6 replies to this topic

[Echo_of_thunder]

Okay as all you know I am very big on the weather. A couple of weeks back in early Feb. We had a tornado outbreak in the southern us. I thought for the heck of it I would go into one of the Yahoo Chat rooms for the main State that was being effected and post warnings from there National Weather Service. Well That day I have 2 or 3 people message me saying how wonderful it was that I was doing this. yet I did have the few to tell me to shut up or who cares. well the next week there was another out break in pretty much the same area. I was amazed when I turned on my messenger that some of the ones that had sad thank you, had messaged me to do this again.

Now for the advice on this matter. the main being would something like this be concidered Spam, or a Public Service?
I feel as it would be a public service due to it is something that was put out by the NSW.

Question 2 How would I go about getting others in this? I alone cane not cover all chat rooms. you can have more than one tornado warning in other states.

And last would all this be worth all the trouble?

Thanks

[KansukeKojima]

I think you should definitely continue doing this. It is a good idea to be relaying warnings to people who live in those areas via chat rooms because there is the possibility they may not be aware of those warnings. I don't think it would be considered spam at all. As for the people who said "who cares", etc., don't worry about them . Obviously there were people who cared since they thanked you. So yeah, it isn't really spam at all.

As far as getting others to help you goes... I'm not exactly sure how you would be able to do that.

[truefusion]

Echo_of_thunder, on Mar 7 2009, 11:33 PM, said:

Now for the advice on this matter. the main being would something like this be concidered Spam, or a Public Service?

Spam if irrelevant or if you've been misinformed concerning the area; public service for those without radios or television sets; however, i would suspect that if they can afford internet, they can afford a television set, even if it's a cheap one. If they're being distracted by the internet, i suppose bringing them back into reality would be a good thing.

Echo_of_thunder, on Mar 7 2009, 11:33 PM, said:

Question 2 How would I go about getting others in this? I alone cane not cover all chat rooms. you can have more than one tornado warning in other states.

• Coding a weather bot.
  
• Coding a Yahoo Messenger weather plug-in, if there isn't one already (assuming Yahoo Messenger supports plug-ins). If Yahoo Messenger doesn't support it, request the developers for plug-ins support; that is, if they'll actually listen.

But you don't really need to cover all chat rooms.

Echo_of_thunder, on Mar 7 2009, 11:33 PM, said:

And last would all this be worth all the trouble?

Up to you.

[Echo_of_thunder]

Quote

Coding a weather bot.
Coding a Yahoo Messenger weather plug-in, if there isn't one already (assuming Yahoo Messenger supports plug-ins). If Yahoo Messenger doesn't support it, request the developers for plug-ins support; that is, if they'll actually listen.

But you don't really need to cover all chat rooms.

Thats just it though, Would be a lot easier just to have a network of people not a bot doing this. yea you could do it as a plug in, and just go into one room. But pretend you have a tornado warning for say New York State. There a lot of rooms there. I feel as it would be better to have real a real person doing this not some bot or plug in, for the simple fact a real person can update a little faster than a plug in bot.

Quote

Spam if irrelevant or if you've been misinformed concerning the area; public service for those without radios or television sets; however, i would suspect that if they can afford internet, they can afford a television set, even if it's a cheap one. If they're being distracted by the internet, i suppose bringing them back into reality would be a good thing.

You would be very shocked and suprised to know just how many people once they get onto the net and into a chat room get into there own little world. I found this out with that weather event yesterday 3/8/09 I hit the chats spreading the word of a reported tornado near Toledo ohio. So many said they had no idea of it or they didnt even know of a watch or warning in there areas.

[truefusion]

Echo_of_thunder, on Mar 9 2009, 11:27 AM, said:

Thats just it though, Would be a lot easier just to have a network of people not a bot doing this. yea you could do it as a plug in, and just go into one room. But pretend you have a tornado warning for say New York State. There a lot of rooms there. I feel as it would be better to have real a real person doing this not some bot or plug in, for the simple fact a real person can update a little faster than a plug in bot.

There's already a network of people: the weather station. Yes, this is not what you meant, but i'm trying to lead to a point. The main reason why people know of a tornado warning is not (necessarily) due to people looking out their windows, it's due to the technology, the radars, etc, that the weather stations use to notice patterns and circulations on levels that cannot be observed through the human eye. However, since you've given the impression that you are more knowledgeable in the area of weather, you'll have to correct me on any information i am putting out here. But since it is these networks (of which some networks seek other organizations for verification or justification) that take the time to form a conclusion and then take more time just to get it out to the public, the same time, i believe, is taken on getting the same information out to the internet, since they are a network. Otherwise, if it takes longer to produce the same information on the internet, it may be pointless to do so if by the time they release the information the warning is already no longer in effect. I know of an open-source weather protocol that i can install here in Linux which is available in Ubuntu's repository (though i forgot the name of it) which i've used before, and they release warnings and other similar information. A bot could be made using that service.

[Echo_of_thunder]

Well I am happy to see I do have some support on this matter. Bad thing is this. For the last couple of days we here in the US have had some Serever weather out breakes such as tornados and serever thunderstorms. I had gone into a few chat rooms and posted these warnings in the states that had been effected. After a while I had been logged off chats and then not able to log back in for 24 hours. So Yahoo got me for the dreaded spamming. Thank god for a few back up screen names haha. But there has to be a way around this. How come these bots never get booted or banned for 24hrs? It don't make since to me. Any Ideas?

[Alex Cicala]

A wonderful idea. I know most teenagers are addicted to MSN and Yahoo Msgr. Although younger ages [5-12] and older people [20+] are starting to use these types of communication system [chat]. Weather Forecasts, in terms of serious conditions, should be posted on chat programs. The information will be more widely spread.