User blog:StevDev/The fate of this wiki

This wiki nowadays just seems so...dead. And it's a deadness that feels much more typical for off-season months like January-April than for October. It feels like I am the only user who actually updates and posts about areas of interest or new systems around the world. While other users still occasionally chime in to post about active storms, such as Jas, Ryan, Sandy, Beatissima, Dylan, and some more inactive users, the forums overall seem unusually dead in comparison to past years. With this decrease in activity, I feel like this wiki is about to take a turn for the worst, like what was seen around 2009-10 when very few users posted at all even during Atlantic hurricane season.

To see examples of the inactivity that I'm talking about, take a look at the forum page for the Atlantic, which in years past still had multiple people posting constantly at this time of year, but now has been reduced to almost a wasteland with barely anyone posting. I understand that the Atlantic is dying out right now but I remember usually at least a few people posting about any AOIs that pop up. Nowadays, the only other person who posts regularly (I guess?) in AOI/invest sections is Ȝeſtikl, with the users mentioned in the above paragraph barely chiming in. Meanwhile, when named storms form, more users come to post but the activity level is still only a fraction of how it was in years past and during huge storms like Dorian. The East Pacific forum page is faring even worse. Just take a look at the discussions for various invests (especially 96E) and there is no other user in sight except for me, although more users still chime in when they become tropical cyclones. You'll notice how frequently I talk to myself there. The other basins not mention yet are still worse than even the EPac. Barely anything goes on in the WPac and NIO forums despite there being tropical cyclone or invest activity there, and while this has been a general trend throughout the wiki's history, it's gotten pretty bad this year. The only users who seem to ever post regularly on the WPac forum are me and Jas, barely anyone else chimes in at all. Just a few years ago, the WPac forum received much more activity especially when Andrew was active. To sum it up, the inactivity is starting to get ridiculous and starting to rival the wiki's dark days from a decade ago.

I can imagine that if I didn't exist, many storms and AOIs in recent months would be completely skipped in the non-Atlantic forums. That's how inactive the wiki seems to be. I also understand that people have busy lives that gets in the way of posting here and many users are busy with school, jobs, etc. Many users (like me) have been here since the early part of the decade and have grown up and are becoming more busy in life, meaning less time to post. With the lack of activity recently it would be a good idea if we advertise this wiki on other places where hurricane fanatics go to (such as Storm2k, Hypothetical Hurricanes Wiki, WikiProject Tropical Cyclones, or on hurricane-related chatrooms on Discord or elsewhere) to get new and less busy users to join. The fate of the wiki is in our hands...without our help and if we don't advertise, it's likely this wiki will be on a terminal death spiral in the next few years. If current trends continue, it's possible that the Atlantic forum might become as inactive as the SHem forums by the year 2022 or 2023 and the whole wiki will completely shut down by the year 2026 as the last few holdouts lose their interest in this wiki.

As for my future activity here...my current active period might not last much longer and I might be leaving for good or at least becoming very inactive after the end of this decade. Me and my family will be moving to Missouri by next spring, where we will live a country lifestyle on a piece of land. On the land we will be very busy constructing a house and farming and we will have only spotty internet, and probably no internet at all until we get satellite, so I would have to rely on mobile data to access the internet unless I can stay at a friend's or significant other's house or go somewhere else in the nearest town. My family plans to get an RV to stay in, so we would not be completely without the feel of home during that time. So I'm basically going to start a completely new life in the next year which would have grave consequences for my activity here. Other plans for the next few years include going to university to get a bachelor's in a field like engineering or meteorology, starting a good full-time job or career in a field of interest, and eventually by the end of the 2020's decade have my own house, get married, and have my first kids. This busy future lifestyle will ensure that I'm not going to have much time to post here in the years ahead.

If I leave for good, the whole wiki will probably start shutting down. This is why we need to advertise this wiki elsewhere so that new users can join to delay or completely prevent this wiki's inevitable death spiral. Also, just to remind you all once again, tropical cyclones and invests exist outside of the Atlantic so we can pay attention there too. And hurricane season doesn't just have to be from May to November... you can track Southern Hemisphere tropical cyclones and post about them here in the winter and spring months too. There's also other forums here that never get activity, such as the Worldwide Activity Discussion, Hurricane Talk and the Favorite Storms forums (of which none has been created for this year). The Hurricane Hall of Fame would also be more fascinating if more users participated. We can also advertise this wiki on social media like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. to tell the world this wiki exists. And now as for the ignored "article" part of this wiki, we can help by turning this wiki into a complete guide for all tropical cyclones and seasons, old and recent, because right now there's not very many articles at all and in fact no page has been created for recent seasons. We need to make sure this wiki doesn't start going completely dead during the winter months, and eventually as a whole by the middle of next decade. You and me can do our parts to keep the wiki active and keep the wiki updated with every system that forms worldwide (not just in the Atlantic), in-season and in the winter, and make these forums actual "forums" again with real discussions going on, and not just a lone man updating any time something new happens.

This wiki has seen better days. I really hope you guys can take my advice and revive the spirit of this wiki. ~  Steve   Message Me  My Edits  📧  05:24, October 24, 2019 (UTC)