Rules / Media Contacts / Mobile phones + OntarioStorms !

[DarkSky]

IMPORTANT !

OntarioStorms.com over the last decade has come in dire need of re-organization. With all the pictures, infor, media, listings, etc, etc.. it had become a navigational mess.

This forum layout will provide a MUCH better structure to everything. The BEST part about the new layout, is that YOU will be able to share YOUR pictures and videos an discussion with everyone else who visits the site! Over the past decade many people have been emailing me their photos and information, which I have to in turn fire up the web editor, add everything, create the links, etc, etc. This will now be able to be done by the actual persons themselves.

As with anything when people can contribute their own material, there's got to be rules. So, here they are :

RULES:

* This board was created to talk about storms. Please stay on-topic of weather/storms or related subjects. Acceptable topics for discussion are: weather/storms, HAM radio, storm chasing equipment, astronomy. Exceptions (such as earthquakes, or other natural events affecting the immediate area) can be made. But otherwise please stick to weather related topics only.

* No hacking/flaming or otherwise posting negative comments to other users. Doing so will result in immediate suspension of account.

* No profanity or disguised profanity using symbols to replace letters. This applies to the live chat (chatbox) as well. If you can't talk without swearing, please don't enter messages - thank you!

* No discussion of site rules/policy. This is not a public site, it's a private site (paid for entirely by DarkSky) that is open to the public. Think of it as a coffee shop. Privately owned and operated, with each setting their own rules for customers to follow, but open to the public.

* MESSAGE CONTENT: The "Truck Stop" forum is for general chit-chat. Even so, please try to put as much content into each post, causing less overall posts (ie: no one-liner replies please). The other forums are for information, pictures, videos. Please only post in them if your posts helps make the thread more valuable to the reader. If you want to say thanks to someone for making a good post, please use the "Thanks" button.

* USE THE QUOTE BUTTON WHEN REPLYING: It's frustrating to read a reply by someone, and have NO idea what they're talking about or who they're talking to. Please use the QUOTE button to reply to a post, and cut out all irrelevant stuff from the quote and leave in the text you're posting the reply about. This makes your post SO much easier to understand.

* POSTING CONTENT WHICH IS NOT YOURS: When posting pictures, or videos that you are not the owner of, FULL CREDIT must be given to the owner, as well as contact information for that person and a statement saying you have been given permission to post them. Contact information to the owner must be given as it will be checked with them. When posting pictures you've found elsewhere on the net, you must post the source with FULL URL (page location) to where you downloaded them from.

* POSTING YOUR OWN CONTENT FROM ANOTHER SITE: This forum is set up to allow HTML into posts, so you can simply copy and paste HTML from other pages straight into your message. PLEASE do this, and do not just post lots of links off the site. The whole purpose of this site is to get as much locally-stored information, pictures, etc... housed right here inside the forum. If you run another site, I don't mind you having a single-line link to it in your signature, but please don't use your posts just to drive more traffic to your site. Doing so really diminishes the content and purpose of this forum. So if you have a page already set up elsewhere, and want to share it all on here, simply copy and paste it all directly into a msg here.

* When posting E.C. or SPC forecasts/statements, please CODE the text . Just select all the text and click the "#" icon at the top of the message editor. This is to place it in it's own box so it doesn't fill up screen after screen.

Helpful: If everyone could click the Settings link on the top left, then go down to Edit Signature and just enter your Town, Province/State that would be helpful. 'Just so we know what part of the globe people are posting from

Please remember, this site is open to the public but it is NOT a publicly-run site. I pay for it entirely out of my own pocket, which in effect makes it a privately run site. Please respect the rules as they are here to make this an enjoyable place for everyone. Thank you !!

[DarkSky]

MEDIA CONTACTS:

GLOBAL ONTARIO
81 Barber Greene Road
Toronto, ON M3C 2A2
Tel: (416) 446-5311
News:

CITY NEWS:
299 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 2Z5
Tel: (416) 591 5757
News:

For Michael Kuss directly
The newsroom number is 416-599-2489, ext. 2302 to get the assignment desk.


CTV NEWS:
9 Channel Nine Court,
Scarborough, Ontario, Canada M1S4B5
Tel: (416) 332 5000 – note this is just the “front desk”
News:


CP24

Note that to submit photos to these guys you have to join as a member of their web site.


CBC NEWS: WEATHER CENTRE
Corner of Front and John Street
Toronto, ON
Tel: (416) 205 7031
Weather photos:

[DarkSky]

March 20/2010: I've just installed the back-end (server side) application "Tapatalk".

This allows users with mobile phones (PDAs) to install the Tapatalk app and view this forum from their mobile in a MUCH nicer interface than a standard browser interface, which displays everything. Tapatalk makes everything very simple.

- connect while you're out on the road and stay up to date with forum posts on busy storm days
- send pictures straight to the forum from your mobile phone !

TO GET HERE ON YOUR CELL PHONE :

- ANDROID: Tapatalk for Android is on par with the iPhone version plus other unique features such as full landscape mode support. It supports Android 1.5 or higher. Download "Tapatalk" app from the Android Market.

- BLACKBERRY: Tapatalk for BlackBerry is currently in public beta testing. You can download it using OTA (Over-The-Air) method by entering http://tapatalk.com/bb from the BlackBerry Browser

- iPHONE: Download Tapalk from the iPhone App Store

---------------

I just tested it on my Motorola Droid (Milestone) and it works so far from both my home wifi network and regular 3G. One thing I noticed is that when attaching images, they're resized to small versions of the original when sent straight from the phone. I'll try and find out if there's an option to send larger images. Testing thread here: http://www.ontariostorms.com/showthread.php?t=252

[DarkSky]

LINKS TO OTHER STORM / WEATHER SITES :

(all links to other sites will go in here - to list your link here the only requirement is that you have a link to OntarioStorms.com )

www.southernontariochasing.ca/sows.html - run by davefootball123 and StormChaser. Up to date info and forecasts.

[DarkSky]

Please report any SPAM posts! (and thanks to all who have done so in the past)

For some reason this site gets more attempted spam signups than any site I've run in the past. Of the new user registrations, probably 4 out of every 5 are from spam accounts, which is the reason for new user moderation - new users need to answer a variety of questions, and also need to get the 'ok' by myself before they're allowed on. Even with all that, they sometimes DO slip through. Why they go through all the bother, I have no idea, because their posts get deleted within a matter of hours, and nobody clicks on spam links anyway.

So if you DO see a spam (advertising) post, please click on the "Report Post" icon on the right of the post (red triangle) and I will delete it. Thank you !!