Monday, December 22, 2008

Excuses

OK, I've neglected this blog long enough. It's just that I've been a little distracted lately. I have no one to blame but myself. No excuses. But here's my excuses anyway:

For years I'd been looking for ways to make the Hood River Weather site more user-interactive. I really wanted to inform visitors of changes or problems with the site, and compare notes and observations on current weather.

So 2 years ago I started this blog (first posting is here). Interactivity at last! But it turns out that not all that many people read blogs, and even fewer people make comments. So it was mostly just me blabbering on about weather, astronomy/cosmology, gardening, web links that were probably only interesting to me, world events that pissed me off, etc. Even though not many comments came in, the blog turned out to be a fun exercise in writing, which I had enjoyed years ago but stopped doing.

Fast forward to Saturday, Dec 13, 2008. Browsing through some of the local blogs I follow, I scroll down through local photographer Blaine Franger's blog, admiring his excellent photos as always. And then: THERE... IT...IS. A chat program that is a quantum leap better than any chat service I had seen previously! I hauled ass over to Cbox, registered, installed chat windows on this blog and on the main weather site, and sat back, expecting a few comments to come trickling in daily.

This was one day before a huge mass of arctic air arrived in the Pacific Northwest, leading to a series of heavy snow/cold weather events that continues to the present time. A weather geek's weather dream come true. Suddenly, I was up to my neck in site interactivity, and have been a tad bit distracted ever since.

But it's all good. The people making comments are (so far) a relatively well-behaved group, and I'm slowly backing off the feeling that as administrator I have to check it every 15 minutes or so. And during slow weather, if there's only a few or no posts, that's cool with me. At least the channels of communication are open.

So, for kicks, I did a poll on the site, asking if people thought adding the chat window was a good idea:

  • 46% thought it was a good idea (and would probably participate)
  • 30% thought it was a good idea (but probably wouldn't participate)
  • 24% thought I had probably made a terrible, terrible mistake.

I suspect the biggest problem is that it's a potential distraction/tripping point for viewers looking for weather information located farther down the site. So I've come up with some future options for the chat window, which you can vote on here. I'm way open to suggestions. Oh, by the way, for those who are turned off by the chat window, I've put up a non-chat version of the site.

Enough already. I gotta go check the chat window. It's been at least 15 minutes...

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