Geomagnetic activity forum vs topic

[Drax Spacex]

Should we continue to have a topic "geomagnetic activity" within the forum "Geomagnetic activity"?   There is no specialization or specificity in a topic named the same as the forum name.  The topic "geomagnetic activity" is acting as a global timestamped forum comment stream, which may be fine.  But there's no way to know precisely what is being discussed until you open the topic to see the posts.

Should there be standard practices for when to create and how to name topics under Geomagnetic activity when they relate to specific source events (solar wind, coronal holes, CMEs, etc) - perhaps something analogous to how AR topics are created in the Solar activity forum?

 

[Vancanneyt Sander]

It’s best to create a new topic for each geomagnetic storm event or possible CME arrival instead doe one topic. We could lock the current one so separate topic is made

for example in our Dutch forum section a topic is made whenever there is a chance for Belgium/netherlands with the data of arrival.

So that can be applied as well for the geomagnetic activity forum. For example: Geomagnetic storm outlook: CME of the X2 arrival 23ed January 2024

[tniickck]

i dont find this useful: in geomagnetic activity topic you can discussion any geomagnetic disturbance without creating a certain topic, and usually (at least 3 last times, with X5, X2.8 and M9.82 flares) we created accurate topic related to one CME, and personally i think that deleting an "overall" geoactivity topic would cause a mess on the "geomagnetic activity" forum if you would have to create a new topic to any earth-directed cme (even small) or any disturbance

Edited January 7 by tniickck

[Drax Spacex]

 

3 hours ago, Vancanneyt Sander said:

It’s best to create a new topic for each geomagnetic storm event or possible CME arrival instead doe one topic. We could lock the current one so separate topic is made

for example in our Dutch forum section a topic is made whenever there is a chance for Belgium/netherlands with the data of arrival.

So that can be applied as well for the geomagnetic activity forum. For example: Geomagnetic storm outlook: CME of the X2 arrival 23ed January 2024

That sounds good to me.   Most discussions are of a pre-arrival, predictive nature given a known source.

An alternative to closing the topic could be to rename it "geomagnetic activity (unassigned source)" for the post-arrival case when the source is unknown.

For example, when Kp rises unexpectedly and someone asks why are we at G2?  The topic could be a convenient place to pose such question, or for other general discussion of current solar wind, magnetometers, and/or Kp index values when there is no source attributed.

But yes, when the CME source is known and it's "on the way", it should have its own topic.

Edited January 7 by Drax Spacex

[Philalethes]

4 hours ago, Drax Spacex said:

Should we continue to have a topic "geomagnetic activity" within the forum "Geomagnetic activity"?   There is no specialization or specificity in a topic named the same as the forum name.  The topic "geomagnetic activity" is acting as a global timestamped forum comment stream, which may be fine.  But there's no way to know precisely what is being discussed until you open the topic to see the posts.

Should there be standard practices for when to create and how to name topics under Geomagnetic activity when they relate to specific source events (solar wind, coronal holes, CMEs, etc) - perhaps something analogous to how AR topics are created in the Solar activity forum?

Heh, I believe the thread was originally created for a specific event, if I recall correctly; but apparently the generic name stuck around for many pages to come.

I agree that it would probably be best to adopt a culture of making separate threads for separate events, like we do with active regions in the "Solar activity" forum, whether the source for the activity is known or unknown.

As for pre-arrival predictions, I guess that's on the boundary between Solar activity and geomagnetic activity, but I wouldn't mind that being discussed in the topics for the active regions/filaments that originate the CMEs. I suppose you could also make separate topics for significant CMEs themselves, that might be overkill.

One could also perhaps ask something similar about filaments, which also has a big general thread going where pretty much everything related to filaments is posted, but there's no widely adopted naming or identification convention for filaments as far as I'm aware, so that might not work as well.

[Jesterface23]

Good to get things cleared up. There has always been a grey area in the forum where topics switch from Solar activity to Geomagnetic activity. Though there will always be mystery geomagnetic events or satellite data issues.

An overall geomagnetic topic should be kept open in some way, similar to how there is a single Filaments and Incoming Regions topic under Solar activity.

Edited January 8 by Jesterface23

[Sam Warfel]

Thanks for bringing that up @Drax Spacex . I agree it’s confusing, that thread started off meaning “(this specific) geomagnetic activity”, but then became general. 

In general, I agree with the premise of opening new topics for new activity. However, some activity is of an unknown nature, making it hard to be specific in the post title (what happened here), or things are quite minor, and not really deserving of a whole thread. I don’t want to get cluttered up with a new thread for every little thing.

So, I agree with keeping the “general” thread, but renaming it to be less confusing. “Minor geomagnetic activity”? “Unspecified geomagnetic activity”? Etc. 

I think we can strike a balance between minor questions and activity threads. 

Addendum:

I have just implemented something like this, via topic renaming and a clarifying message added at the top. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

 

[Drax Spacex]

18 minutes ago, Sam Warfel said:

I think we can strike a balance between minor questions and activity threads. 

Addendum:

I have just implemented something like this, via topic renaming and a clarifying message added at the top. Does anyone have any feedback on this?

 

I think you nailed it - a good balance with clear usage guidelines, simply implemented.

[Jesterface23]

Possibly this could be done as well, add notes at the top of Filaments and Incoming Regions topics? Then the 3 general topics can be pinned, Filaments, Incoming Regions, and Unspecified geomagnetic activity?

[Sam Warfel]

1 hour ago, Jesterface23 said:

Possibly this could be done as well, add notes at the top of Filaments and Incoming Regions topics? Then the 3 general topics can be pinned, Filaments, Incoming Regions, and Unspecified geomagnetic activity?

I like adding notes to those, I will do so. 

On the subject of pinning, I personally supported that, and they were pinned, but a while ago we had a discussion on excessive pinned topics, and many were unpinned. Can anyone find that discussion? Or maybe @Vancanneyt Sander remembers that?

I just don’t want to unilaterally undo what we had decided then, although pinning the three mentioned above makes sense to me. 

[arjemma]

I also had this thought before. Maybe we can label topics for different CME's that have a high chance of hitting like this: "CME launched January 5th 10:30" or something like that? Maybe starting the title with what it is (like CH HSS or CME) and then the time it left the sun. We could do that for larger events and that way it will be easier to track it down later if we want to go back and look.

[Jesterface23]

5 hours ago, Sam Warfel said:

On the subject of pinning, I personally supported that, and they were pinned, but a while ago we had a discussion on excessive pinned topics, and many were unpinned. Can anyone find that discussion? Or maybe @Vancanneyt Sander remembers that?

I think that was when the forum went through a format change, there were more sub forums, and was undone?

[Sam Warfel]

3 hours ago, Jesterface23 said:

I think that was when the forum went through a format change, there were more sub forums, and was undone?

You mean the old Insightful Reading forum?

[Jesterface23]

27 minutes ago, Sam Warfel said:

You mean the old Insightful Reading forum?

Possibly, but there might of been more too it if I remember correctly. I can't remember what all there was to it though

[Vancanneyt Sander]

22 uren geleden, Sam Warfel zei:

Or maybe @Vancanneyt Sander remembers that?

Hmm not that I remember 🧐

also a good naming of topic is good for search engines as well. So if it’s descriptive of the possible event that’s always good. A possible arrival date can be added later and updated when it actually arrives. 
by giving a good title, searching for topics on the forum will be better as well and won’t cause cluttering of topics with too many pages. 

[Marcel de Bont]

I do remember cleaning up a lot of obscure sub forums that were created over the years as more forums mean more clicking around and a more scattered user base. It also makes community's look less active than they are as the discussions are spread out over too many different forums.

I personally dislike having stickies as discussions/topics should come and go organically. Maybe I am old fashioned but in the good old days stickies were used for important subjects that moderators want to give extra attention, not daily discussion topics.

However, I am open to discussions if people think otherwise of course.

[Jesterface23]

6 hours ago, Marcel de Bont said:

I personally dislike having stickies as discussions/topics should come and go organically. Maybe I am old fashioned but in the good old days stickies were used for important subjects that moderators want to give extra attention, not daily discussion topics.

However, I am open to discussions if people think otherwise of course.

I understand it.

It's an interesting spot. The 3 topics seem like something that shouldn't possibly lost among the other topics, but it shouldn't be pinned as something like a "READ ME".