weather.com Message Boards

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weather.com Message Boards
Wxcommsgbrd.png
TypeForum
Founder
PlatformInfoPop OpenTopic
LanguageEnglish
Content areas
  • The Weather Channel
  • General discussion
  • Meteorology
  • Music
Users19,462[1]
StatusClosed
Launch date1999; 26 years ago (1999)
Closure dateJune 2007; 17 years ago (2007-06)[2][3]
Preceded by:TWCForum
Succeeded by:The Weather Channel AOL group

The weather.com Message Boards, also known as The Weather Channel Message Boards (abbreviated as TWCMB), were a forum officially run by The Weather Channel, existing from 1999 to 2007. For most of their history, the boards coexisted with TWC's original message board, TWCForum, which was hosted through Compuserve from 1995 to 2006. Unlike TWCForum, however, the message boards were directly hosted on TWC's website, weather.com. The purpose of TWC's forums were to promote interaction with regular viewers as well as fans of the network.

History

The message boards were founded sometime between early May and early October 1999.[4][5] The earliest years of the forum also utilized a live chat feature that allowed viewers to communicate in real time to on-camera meteorologists and other personalities, sometimes tied to specific topics, events, or programs on the network.[6] Even later into the history of the boards, it is known that at least one TWC personality, Jeff Mielcarz, was a regular on the forums.[7] The forum was powered by OpenTopic by InfoPop at least from 2001 onwards.

One of the more notable threads, the Pot Belly Stove, was a dedicated thread in which a section of the community led by Matt Marron, Charles Abel-Lear, and two other users, possibly named MichRocks and Michigan WX Dude, socialized.[8] According to longtime fandom personality Intelliguy, who participated in the thread, it was primarily a space where users discussed their everyday life experiences; however, the thread eventually fell into controversy. As a whole, he recalled the forums being plagued by spam and threads being thrown off-topic.[8] The most controversial user of the message boards for which evidence remains was a user from Chile[9] named Felipe who became notorious among users for allegedly spreading drama, stealing other users' videos, and creating sock puppet accounts on the forums; he would later migrate to other forums to continue his actions.[8][10][11]

On November 10, 2002, a tornado outbreak in the Central and Eastern United States occurred. Despite the event and it being a continuation of an outbreak the day prior, The Weather Channel did not preempt its reruns of Atmospheres scheduled for that afternoon and evening. As a result, members of the message boards wrote complaints, but these were deleted, causing controversy.[12]

Most likely in late April or early May 2005, a major controversy occurred on the weather.com Message Boards for which little detail remains. Nonetheless, the aftermath points to the severity of the event, as two communities split from the boards as a result in May: on or around May 6, 2005, users Gary Tanner, Jr., and Justin Matherne established their own forum, which would later become the modern TWC Today[13]; only a day later, Matt Marron reestablished the forums for his website, TWC Classics.[14] The Pot Belly Stove thread was reestablished on the TWC Classics forum thereafter and later migrated to TWC Today when the TWC Today and TWC Classics forums merged in 2010.

On August 31, 2005, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, administrators of the message boards established a forum space dedicated to sharing and requesting information for areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama that had been affected by the storm. Users could post in the space without being required to register a forum account, and threads for specific counties, parishes, and cities were created.[15]

The message boards were closed sometime between May 31 and June 18, 2007, almost certainly in June.[16][17] After the closure, the forum was replaced by a screen that read, "The service for this site has been suspended."[17] According to Gary Tanner, Jr., who was in contact with Bill Barnett[18], also known as WxHelp, one of the forum's administrators, the reasoning given for the closure was that the forum "was just not part of their plans," likely meaning that the forum was simply not envisioned as a long-term feature for weather.com, but many users apparently doubted this explanation.[19]

Legacy

Despite being known in the community for conflict and lack of administration, at least some users in the community affectionately referred to the forums as the "mother board"[20] and raised suspicions about the reasoning for their closure when it occurred in 2007.[19] Nonetheless, some other users had other opinions, such as Intelliguy, who said that the boards were "a disaster since like 2-3 years after its debut" that "wasn't worth being there."[21] Still, the forums were influential within the early Weather Channel fandom, with users such as Gary Tanner, Jr.[22], joining the community for the first time through the forums.

See also

  • TWCForum, another official TWC forum with which it mostly coexisted

References

  1. ↑ "The Weather Channel Message Boards". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on May 31, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  2. ↑ "The Weather Channel Message Boards". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on May 31, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  3. ↑ "Error". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on June 18, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  4. ↑ "The Weather Channel - Home Page". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on May 4, 1999. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  5. ↑ "Weather Damaged Page". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on October 12, 1999. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  6. ↑ "weather.com - Calendar Page". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on June 8, 2001. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  7. ↑ TWCC_DJK5555 (August 8, 2010). "Jeff Mielcarz". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 User testimony from Intelliguy. Direct message written on January 29, 2025.
  9. ↑ Localonthe8s (February 27, 2010). "8.8 Earthquake Hits Chile". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  10. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (March 6, 2005). "Recently Updated Posts | TWC FORUMS". TWC FORUMS. Archived from the original on January 29, 2025. Retrieved January 30, 2025.
  11. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (June 27, 2007). "Please Read Before Posting Videos". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ↑ Smith, Nick (May 8, 2010). "Re: General TWC Discussion". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  13. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named :3
  14. ↑ Marron, Matt (April 30, 2005). "TWC Classics Forums -> Rick Griffin". TWC Classics. Archived from the original on May 25, 2005. Retrieved January 28, 2025.
  15. ↑ "Katrina Affected Cities - Forum Powered by Infopop". The Weather Channel. August 31, 2005. Archived from the original on April 18, 2006. Retrieved January 30, 2025.
  16. ↑ "The Weather Channel Message Boards". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on May 31, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 "Error". The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on June 18, 2007. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  18. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (July 31, 2009). "Re: The Front Porch". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Tanner, Jr., Gary (December 24, 2008). "The Pot Belly Stove". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  20. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (December 24, 2008). "Re: The Pot Belly Stove". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  21. ↑ M, Mike (December 25, 2008). "Re: The Pot Belly Stove". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  22. ↑ Tanner, Jr., Gary (January 17, 2009). "Re: Need Your Help". TWC Today. Retrieved January 30, 2025.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
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