRACLE....

DECIMAL (in temperature) RETURNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Title: Re: Our wxforum WU community - turning the page
Post by: theslydog on July 27, 2019, 06:32:25 AM
MIRACLE....

DECIMAL (in temperature) RETURNS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, but I wonder how long for?....

I was just about ready to pull my PWSs off WU maybe I will leave them a little longer....