Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Archive 31

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PTS Changes for 2014

So, last night, Hink and I were talking about what we could do to make 2014 PTS more go more efficient. The current season PTS have historically always been the cellar of current season articles (you have to go back to 2006 or 2007 to find the last decent one). Despite regularly having unsourced statements, WPAC season articles tend to be excessively long. For the 2013 PTS, there are a handful of unsourced statements. Yet, the article had 352 refs and is 215 kb long(!!!) despite the fact that only 60 kb is readable prose. Imagine how much longer it would be if we merged in all the stubby sub-articles and sourced everything. The definition of insanity after all, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. So, therefore, I think it is time to look into change the way current season PTS's are done.

Any of the older editors here will remember the alternate format we experimented with around 2010 (the one that the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has). Well, I think we could use that format for the PTS (minus the evil list of storms page that the 2005 AHS format current has). Lack of infoboxes will help cut back on size and load times and the fact that summaries are only 1 paragraph will prevent storm summaries from getting too long. If the storm can not be summarized in one paragraph, it gets an article. If it can't, it does not. Granted, there are a few downsides. How will local editors react to such a radical change? It may not take care of the endless amount of bad current storm articles in the WPAC, though I think if we focus on them a little more, that issues could be resolved. Still, I like this idea, and I encourage everyone in WPTC to take an open mind to this. YE Pacific Hurricane 13:53, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think what we call the "prose-based format" (even though both are prose based, well, you know) would probably be pretty necessary for Pacific typhoon season pages. It's a highly efficient format for excessively long season articles. Change is needed to fix the current issues of excessive length, as "the definition of insanity after all, is doping the same thing over and over and expecting a different result." Not sure how the list of storms page is evil, I'd rather introduce it to the Pacific typhoon season pages, so it's consistent across all basins (that is, the meteorological/impact description of each storm). TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 20:17, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
I like the idea of using the list of storms format for Pacific typhoon seasons as well. I'm not a fan of cutting out information in exchange for a shorter page size like suggested above. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 21:43, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I think that if we do any changes such as add the additional page, I think it'd be better to do after the season is done. There is no indication during the season if it'll need one, after all. 2002 PTS works fine on its own. 2013, with its epic activity, it might not hurt. The current season format is pretty standard across basins, so I think it's best to wait until the season is over. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 23:11, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

I was more thinking about current season; I don't think many editors will be particularly motivated to re-write the article once the season is over (who wants to re-write a 200-kb WPAC season article in January when they have the WikiCup to worry about?) and if no one re-writes it, then we have to same problem that we do no. Granted if we keep sections short, it'll be easy to convert. Regarding the list of storm pages, that's arguably a content fork. I would not get too concerned about consistency since we only use the "prosed-based format" in 1 or 2 articles. I think pretty much every WPAC season could use one (even 2010 PTS to a lesser extent). Also, if we were to adopt this format, should we cover impact separately or no? YE Pacific Hurricane 00:49, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I disagree with the idea of doing it for every WPAC season. We had the same problem with the Atlantic. A new format gets created, and the other one gets neglected. It's the same principal here. I don't think having a fork is going to make things more organized. Arguably, the 2013 PTS is quite organized. Is the only reason to offer a more summarized version of the PTS? For what it's worth, 2013 PTS is only 60 kb of prose, which isn't an absurd amount. The article is mostly references, so right now we have a pretty good problem, that there are too many references. IMO, we should try and find a way to limit the number of references when dealing with MH's. Does anyone know of an archive for the individual JMA/JTWC/PAGASA advisories? Ideally, the JMA parts will be sourced by their BT's after the fact, ditto the ATCR, but that doesn't help much during the season. It appears that consists of about half of the references, just dealing with MH stuff. Along these lines, I don't know if we should be using the |archivedate= and |archiveurl= field for every ref, as that adds up to a lot of space in the whole article. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:08, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Well, every modern (post-2006) WPAC season is what I meant. I never really had much of a problem with it in the ATL (I did with the list of storms page though). I really can't think of a way to reduce references. Cutting back on |archivedate= and |archiveurl= field won't do much. I think it's best to remove infoboxes and section headers (so it will be by month, henceforth my proposal), that'll make the article shorter and the page load times faster. Alternatively, we could remove the SE chart; not every season has one anyway. YE Pacific Hurricane 01:31, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
The articles aren't that long though. 60 kb of prose is quite manageable. There are a lot of small things that can be done that would do better than to make an entirely new article with the alternate format. For example, it appears the writing in the article isn't quite the same as other basins, namely that it's much more verbose than it has to be. I often see something like "During August 16, the JMA started to monitor a tropical depression that had developed within an marginal environment for further development about 340 kilometres (210 mi)* to the southeast of Taipei, Taiwan." This can be written smaller with "On August 16, a tropical depression formed in a marginally favorable environment about 340 kilometres (210 mi)* southeast of Taipei, Taiwan." If a good copyeditor got their hands on 2013 PTS, it would easily be below 200 kb. (challenge accepted) --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:39, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
From what I have noticed, Jason Rees has been pretty much the only full-time editor this year, with help from newcomer Typhoon2013. Not to be mean, but these two have a few grammar problems (don't get me wrong, I don't think I could keep up with this single-handedly – a few difficulties are okay). With a little coaching and some assistance from us, I think the errors, like the one that Hink described, could be cut out and the article could be kept under control from the start. Run-on sentences and hundreds of references seem to be what are making these so long, so, as Hink said, combining and disposing of references and copyediting should cut down on a lot of space. United States Man (talk) 02:36, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
While I agree with many of the things you said, USM, do you realize that parts of the article is in British English? Hink and I have mad some progress and removed about 9kb altogether, but it seems as if the sections are at reasonable elngth, so why not convert it a posed-based format? All we really need to do is eliminate the infoboxes. YE Pacific Hurricane 03:53, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Some things to consider. 1) I havent been as invovled this year with the PTS as i normally would be - most of the stuff has come from IPs or other users including TAM who wanted to make this PTS the best ever. 2) The PTS should be using British English rather than American imo due to the politics of the region. 3) I strongly do not see the point in changing around the format and loosing all of the infoboxes when it wont serve to lower the page total that much. 4) Archive Url has too stay if we are using Webcite or any other similar archiving services.Jason Rees (talk) 04:34, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Regarding Bristh English vs. America English, the only cultural tie that UK has to the region is Hong Kong while Guam and the NMI are US territories. Not to mention, statically, that more people view WP from the US than the UK. I'd prefer American Englsih, but I am biased. Regarding the loss of infoboxes, I'd say removing them cuts 15-20 kb. I'd refrain from using non-breaking spaces but I'd still use Archiveurl. YE Pacific Hurricane 05:17, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't think cutting the infoboxes is a good idea. Personally, they helped me understand a storm better before I became an active editor. I think working on the references and trimming the MHs like you and Hink have been doing should reduce the size enough. Also, regarding the type of English, whichever one is decided on will need to be enforced. If not, it will go right back to the way it is now, a mix of both. United States Man (talk) 13:06, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Yea, I agree, it's best to keep the infoboxes for the storms with sections (which, btw, I think should be limited to named storms and other notable storms, not automatically every JTWC and PAGASA storm). --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 15:29, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
@Yellow Evan: Do Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia not count then?.Jason Rees (talk) 15:56, 17 December 2013 (UTC)
Don't they have Singlish, Brunei English, and Malaysian English? And by the way, we could be shortening what we put in the references. For example, if we removed "publisher=United States Navy, United States Air Force" from every single JTWC reference, it would cut the article by about 1.4 kb, and that's only the one ref. For what it's worth, I think we can just put "publisher=Joint Typhoon Warning Center". It's just as accurate. Given that the prose of the article was around 60 kb, and the overall length is 200 kb, I think we can agree that it's the size of the references that is a problem. Also, I think we should cut " RSMC Tokyo — Typhoon Center" as the author for the JMA advisories, considering we already have "Japan Meteorological Agency". The author should be whoever wrote the advisory, but we don't know that. Removing both the "publisher=United States Navy, United States Air Force" and "RSMC Tokyo - Typhoon Center" would cut the article by 3.8 kb! I'm going to be bold and remove it. For what it's worth, when I wrote the 2002 Pacific typhoon season article, I didn't include either of these, and no one complained when I got it to GA. Now the 2013 PTS article is under 200 kb, which is more manageable. The prose is done to 53 kb, as well. I don't think any major splitting is needed any more. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:12, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

In regards to actual storm articles for the West Pacific, I think it's time we ditched the JTWC designation, international designation, etc. and just leave the PAGASA name. What's added to the articles now is akin to listing 15L, 16E, etc. in Atlantic and Pacific hurricane articles. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 20:13, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

SPAC 1990s

As has been mentioned on the IRC channel a few times my goal for 2014 is too get all of the SPAC storm and season articles during the 90s up to GA Status or better during 2014. This challenge will involve 9 good topics and around 50 articles. If anyone is interested there is a listing of which articles are roughly included here.Jason Rees (talk) 02:33, 29 December 2013 (UTC)

Article collaboration/Spanish speakers wanted

Hey, I'm writing 1846 Havana hurricane, and was wondering if anyone would be willing to collaborate – specifically, I need help in writing the "Cuba" section from two books. If anyone does... well, please reply and I'll set up the references on the page ASAP.

Thanks in advance,
Cloudchased (talk) 20:30, 31 December 2013 (UTC)

So no one's replied as of yet – I'll just go ahead with the English sources later. Thanks anyway. Cloudchased (talk) 16:55, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

115 kt?

Given that the NHC now has 130 mph as part of C4, I believe we should go back to listing intensities as 115 kt in the infobox, and not 116 as we sometimes did to force rounding. Thoughts? --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:36, 1 January 2014 (UTC)

We changed most of the instances of 116 knts a while back to 115 knt in 2012 IIRC. YE Pacific Hurricane 22:43, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Why? The change in 2012 only applied thereafter. That's why we've not gone through all the timeline graphical images prior to 2012 and modified the values. As far as I'm aware, we're not supposed to. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 23:15, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, we apply the SSHWS before in pre-1971 articles. YE Pacific Hurricane 23:33, 1 January 2014 (UTC)
The last time i checked HURDAT only presented in one unit -> Knots. As a result i am confused by this talk of putting pre 2012 values to 116 kts rather than the proper 115 kts and would remind people of the rules on original research.Jason Rees (talk) 01:05, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. We should have a uniform standard of 115 kt right now. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:09, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Yes, we should now -- but not prior to 2012, when 115kt equaled 135mph. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 01:36, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
What does that have to do with anything? The SSHWS is applied retroactively and we don't live in the past. YE Pacific Hurricane 02:00, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

www.thehurricanearchive.com dead links

There's an awful lot of dead links to the site www.thehurricanearchive.com, which now appears to be in someone else's hands... is there any archive for it available? I've been trying to fix as many dead links as possible but there's just so many to this site which haven't been archived at all. Cloudchased (talk) 15:24, 2 January 2014 (UTC)

yea, they have been out of commission for a few years now. The good news is that since it's cite news, you can just remove the url, since there is no requirement for a news source to have a url. It's ideal that we'd find a replacement on Google News, but IMO that would only be if someone is going for GA or FA status. Hopefully the links to the archive provided a title and date. If not, then that could be problematic :/ ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:27, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
I've always removed the url and accessdate. Largely agreed with what Hink said. YE Pacific Hurricane 02:01, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Almost all of the articles are for-pay only and not available on Google News; I looked up a bunch of them on Google and also tried checking them out with the Google News search tweak since the actual Google News thingy isn't working well. No luck. :/ Cloudchased (talk) 02:26, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
Then, remove the url and accessdate and AGF. YE Pacific Hurricane 02:35, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
As i have said numerous times most of the source from the hurricanearchive.com can be found behind the paywall at the newspaperarchive.com. The older ones of us can get behind the paywall by allowing it to access certain permissions on your facebook account.Jason Rees (talk) 02:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)

Low/High sea level pressure record maps for the lower 48

The maps are nearly complete -- only a handful of additional stations are planned to be added. They were developed as part of the overall extratropical cyclone database development. Here are the links:

So if I read that correctly, Sandy produced the lowest pressure in the month of October in the US? Cool maps :D ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 00:25, 8 January 2014 (UTC)
In the northern Mid-Atlantic states, yes. And not just for October. Once all the months are dealt with, I'll add other maps showing the year of occurrence and length of record. Thegreatdr (talk) 01:48, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Units

Should we abbreviate units or no? As a project, we never did. This was fine until tonight when USM started messing with units. Apparently the MOS says they should not be abbreviated, but instead of changing it on a bunch of articles, ill bring it up here. Me personally I don't see a need to spell the units out; we don't in the infobox. But in my eyes, the most important thing is consistency. Any input? YE Pacific Hurricane 05:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

The MoS does not state that it is necessary to spell out units, just that it's "usually better" to. Ultimately, it's a matter of preference. TropicalAnalystwx13 (talk) 05:15, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I think it is fine to abbreviate in charts, graphs, infoboxes, etc., but in a sentence it reads better spelled out. A suitable compromise would be to, as the MoS says, at least spell out the first mention of it. United States Man (talk) 05:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
I say we be consistent. I highly disagree it reads better spelled out FYI. YE Pacific Hurricane 05:25, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
Well, spelling it out the first time won't hurt anything, we'll be in compliance with MoS, and it will help those who don't know the abbreviations (we all know there is somebody in that boat - there always is that one person). How about that? United States Man (talk) 05:34, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
It has a minor difference in page size. And the average couchman knows the abbreviations. Honestly, if they don't, they have issues to deal with. This is not the Simple English encylopedia. We're technically in compliance for the MOS either way. Assuming if we want to be consistent project-wide, we'd have to change a billion articles :P (ok, more like 1.5K). YE Pacific Hurricane 05:41, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
That does make sense. Okay then. United States Man (talk) 06:12, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
From my interpretation of the MOS, we don't need to spell out the units, although perhaps doing it the first time in each article would be a good idea. Inks.LWC (talk) 04:26, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
I think it is a good idea as well. The MoS does say the first mention should be spelled out. It won't be that much work. United States Man (talk) 04:33, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
That's what I have always understood the guideline to be: You spell the units on first usage, then use the abbreviation in subsequent parts of the article. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:52, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

Weather media in the United States -- a new article

Due to the increasing weather media coverage in the US, it seemed time to create this article. It could use help, from those that are willing. There is some discussion of the media's TC craziness during the late 1990s, so there is some relevance to this project. My major work on the article will be done today, with future edits (at least in the near future) centered on this article and polar vortex, since a renewed media frenzy re-threatens that article. Thegreatdr (talk) 23:04, 18 January 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to User Study

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Medicane

We had a discussion a few years back about Mediterranean tropical cyclones, and the general consensus was that because there haven't actually been any official ones, that it should just be a part of tropical cyclone scales. This is unlike the South Atlantic, which had Catarina and Arani as legit storms. The Medicane article currently just has a list of potential storms, which is what the old article had as well, but there is little scientific analysis of Mediterranean storms. In my opinion, the new article should be merged back into tropical cyclone scales, but I thought this would be a good place to discuss. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 16:27, 21 November 2013 (UTC)

I've meanwhile started to improve the article, adding citations, inter links and new content. In its current form, it contains way more info and is more useful than that little merged side note in the other article.₪Stormmeteo Message 17:46, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
I actually strongly support the existence of some kind of topical overview article of Mediterranean tropical cyclones. Maybe not a list (that's OR, pending some agency combing through and compiling an official database), but there are plenty of scientific studies that discuss (I quit, too much work) the phenomenon as a whole, individual events, or both, and how climate change could further reduce baroclinicity of Mediterranean subtropical storms. It's a notable topic, and I think a quality article could easily be written. – Juliancolton | Talk 17:38, 21 November 2013 (UTC)
Just a Side note, if it is decided to re-merge the article, I'd (as the author) like to be the one reverting it back to a redirect (I'm not posting my opinion as I'm the author of Medicane, and thus of course biased towards keeping it) Stormmeteo (talk) 15:51, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
What is the point in that? I don't see why you would care who moves it back to a redirect. By the way, I also support getting rid of the article. United States Man (talk) 16:33, 24 November 2013 (UTC)
I support the article on the grounds that the information is more useful to readers in its current format than it would be merged into a larger article. Looie496 (talk) 17:37, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Can anyone please do a re-assessment on this article? Best regards and Merry Christmas ₪Stormmeteo Message 22:51, 24 December 2013 (UTC)

I believe that the article is best kept. Just because it has WP:OR or is badly-written doesn't mean that we should discard it. And there have been multiple confirmed events. The most recent (and most accurately tracked) was Tropical Storm Rolf, the November 2011 storm, which even the NOAA tracked as a tropical storm. The sources are posted on a sandbox page I made for this system, as well as another sandbox page for Mediterranean tropical cyclones. LightandDark2000 (talk) 07:30, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
I'll be giving it a complete rewrite an expansion later this month to bring it up to scratch after finishing an article on Cyclone Winifred. (I'm busy with schoolwork at the moment in advance of midterms, but I'll try to squeeze in some time.) There's definitely way more than what the article already has and multiple studies on it. Besides, it'd have the best basin wikiwork in the project, and I can have bragging rights for that. ;) Cloudchased (talk) 15:32, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

GA review

I hate to ask on here, but I've had a GA review that's been stuck for over a month, largely because User:Jason Rees doesn't want to finish it. If anyone has a chance, could someone finish the review for Talk:1995–96_South-West_Indian_Ocean_cyclone_season/GA1? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:15, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Thanks to TA procrastinating, Talk:1846 Havana hurricane/GA1 may be in the same boat. As for 95-96 SWIO, I review too many SWIO season articles as it is (all but two at are GA's or better have been reviewed by me). YE Pacific Hurricane 17:45, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
Yea. I can't review either, as I helped add content to 1846, and I wrote 95-96. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 17:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Popular pages tool update

As of January, the popular pages tool has moved from the Toolserver to Wikimedia Tool Labs. The code has changed significantly from the Toolserver version, but users should notice few differences. Please take a moment to look over your project's list for any anomalies, such as pages that you expect to see that are missing or pages that seem to have more views than expected. Note that unlike other tools, this tool aggregates all views from redirects, which means it will typically have higher numbers. (For January 2014 specifically, 35 hours of data is missing from the WMF data, which was approximated from other dates. For most articles, this should yield a more accurate number. However, a few articles, like ones featured on the Main Page, may be off).

Web tools, to replace the ones at tools:~alexz/pop, will become available over the next few weeks at toollabs:popularpages. All of the historical data (back to July 2009 for some projects) has been copied over. The tool to view historical data is currently partially available (assessment data and a few projects may not be available at the moment). The tool to add new projects to the bot's list is also available now (editing the configuration of current projects coming soon). Unlike the previous tool, all changes will be effective immediately. OAuth is used to authenticate users, allowing only regular users to make changes to prevent abuse. A visible history of configuration additions and changes is coming soon. Once tools become fully available, their toolserver versions will redirect to Labs.

If you have any questions, want to report any bugs, or there are any features you would like to see that aren't currently available on the Toolserver tools, see the updated FAQ or contact me on my talk page. Mr.Z-bot (talk) (for Mr.Z-man) 05:31, 23 February 2014 (UTC)

Invitation to Participate in a User Study - Final Reminder

Would you be interested in participating in a user study of a new tool to support editor involvement in WikiProjects? We are a team at the University of Washington studying methods for finding collaborators within WikiProjects, and we are looking for volunteers to evaluate a new visual exploration tool for Wikipedia. Given your interest in this Wikiproject, we would welcome your participation in our study. To participate, you will be given access to our new visualization tool and will interact with us via Google Hangout so that we can solicit your thoughts about the tool. To use Google Hangout, you will need a laptop/desktop, a web camera, and a speaker for video communication during the study. We will provide you with an Amazon gift card in appreciation of your time and participation. For more information about this study, please visit our wiki page (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Finding_a_Collaborator). If you would like to participate in our user study, please send me a message at Wkmaster (talk) 00:00, 3 April 2014 (UTC).

Milestone!!

I was looking through our assessment page, and I realized that in early January, the WPTC added its 2000th article! That is, the number of articles with the {{hurricane}} on the talk page, but excluding non-articles such as dabs, redirects, images, etc. Congratulations to everyone involved, especially User:Yellow Evan who made (by my calculation) the 2000th article, Typhoon Nancy (1982). It just goes to show that our work isn't done, but we're getting there. Especially encouraging is that nearly half (974/2021) of all the project is a GA or better, and already, 53% of storm and season articles are GA or better. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 04:32, 5 March 2014 (UTC)

And according to my calculation, we now have 1,000 good or featured articles! (per Category:Tropical cyclone articles by quality) The milestone article is 2003 North Indian cyclone season, which I got to GA status back on May 4th. Good work everyone for the first thousand! ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:33, 9 May 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet For Wikiproject Tropical cyclones At Wikimania 2014

Are you looking to recruit more contributors to your project?
We are offering to design and print physical paper leaflets to be distributed at Wikimania 2014 for all projects that apply.
For more information, click the link below.
Project leaflets
Adikhajuria (talk) 16:45, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Extremely great idea! Anyone want to do it?—CycloneIsaac–E-Mail 01:03, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Notable meteorologist? Or not?

Draft:Paul Julian (meteorologist).

Thanks. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:32, 24 May 2014 (UTC)

The 1994 Pacific typhoon season reassessment

Does anyone have any details about this? No talk page comments were left on my page about this, which I thought was par for the course. The comments made when it was initiated were either vague, incomplete, or in a few places don't appear to be correct. The person initiating it is on vacation. I'm not on here much...if anyone knows anything either contact me on Facebook or leave a message on my talk page (as a last resort). I'll try to check back every few days to a week, whenever life allows me to return. Thegreatdr (talk) 18:50, 20 June 2014 (UTC)

Leaflet for Wikiproject Tropical Cyclones at Wikimania 2014 (updated version)

Please note: This is an updated version of a previous post that I made.

Hi all,

My name is Adi Khajuria and I am helping out with Wikimania 2014 in London.

One of our initiatives is to create leaflets to increase the discoverability of various wikimedia projects, and showcase the breadth of activity within wikimedia. Any kind of project can have a physical paper leaflet designed - for free - as a tool to help recruit new contributors. These leaflets will be printed at Wikimania 2014, and the designs can be re-used in the future at other events and locations.

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Adikhajuria (talk) 15:03, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

A-class copyediting

Does anyone mind if I try some copyediting for articles currently up for A-class? I'm working on a long-term project to develop software and a copyediting guide. Ideally, I'd like for it to be useful for A-class generally ... which would currently mean WP:TROP, WP:HWY, and WP:MILHIST. The hurricane articles at A-class and FAC have been looking really good lately ... there are small differences of opinion between wikiprojects, but not enough that it's going to add any difficulty to customize for each wikiproject. I see you've just added a section above to list articles currently at A-class ... that will help, I wasn't sure where to look before. - Dank (push to talk) 11:11, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Sure. If you see anything that is consistently bad with the articles you go through, you can go ahead and write it down in WP:WPTC/S so we can keep an eye out for that. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 05:37, 8 July 2014 (UTC)
Thanks, and I left some thoughts on what I hope to accomplish at WT:WikiProject Tropical cyclones/Style. - Dank (push to talk) 22:41, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

The season effects section in season articles

Due to recent developments on the 2003 Pacific typhoon season article, I'll be bringing up the question of whether or not season articles should have the season effects table (or section, for that matter) at the end of the article. Quite obviously there are two main choices, either keep it as is or remove it altogether. The season effects table can be seen as an effective tool that quantifies the season and displays basic data in a simple, easy to interpret table at the bottom of the page, particularly for damaging or very active seasons. On the other hand the season effects section can be seen as an unnecessary revisualization of data already contained in the article, and adds "junk space" to season articles. In conclusion, the question is whether or not season articles should contain a season effects table, which as it stands now currently exists on almost every season article. As this pertains to all season articles what consensus decides here will determine what goes on for a large part of this WikiProject.

-- TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 14:27, 28 June 2014 (UTC)

While it may be a rehash of all the information available within the article, it provides a condensed, easy-to-read version that is likely preferable to most lay readers over prose text. I think it's safe to say that the majority of people just want to know the basic stats for each storm rather than the technical details and specifics regarding it and its effects. The table serves that need and thus warrants inclusion at the end of each season article. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 14:31, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Keep - I strongly disagree that the tables add so called "junk space" to the articles and that they are "content forks" as it allows the reader to visualize the data without having to read through the whole article. It also acts as a source for the total deaths and damages parts of the hurricane season info-box especially when there are so many systems to deal with.Jason Rees (talk) 14:32, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Agree. Absolutely nothing wrong with giving readers a couple options for how they want to get their info. I know that I've personally "used" the season summary tables for quick-and-dirty stats when I didn't feel like slogging through 5,000 words of prose. – Juliancolton | Talk 15:39, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
I think decisions like this should be left to the author. IMO some seasons warrant one (like 2013 PTS or 2005 AHS) for example, but others (mostly EPAC and to a lesser extent SWIO seasons don't since they often have 2-3 storms do monetary damage/death). YE Pacific Hurricane 16:06, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree with others here. I am wholly in favor of keeping it. United States Man (talk) 01:12, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

Two thoughts. One, I think it should be optional, particularly if it isn't a very busy season. Secondly, perhaps it should be a requirement if a season is up for FAC (or A-class, by extension), but it shouldn't be a requirement for GA class. --♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:26, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I dont think it should be optional for any basin or season as it still shows which storms impacted land and the relevant stats even in the SWIO and EPAC especially when you dont want to read the whole article. It should be needed for all ATL, Aus, WPAC and NIO seasons to pass GAN, as it shows that you have done significant research on the season and also helps with sourcing the infobox. The SE Charts also happen to make life easier when it comes to compiling certain lists like retired TCs. Jason Rees (talk) 02:30, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
I agree with you here JR. It should be a required part of most, if not all, basins. United States Man (talk) 02:38, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Keep – The season effects table condenses a good deal of the information and saves time otherwise spent scrolling through a huge amount of prose. It is a helpful piece to include in an article, so it should be kept as I see it. So, pretty much what some of the users above said. Dustin (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

I just disagree that anything in the GA criteria mandates such a table. I have no objection to it, but I just disagree with making it a requirement. I just believe, perhaps, that it be a requirement for A-class. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:07, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Question on Austrialian scale

In working on Template:Infobox hurricane, I've found some code that doesn't seem to match the description of the Tropical cyclone scales#Australia and Fiji scale for cyclones. The template right now prioritizes the {{{gusts}}} parameter, and assigns the storm category solely based on that. It only falls back to 10-min winds if there is no gusts number given. This seems incorrect, as one passage in the section mentions that both wind speed and gusts go into the assignment. I don't know enough about this subject to know how to properly set up the template to report the correct category. For example, if a storm has 10-min wind speed of 50kn (Cat 2) but gusts of 65kn (Cat 1), what category would this storm be classified? Does one measure take priority, or do both need to apply before it moves up a category? -- Netoholic @ 08:10, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

We should still mainly use 10-minute sustained winds for the Australian region, for easier gathering information. -- Meow 15:15, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
As far as i know: Gusts are very rarely used to determine the overall intensity in the Australian/South Pacific regions these days.Jason Rees (talk) 17:09, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I found this answer from the BoM Faq, #2 "The severity of a tropical cyclone is described in terms of categories ranging from 1 (weakest) to 5 (strongest) related to the maximum mean wind speed as shown in this table. Note: corresponding approximate wind gusts and central pressure are also provided as a guide. Stronger gusts may be observed over hilltops, in gullies and around structures."
So it sounds like the wind speed is the sole determining factor for the category assignment, and the gusts is just an approximate guide given for additional information. As such, I'll fix the Infobox_hurricane template for Aus and Fiji to do the correct calculation. -- Netoholic @ 03:32, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

MODIS brightness

I have compared some MODIS and VIIRS pictures from NASA. The brightness of VIIRS pictures is fine, but MODIS pictures at the same time are too bright. The way I solve the issue is to darken about 20% to the MODIS pictures, and the result is as good as VIIRS. Moreover, I don’t think we have to replace the Worldview picture with the Rapidfire one when the Worldview one looks better. -- Meow 09:20, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I've contacted NASA's EOSDIS team to resolve the issue over which should be used. Supportstorm (talk) 20:06, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
@Meow: Why do you think Worldview looks better? Dustin (talk) 20:15, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Alright, here is the response I got.

Well, I feel bad to have caused a dispute with our imagery products, but let me see if I can help. Are you comparing the 250m resolution imagery, or images at higher resolution?

First, the same projection code is used to generate the Gallery images and the Worldview Corrected Reflectance imagery at 250m, the highest resolution. Both use a quality value of 80 for the JPEGs.

Most of the Gallery images are "squeezed" in the X direction by the cosine of the approximate center latitude to give a "psuedo-equal-area" image. You can tell if this has occurred if there is a "x scale factor" under the "More information" link for the image. This is not the case for the Worldview imagery, the pixels are square. Because the Gallery images may have more input pixels for some output pixels, this may give the impression of better color detail in the 250m images.

The lower resolutions (500m and coarser) are likely to appear different because they are generated from the 250m imagery with different tools. The Gallery images use the ImageMagick "convert" utility. The Worldview imagery uses the GDAL "gdaladdo" tool. We do plan to look at alternative approaches to improve the quality of the Worldview lower resolutions.

—Jeff Schmaltz.

So both have the same quality and, I assume, algorithm applied. I would like to point out that both of us can agree that images created by worldview tend to have less highlight detail (despite what is said above). I have to lower brightness levels in order to replicate gallery images. So which is better is again up to preference, but I think we should keep using gallery. As I've said previously, cyclones tend to keep a circular shape at higher latitudes and we've never had any issue using gallery images. Supportstorm (talk) 17:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

SSHWS

Do we still want all of the basins to be showing the SSHWS categorization in the infobox hurricane outside of the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific?Jason Rees (talk) 22:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

The issue at hand is really the "type"/label for the storms given for the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. That scale only defines categories and labels for "hurricanes". Now, some weather centers mix the SSHWS category with the regional label and call something like "Category 5 super typhoon", but that is from that weather center, not part of the definitions in the SSHWS scale itself. The infobox template has an SSHWS header line for all regions (as long as 1-min speeds are given), but its not appropriate to use that line to call something that the scale doesn't define. For non-Atl/EPac regions, that line should just say "Category [1-5]", since the regional label is already in the top header. -- Netoholic @ 23:03, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Yes, I think it's useful. YE Pacific Hurricane 00:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
"Useful" is not an encyclopedic standard. Unless someone can provide reliable sourcing that the SSHWS system includes labels/types for storms in other regions, or unless someone can provide a better alternative altogether, then the type/labels should be removed except for hurricanes. This will not hurt any articles, since the label/type is there in the header for the regional scale. -- Netoholic @ 01:57, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Speaking of useful, it isn't very useful for you to barge into this project and denounce and trample over respected editors. Also, I agree with Yellow Evan. It is useful to the project. United States Man (talk) 02:02, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
In doing a full code review of the infobox template, I've discovered several things that are inaccurate (the Aus articles using gusts rather than 10-min mean to set category, for example). I've also found this kludgy use of {{{type}}} that gives false information relative to the SSHWS scale. I am happy to "barge" into any area of the encyclopedia where I see inaccuracy, and I do not feel bad putting you editors on the spot that want to preserve something inaccurate just because it is "useful". I am happy to keep 'type' in for the rare storms outside of the usual basins (Mediterranean, south hemisphere Atlantic, etc), when there is some manual work to be done, but if its in the basins that are covered, we have to be accurate. That means that, unless the SSHWS starts incorporating labels like "cyclone" or "typhoon", we don't use them in articles. -- Netoholic @ 02:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the original proposal, I think JR might be onto something. I, for one, would love if the track maps used the MFR data and had different data points for tropical disturbance, depression, TS, STS, cyclone, intense cyclone, and very intense cyclone. Granted, I'm not sure how difficult that would be to implement. But that would be nice if it used that scale instead of SSHS (and JTWC by effect). I think we've gotten to the point where we've pretty much abandoned using JTWC as official in any basin, save WPAC somewhat before 2000. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:17, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I think we should keep SSHS in infoboxes but with track map, I think it is a good idea to use the official scale for the basin. United States Man (talk) 02:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
I personally disagree on the track maps because the JMA "Typhoon" classification is way too expansive. Dustin (talk) 02:32, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
But the maps are tiny. I don't think anyone can even tell the difference in colors on a typical page. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:33, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
The difference appears when you do zoom in. In any case, the JMA scale is my main objection, I don't mind the IMD scale, the Australian scale, or the others nearly so much. I just think "typhoon" should not be so over-expansive (in my opinion). I do respect your proposal regardless though. Dustin (talk) 02:55, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
JMA also uses "very strong" status for 85 kt to 100 kt, and "violet" for over 105 kt. Per tropical cyclone scales#Western Pacific. They just don't use it officially in their BT, but it would prevent every single typhoon from being the same color. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 03:08, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
It might help if we had an example. Dustin (talk) 17:27, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
For the track maps, you will also throw out inter-basin consistency out the window (i.e. making something like this much more difficult to recreate than it already is), which is something that I think is valuable for the readers, and I do not think is wise to discard. With the current WP:WPTC/M code base, it would essentially require either creating a version of the track map generator for every basin, or modifying source code and recompiling it every time that we want to switch basis, which is something I don't recommend. In addition, I don't see what's wrong with the current infobox layout that gives the official RSMC storm classification, in addition to a familiar scale for over half of enwiki's users. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:24, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
If you want to include a RSMC classification, you have to attribute that to the RSMC, not to the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale, which does not include such types/labels to storms other than hurricanes. This is better handled in the text, as there is seems to be frequent disagreement and inconsistency between the RSMCs, even between RSMCs that are using the same SS scale. -- Netoholic @ 19:59, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
That's the way it used to work (i.e., links to tropical cyclone scales where appropriate), before you came along to "fix" things. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 00:29, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
That link duplicated the link used in the region-specific header just above it. The two links (when used) went to the same page. -- Netoholic @ 00:49, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
As long as similar colors are used, I don't think the consistency really gets messed up that much. For the most part, all non-NHC basins have pretty much 5 categories that all correspond well with the Australian cyclone scale, including the more detailed version of the JMA scale which has 3 different types of typhoons. So, only cat2 and cat4 colors are confined to NHC basins that way. atomic7732 23:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Subtropical storms

I have not been following the infobox changes very closely, but I have noticed that recent edits have led to the incorrect classification of subtropical storms as tropical storms. Cheers, TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 22:46, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

If they aren't tropical cyclones, shouldn't they use Template:Infobox storm? -- Netoholic @ 22:56, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
They are part of hurricane seasons though. They are similar, and in the Atlantic are named using the same list as regular tropical cyclones. Can't "subtropical storm" just be included as an option? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 22:58, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Well, this relates to the discussion above. The Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale only has classifications Category 1-5, Tropical storm, and Tropical depression (the word subtropical appears nowhere on that page). What criteria are being used to label the ones you listed as "subtropical storm"? -- Netoholic @ 23:04, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
(edit conflict) To be specific, the Saffir Simpson hurricane wind scale does not include the ratings "tropical storm" and "tropical depression" (or "subtropical storm" for that matter). Anyhow, subtropical systems are given the same weight as tropical cyclones by at leas the National Hurricane Center, as they are named, listed in the official track database, and they can have warnings issued in regards to them. For further clarification I have sent an email in regards to the matter. TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 23:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
So if I understand you right, then subtropical storms should not be displaying any category of SSHWS? If that's right, then I have some ideas to solve this. Tell me, is there ever any case of a full-strength "subtropical cyclone" (ie higher than depression or storm)?-- Netoholic @ 23:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Yes. See Subtropical Storm One (1968) and Subtropical Storm One (1979). TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 23:48, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
I think Netoholic meant something above subtropical storm, like as a tropical storm is to a subtropical storm, a hurricane to some sort of subtropical cyclone. Dustin (talk) 23:51, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Right, the NOAA glossary only gives "Subtropical depression" (33kn or less) and "Subtropical storm" (34 kt or more). So I just want to make sure there is no such thing as a "Subtropical hurricane", "Subtropical typhoon", etc. at higher strengths anywhere. -- Netoholic @ 00:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
Considering the high visibility of the template, I think that this is an issue which ought to be handled right away. Dustin (talk) 23:19, 23 July 2014 (UTC)
Category:Subtropical storms has 7 members. Let's not get too excited. I am looking at this. -- Netoholic @ 23:40, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Question: Does any RSMC other than NOAA assign categories to "subtropical storms", or are those covered in their current scales? -- Netoholic @ 01:06, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

La Reunion in the South-West Indian has a classification for all subtropical systems (which are tracked like tropical ones) called "Subtropical depression". atomic7732 01:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Text for storm path map

There is a discussion right now at Template talk:Storm path, but since I didn't have the page watched (and I'm sure some of you didn't either), I figured I'd bring the discussion here. Admittedly, I have a bit of a particular interest as this is affecting an FAC of mine. The jist of the discussion, which I believe we should continue here, is what the text should be beneath the storm path map. It used to say "Storm path", which (surprisingly) sufficed for several years of GA's and FA's. In late June, User:Cyclonebiskit changed the text boldly, so now it explains what the map is a little better. After a few edits, the text resolved to the current wording: 

Map showing the sequential path of the storm; the colored points indicate the storm's position and intensity at six-hour intervals.

However, this says nothing of what the colored points indicate, as User:Titoxd pointed out on my FAC. Another user proposed adding in the SSHS small icon there, but that was removed, and admittedly it would add a bit too much for every article. Considering this affects every single storm article, I believe this should be addressed properly here.

IMO, the wording should say

"Map showing the path of the storm; the points indicate the storm's position and intensity at six-hour intervals, and is colored using the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale."

I remove the "sequential" bit, and clarify the colored part at the end, with a link to Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. Any thoughts? ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 19:05, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I myself don't have any problems with that change. Dustin (talk) 19:09, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
While an improvement, would the caption be too long? (See right for an example.) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:03, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Map showing the path of the storm; the points indicate the storm's position and intensity at six-hour intervals, and is colored using the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale
Map key
Saffir–Simpson scale
  Tropical depression (≤38 mph, ≤62 km/h)
  Tropical storm (39–73 mph, 63–118 km/h)
  Category 1 (74–95 mph, 119–153 km/h)
  Category 2 (96–110 mph, 154–177 km/h)
  Category 3 (111–129 mph, 178–208 km/h)
  Category 4 (130–156 mph, 209–251 km/h)
  Category 5 (≥157 mph, ≥252 km/h)
  Unknown
Storm type
triangle Extratropical cyclone, remnant low, tropical disturbance, or monsoon depression
At least for me, the template to the right looks good, and it uses three lines for the caption. Dustin (talk) 20:24, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
If it works for others it works for me, I just don't want someone to come opposing FACs because the caption is too long or some other nonsense. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 20:33, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Hate to be "that guy", but I think the caption is getting a bit too elaborate again. We have file description pages for a reason—there's no real obligation to be comprehensive about methodology in an image caption. In any case, it does need to be reworded: "the points ... is colored" obviously doesn't work. If the SSHS link has to stay, how about ... intensity at six-hour intervals, according to the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. ? – Juliancolton | Talk 14:36, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
That works for me. YE Pacific Hurricane 14:47, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Speaking from my WPTC-point of view, but isn't it self-explanatory that the dots indicate the storm's position, given that the caption also notes that the image is a map showing the path of the storm? TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 14:50, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
Map showing the track and intensity of the storm according to the Saffir-Simpson scale? – Juliancolton | Talk 18:24, 22 July 2014 (UTC)
The problem with assuming that viewers will click on the file description page is that {{Saffir-Simpson small}} on the track map's File: page is not parsed properly (read: at all) by the default MediaViewer, so for all intents and purposes is invisible to anonymous readers. A short mention on the caption is necessary, because if nothing else, we shouldn't have to force the readers to click through to the bowels of Commons to understand a photo. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 19:20, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

There is always somebody who won't understand. United States Man (talk) 14:53, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Any objection to implementing something close to what I suggested above? The more I read the current caption, the more I get the feeling it tries too hard to be something you'd read in the MWR. Also, I don't think "colored using the SSHWS" is strictly accurate... the scale itself doesn't recommend a color code, does it? I'd make some of these changes myself, but after so many revisions I'd rather decide on a final edit that everybody agrees on. – Juliancolton | Talk 13:57, 24 July 2014 (UTC)
    • Since the track of a storm is discrete and not continuous, I personally like saying "Map plotting (emphasis mine) the track and intensity of the storm according to the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale", but I have no objections to your proposed caption, other than perhaps including 'hurricane wind' (thus non-piping) the SSHWS link since that's an official name. TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 15:07, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

Infobox Hurricane

So since my last post here we have had the extended JMA scale plastered all over wiki, despite it not being officially used in international bulletins/best track. We also have the SSHWS classification in infobox hurricane as "Category 5 tropical cyclone (SSHWS/JTWC)", "Tropical Cyclone (SSHWS/JTWC)" and "Category 1 hurricane (SSHWS/NHC)" even when systems arent monitored by JTWC/NHC officially. I also noticed today that the damages on Cyclone Susan were displaying as > $100 (1998 USD), when it should be over > $100000 (1998 USD). On this last point however, i think its worth noting that it could be something else rather than @Netoholic:'s changes, thats cuasing it to display wrongly. Im getting to the stage where im fed up with the changes and the shit thats gone with it despite being a supporter of some of the changes. As a result i think we may be approaching the time where we need to go through these changes one by one and determine what is actually worth changing and what isnt, as im sure @Dustin V. S.: @United States Man: and @Titoxd: would agree with some of the changes that have been made. Thoughts?Jason Rees (talk) 14:53, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

Regarding the last bit, it may not be a bad idea. As for the first part, let's take this one issue at a time. YE Pacific Hurricane 14:58, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
RE: Cyclone Susan - math error on my part. I didn't have a testcase at the time that alerted to it, now we do. Some of the changes to the damages number are prep for the future. Right now, that data field asks for a number as input expressed in millions. The Susan article's data is | Damages=0.1 (in millions), but then outputs as a formatted $100,000. This very much violates the principle of least astonishment in that any novice editor should be able to intuitively know what sort of number to put in for a parameter, hopefully without having to reference the template's documentation, and reasonably expect what is output. Pre-converting to "in millions" is highly non-intuitive. I've added code that should both support the current "in millions", but also now let people put in the pure-number form of the amount and have the output be formatted in a predictable way. For example, you can now put in either 15,350,000 or 153500000 and you'll get out "15.35 million". There is more that needs to be done - the way Damage line is displayed doesn't conform to MOS:CURRENCY - but that'll come in in time. -- Netoholic @ 16:30, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
RE: SSHWS/RSMC - in the #SSHWS section here, the feedback was that the SSHWS itself only describes Categories 1–5 (any other labels/descriptors like "Tropical cyclone" are not part of that scale. It is the RSMC which, along with using that scale, gives descriptors to the storms in their area of responsibility. So for us to display in a header anything like "Category 5 Super Typhoon", you need to indicate both the JTWC as the origin of that label, and the SSHWS as the origin of the Category rating. For SSHWS to be used alone in the header, that means you can only use that header for storms with Category-level wind speeds. Just tell me which of those options this project prefers. -- Netoholic @ 16:42, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
If we are going to attribute the classification to the warning centers then we need support to be able to flip the warning centers around or put multiple centers down. For example on Cyclone Alan, it was the NPMOC who monitored it rather than the JTWC. We also have to add in support for the EPHC and think about systems that the NHC have reanalyzed or not likely to reanalysis.Jason Rees (talk) 16:59, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
Its not so much that we're specifying which center is tracking the storm - we're just attributing the scale and label used. In my opinion, it'd be better to drop both the label and center from that line, and just display "Category 1-5" for storms that qualify as per the SSHWS scale itself. My first attempt was going in that direction, but some people didn't like it (per the "its useful" arguments in #SSHWS). -- Netoholic @ 17:24, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
To be honest, I don't see the point of needing to attribute the SSHWS to JTWC when JTWC is not involved in the tracking of the storm. We have SSHWS as a second intensity row in non-NOAA basins to provide a common point of comparison/reference to editors, so we can get by with just using SSHWS in that row. (I also seem to remember being told at WP:FAC that having just "Category 5 hurricane" in a lede was not sufficient, but I can't seem to find which FAC it was.) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:01, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
For outside of Atl/Epac, how about we change it to "Category X (Saffir-Simpson equivalent)", so its clear the scale is presented for comparison? I've put a mock-up here. -- Netoholic @ 05:00, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
I believe we had that a long time ago, but it was causing some line wrapping issues so it was shortened to just SSHWS. If it fits I don't anyone would mind. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:10, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I've been able to compile a few of the changes to {{Infobox hurricane}} below. I'm no template expert, so there may be other changes that I missed, so feel free to note such a change.

Recent changes to {{Infobox hurricane}}

-- TheAustinMan(Talk·Works) 15:22, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

  • Several of those diffs cover multiple revisions, and the individual edit summaries usually give better details on each change, but if anyone wants to know "why" about any of them in detail, ask away. Keep in mind some topics have already been discussed in sections further up the page which might answer them for you. -- Netoholic @ 16:52, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • It was my understanding that the WMO recognized the extended JMA scale as something that is just used in a few countries, not the entire northwestern Pacific basin, which was the reason for {{storm colour}} not supporting it. So I would also propose taking those out. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:01, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • The JMA scale in unspecific and not very useful to the reader compared to the SSHWS because the "Typhoon" category is way too broad. Dustin (talk) 18:07, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
    • The flip side of that is us calling something a "Severe typhoon" but our sources and the press just calling it a "typhoon" is arguably a WP:V violation, and could also potentially confuse our readers. How often is the extended JMA scale used in practice? (That's not a rhetorical question, I really would like to know that.) Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 18:15, 26 July 2014 (UTC)
  • Since we are attributing the WPac header rating/type to the JMA, you should use the full scale that the JMA actually uses. Using the extended scale and attributing it to JMA matchs the link's target at Tropical_cyclone_scales#Western_Pacific. If you want to change it to non-extended scale, then you should cite that scale to a source other than JMA. Typhoon Committee maybe (see page 30)? -- Netoholic @ 06:04, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    But JMA does not actually use any of the extended categories in their operational public products, so readers would not be familiar with a "Severe Typhoon;" data sourced to JMA would only read "Typhoon," since they only use the categories that are shown in page 2 of the WMO document you linked. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 07:10, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    Just as a friendly (and rather pissed off) note, PLEASE DISCUSS MAJOR CHANGES LIKE THESE BEFORE IMPLEMENTING THEM ACROSS THE ENTIRE FREAKING PROJECT. The constant, highly visible, changes are not good. Of greatest concern to me at the moment is the discrepancy in the implementation of the JMA typhoon sub-categories. They only show up in the hurricane infobox template for sub-articles, not the seasonal articles nor the season button template. The sudden shift in color, using category 1 equivalent for these, can also lead to confusion while you're working out the kinks. I would urge you all to revert things back to a stable, pre-discussion status and work on a new format in a project sandbox until a final version is agreed upon. @Dustin V. S.:, @Jason Rees:, @Netoholic:, @Titoxd:, @TheAustinMan:, @United States Man:, @Juliancolton:, @Hurricanehink:, @Yellow Evan:
    That being said, I strongly disagree with some of the "tweaks" being made here. The previous method of simply linking the SSHWS was sufficient within these infoboxes. There is no need to specify an agency, nor state "Saffir-Simpson equivalent" (which is the latest of multiple variations). I also disagree with adding "major hurricane" to the Atl/EPac templates as "major" is not a necessary modifier, contrary to super typhoon which is the only technical sub-category utilized by the JTWC. Cyclonebiskit (talk) 11:49, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    The "Saffir-Simson equivalent" issue was discussed on this pagem and was implemented after I got positive feedback on it. It seems to be a solid compromise between the desire to have that head as a comparison, and have it not go too far in that role by assigning storm type labels to storms (and regions) that the scale isn't used. -- Netoholic @ 17:44, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    Note that User:Netoholic thinks they are entitled to unilaterally override consensus and disregard project standards because they are an "outsider". Wonderful logic, no? – Juliancolton | Talk 15:12, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    That is such a gross misinterpretation of what I said. I encourage others to actually read that diff and see for themselves. -- Netoholic @ 17:44, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    Gross you say? – Juliancolton | Talk 18:13, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
    I am going now to revert all the changes per the overwhelming consensus. United States Man (talk) 15:54, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Considering how involved you are, I would strongly suggest that you leave reversion to someone else. Dustin (talk) 15:56, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Everyone here is involved. Someone has to do it. United States Man (talk) 16:10, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
You do not look good when you do that. Regardless, while I disagree with many, if not most of the changes, I honestly do not understand why you would revert a sandbox. Not all of those changes have been discussed here, but many of them have. Also, you should fix issues with a live template before reverting changes made to a template. It is damaging to Wikipedia for a time (until all pages using that version of the template are changed) when you do that. Dustin (talk) 16:20, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Altogether, you can say that "not all of these changes have been discussed", but you cannot apply "overwhelming consensus" when not all of the changes have been discussed. I agree with Cyclonebiskit: " I would urge you all to revert things back to a stable, pre-discussion status and work on a new format in a project sandbox until a final version is agreed upon." . That would be the best action to take, so long as we had corrected whatever the issue is that caused all of the tropical cyclone pages to break when USM reverted Netoholic on {{Infobox hurricane}} just a brief time ago. Dustin (talk) 16:26, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Looks like someone with a little template knowledge will have to step in. I'm not sure what is wrong with it. United States Man (talk) 16:34, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

I've learned something very important today: Stay away from templates in the future. United States Man (talk) 16:46, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
One of the problems with reverting to the pre discussion state of the infobox is that a template used inside of it infobox row was redirected to template infobox after Netohoic eliminated it from infobox hurricane and other templates for these reasons.Jason Rees (talk) 17:03, 27 July 2014 (UTC)
Okay. Now everything works at least. United States Man (talk) 17:07, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Generally speaking, every significant recent change has already been discussed on this page, so please search for and respond in the appropriate section so we don't keep splitting the conversations. -- Netoholic @ 17:44, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Renaming see also section in season articles?

I notice we usually just put whatever the seasons from other basins in the see also section. Given that, I think the section would be more appropriately called "Contemporaneous seasons", or something less fancy. Maybe even something as simple as "Seasons in other basins"? I noticed this while writing 1940 Pacific typhoon season, and I don't think we've ever talked about it. Thoughts? Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 15:29, 17 June 2014 (UTC)

Works for me. I get the feeling nobody really ever looks at "see also" sections, so this change might help strengthen the global web of articles. – Juliancolton | Talk 16:22, 17 June 2014 (UTC)
If nobody objects, I'd be in favor of starting to roll out this minor change. I noticed that some seasons have other links in their "see also"s, so I think something like this would work well. Any thoughts? – Juliancolton | Talk 16:01, 28 June 2014 (UTC)
Looks good IMO. YE Pacific Hurricane
Except for time it might take to change the already existing articles, I don't see any reason why not. Dustin (talk) 02:05, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Agreed. I think it could be changed over time, but I like how JC organized it. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 02:24, 29 June 2014 (UTC)
Be careful, since "See also" is a standard section in the Guide to Layout, and thus part of the Manual of Style. Changing the section's title "just because" sounds like something that will become an issue at FAC. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 04:53, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I agree with Titoxd. Changing something as standard as this could bring up issues down the road. United States Man (talk) 12:29, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
I'm not so sure Tito. The relevant section on See also in the MoS says The most common title for this section is "See also" However, I feel we have a compelling reason to change it, and particularly if we agree as a project, then the change is warranted. The main purpose of See also is to link to other Wikipedia articles, and in general a set of articles doesn't have a very neatly established set of other articles. That is different for the seasons, and I believe it would be better to serve our readers to immediately tell our readers that the set of links is seasons that happened at the same time throughout the world, rather than a generic see also. It's essentially the same, just a bit more focused than usual. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 13:20, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
What about that idea of having "Contemporaneous seasons" as a subsection of "See also"? Dustin (talk) 14:09, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
There usually aren't any other links in that section though. Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 15:36, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
But then several of the modern day seasons are compared to others in Seasonal Verifications or during the season by Jeff Masters or other reliable sources. EG: 1997-98 SPAC can be compared to 1982-83 SPAC.Jason Rees (talk) 17:02, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
Perhaps it should be a template then, so see also can be for comparing seasons , but not the other seasons elsewhere? I think you might've mentioned that to me off-wiki before?". Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 17:42, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
For once, I agree with JR here. I agree we should be put "analogue" seasons in the see also (2014 PHS could link t0 1997 and 2009 PHS, for instance). And DVS, what you proposed may or may not work. YE Pacific Hurricane 19:58, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
It sounds to me that the contemporaneous seasons thing can be implemented as a standard navigational template, as opposed to modifying the See also section. To be honest, I don't see the compelling reason to change it. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 01:38, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Completely agreed. Now, the question is - should it just be part of the infobox, or should be a template at the bottom of the article? Right now, the SHEM has links to other seasons in the SHEM. Should we do the same for the NHEM (with only links to other NHEM seasons), or have one for all of the other seasons? TBH, there is little relationship between 2005 AHS and 2004-05 SWIO seasons. ♫ Hurricanehink (talk) 01:54, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Just put it at the bottom next to the other navigational templates (e.g. {{TC Decades}}) and put all the seasons for that year, regardless of hemisphere. If someone is looking for all the tropical cyclones that happened in the calendar year 2005, you could link to Tropical cyclones in 2005 as well. Titoxd(?!? - cool stuff) 21:02, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
If we do go for the template option, how would we present the seasons?Jason Rees (talk) 22:09, 21 July 2014 (UTC)
Organized the same way as most intense tropical cyclones? Hurricanehink mobile (talk) 21:57, 28 July 2014 (UTC)
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