User:Ccc/history

The following is a comprehensive history of The Weather Channel's fandom, including developments involving personalities, fan websites and projects, controversies, and official network outreach. For a history of the network itself, see History of The Weather Channel.

History

TWCFORUM

The first attempt by The Weather Channel to build connections with its viewers was in 1995, with the launch of a CompuServe forum called TWCFORUM, also known as "The Weather Channel Forum". This forum provided a space for the network's meteorologists and fellow weather fanatics to have conversations about weather topics. Additionally, users could talk among themselves, visit a forum library to learn about meteorological topics, view tips for weather safety, and view images of historical weather events. However, the forum began to decline in its later years, with off-topic posts and arguments among users, combined with a minimal presence of administrators, causing its downfall.

Early independent efforts (1997-2004)

In June 1997, Matt Marron, a fan of the network particularly interested in the music played on the network, established a website called Matt's TWC Music Homepage. In 1998, under the new name TWC Fan, the site expanded to cover more aspects of The Weather Channel and even became a reseller for independent artists' music played on the network. Charles Abel-Lear (who would later create The Weather Chazz, one of the most popular TWC fandom ) joined Matt's project in the early 2000s, helping to develop special events and designing recreations of Weather Star 4000 graphics. In 2002, under Matt and Charles's leadership, the website was rebranded to TWC Classics, its current name. On August 14, 2002, TWC Classics expanded its reach to include a forum, becoming the first unofficially-operated forum for The Weather Channel's fanbase. Their combined efforts got the attention of many new fans and The Weather Channel itself, leading to the Weather Star development team using some of the site's members as beta testers for their new IntelliStar technology in 2004.

The Weatherscan XL simulator had its beginnings in the early 2000s when it was revealed to the community on the TWC Classics forums in a closed testing state. During the beta testing stages, users were required to stream their simulator to a streaming service for others to watch.

Early YouTube era (2005-2007)

Around 2004, the Weather Star 4000 simulator project launched on an early version of the Taiganet website.

Not long after YouTube was launched in 2005, it would attract fans of The Weather Channel, who set up channels on the website to cater to the growing online community presence. They would upload footage of the network, especially local forecast segments and footage of major events covered by the network. Some others, including Charles Abel-Lear, would go on to create channels largely devoted to simulated versions of the local forecast, including uploads of the Weatherscan XL and WeatherStar 4000 simulators.

Peak era (2007-2011)

TWC Today was established in 2007 and would quickly gain a relatively large userbase. The popularity of this forum among fans extended also to The Weather Channel, much like TWC Classics. The Weather Star development team would establish a presence on the forum, operating what was effectively an officially sanctioned technical support contact section of the forum. On-camera meteorologists Adam Berg and Betty Davis, along with some other employees of the network, made a home there, followed by many of the musical artists featured on the network.

Updates for the Weatherscan XL simulator were published on the TWC Today forums beginning in October 2008. The new location was used to announce the end of the simulator's closed beta testing at the end of that month. The previous requirement for users of the simulator to stream it online was lifted at that time.

The Weather Channel's decision to air its Flick and a Forecast block during the destructive and deadly tornado outbreak of April 30, 2010, marked one of the greatest landmarks for criticism against the network's programming decisions both within and outside the fandom. As a matter of fact, the reaction outside the fandom was much more extreme than within.

On April 9, 2010, the TWC Today and TWC Classics forums merged into a single forum hosted on the TWC Today website, with the standalone TWC Classics forums being officially retired.

On May 10, 2010, Dish Network replaced The Weather Channel on its lineup with a new network, The Weather Cast, in response to the controversy surrounding TWC's Flick and a Forecast block. However, this new channel would only last for a few weeks, being removed on May 24, when an agreement was reached to return The Weather Channel to the Dish lineup. Only days later on May 31, Flick and a Forecast was cancelled.

Recent developments (2016-present)

The mid-to-late 2010s saw the rise of online communities that contrasted with the traditional forum format associated with the fandom. The first major community of this kind was The Weather Chat, which begun on Kik around 2015. The group soon moved to Telegram and continued to exist there until October 4, 2017, when it transferred to Discord, which was still a young platform at the time. The group would transform into the wxTV Studios Discord server, which remains one of the most popular and active community groups to this day, boasting over 200 members. The transition to wxTV Studios coincided with Discord's explosion in popularity. After the end of The Weather Chat, other personalities would launch their own Discord servers to catch up with the platform's takeoff, such as Intelliguy, TWCKelby, and Triple C TWC, all of whose servers became affiliated with wxTV Studios. TWC Today would even go on to launch its own Discord server as a means for offering support for its Weatherscan XL simulator.

On July 20, 2014, The Weather Channel launched the series WX Geeks as part of an initiative to reach its most dedicated viewers. The series was not directed specifically at the fandom but was aimed at those interested in the science of meteorology, which included a large segment of the fandom.

On March 20, 2016, Triple C TWC uploaded a video in which he gave an overview of various aspects of his newly-acquired Weather Star XL unit. This video was notable for a satirical segment, drawn in the style of the then-popular meme series Spodermen, positing a possible reason why a port on the back of the unit was bent out of shape. The segment featured a cable television system operator and his son attempting to pull a cable off the affected port. The segment received praise on The Weather Chat and prompted requests to continue the segment as a series in its own right. On April 9, a second installment of the segment, now a series called Milinoket Cabbl (a purposeful misspelling of Millinocket Cable, referring to the place of origin of the unit), was published to the Triple C TWC channel. New installments of the series would be produced and published through the next year and a half, after which the series went into hiatus due to production issues.

In April 2016, The Weather Channel launched a new community-focused website, We Love Weather, as a new webpage for the network following the sale of its weather.com domain to IBM. The site featured news stories, quizzes, a photo gallery for users, videos, and a community forum not unlike that of TWCFORUM in the 1990s. The site as a whole was geared toward both fans of the network and casual viewers interested in weather topics.

On October 4, 2017, The Weather Chat Telegram channel was closed and transferred to Discord, which was still a fairly new platform at that point. On the same day, news of a new beta version of the Weatherscan XL simulator was released to TWC Today, including a new beta testing program and a new Discord group for testers. Previous registered users of the program were eligible to beta test this new version.

The most notable special event to occur on the We Love Weather forums was the Forecasting Hope charity auction, which begun on November 23, 2017. The auction included network memorabilia and clothing, personalized weather forecasts, and meteorologist-led educational video sessions for schools. As a result of the auction, which ended on December 18, $66,678 was raised for organizations such as the American Red Cross and Save the Children providing aid to victims of that year's natural disasters. On the same day that the auction began, the Triple C TWC Community Discord server was founded as a means for fans of the Triple C TWC channel to connect.

A public release of the Weatherscan XL simulator, previously in beta testing, was made available on December 14, 2017. The Discord server used for beta testing discussions was converted to a general support server for the software.

TWC Archive, established as a joint effort between TWCKelby and other fandom personalities as a documentation effort for information related to TWC, was launched in a limited state on February 8, 2018. At the time, the site was locked down so that a baseline level of content could be added prior to the public release. The establishment of the site was a response to the decline of previous documentation efforts and utilized MediaWiki as its platform.

The We Love Weather forum was primarily a space for general weather conversation. Other spaces included Community Q&A, Introduce Yourself, and Site Suggestions.. Much like TWCFORUM, We Love Weather became the target of occasional spam and harassment threads that often went without moderator intervention. The most infamous case involved a nearly two-year-long feud between two users, ArsenalFan and AndyMoserWeather, primarily over the latter user's profile picture of a cereal box edited to include the logo of the English football club Arsenal. This conflict, which began in 2019 and continued until the end of the forums, involved spam across multiple posts and even spilled into completely unrelated topics. Despite the negatives, the forums were still mostly used for productive, on-topic conversation and even provided a place for viewers to provide feedback about the direction of the network. The most notable example of this occurred in April 2018, when The Weather Channel reduced its Local on the 8s segments down to two times per hour, a move which was criticized across the board by viewers on the administrators' post announcing the change. The same thread eventually became the most viewed thread on the forum due to the large viewer response. On April 8, the network phased out the WX Geeks television program in favor of a podcast version of the show, which continues to the present under the name Weather Geeks. At that time, We Love Weather was used as the main platform for the podcast.

On April 22, 2018, the Discord version of The Weather Chat was officially superseded by the newly-established wxTV Studios Discord server.

Charles Abel-Lear, the well-known creator of The Weather Chazz, one of the most popular YouTube channels in TWC fandom history, passed away unexpectedly on November 6, 2019. In the aftermath, many within the community, including various prominent personalities, paid tribute in a thread on the TWC Today forums and on his obituary.

A variety of changes were made to the TWC Today site on April 17, 2020. Among a few technical changes, the original landing page for the site was removed, with the site URL now directing to the forums. Also, Tapatalk compatability was integrated into the forum so that mobile users could more easily access the message boards. At the time, an idea was floated to overhaul the visual appearance of the site and create a new landing page to rehost the site's original media content.

Just prior to the We Love Weather forums' closure, on December 18, 2020, the last video posted by the network to the site was uploaded, followed by the last new article on December 30. Then, on January 6, 2021, the last user-submitted photo was uploaded to the site's gallery. The next day, the forums were made viewable by members only, and by February 1, 2021, they were fully shut down. In the aftermath, the TWC Today and Taiganet forums again became the only two forums related to The Weather Channel. We Love Weather remained inactive but online until the weekend of February 12, 2023.

On March 11, 2023, the wxTV Studios Discord was taken down abruptly, leaving users wandering to other community Discord servers. In the aftermath, the bulk of its user base joined the Triple C TWC Community Discord server, which was a member of the wxTV Studios Discord server's partner program.

In the early hours of June 27, 2023, The Weather Channel quietly introduced Retro 8s Live, a block of looping Weather Star 4000-themed national forecast segments aimed at fans. News of the block was posted to Twitter almost immediately, spreading through fandom circles in the following hours. Many fandom personalities came out in support of the block. On July 13, 2023, a representative affiliated with the network's legal team began mass-striking YouTube streams of Weather Star 4000-related content, erroneously claiming that the streams were direct copies of Retro 8s Live content. However, most of the affected content had been up since before the beginning of the block and utilized either the Weather Star 4000 Simulator or the actual hardware. The action caused an immediate uproar in the community, with some even questioning the motives behind the creation of the block in light of the move. The block continued after with little change until November 3, 2023, after which it quietly was removed from the channel's programming lineup.