As a main writer for Tornado Talk, let me chime in here.
What was posted was perfectly fine. Any of the maps we create in-house can be shared with credit to us and a link to the summary. However, we receive special permission for many of the photos in these summaries. Those photos are not to be shared anywhere without permission from the original photographers. This goes for our free and premium summaries. Pohnpei
did not violate any terms of service.
Over 400 summaries remain free to read on the website. The original goal of the site was to have a summary for every day of the year. We have accomplished that goal and all of those (and more) are offered free. After much debate, we hand-selected summaries that were previously written to be moved under the paywall. There are many news sources (like newspaper sites) that archive articles that can only be seen now with a paid membership. All new summaries being published for our project on the April 25-28th Super Outbreak, which includes Rainsville that was published just yesterday, are under the paywall. A few of these will go free and stay free on April 27th. After a lot of debating on what to do, we decided to start a membership, which costs less than a cup of coffee per month for several reasons.
- It helps offset the server costs, which continues to go up with the number of summaries we add.
- It helps to keep us researching more events and write top-notch summaries.
- It helps us to go back when we are done with our Super Outbreak Project to revamp our older summaries.
We are not "actively restricting the free flow of valuable information." We are trying to validate the
THOUSANDS of hours of time we are pouring into this and protecting our work and content that we are receiving as we dig into and interview people for these events.
The owner of Tornado Talk has spent thousands of dollars growing the brand. Becoming an LLC and starting the membership was the next logical step to try to balance how much things cost as the site grows.
We do have a "Tornado Tuesday" where every Tuesday, we release a premium article for free for 24 hours. This gives folks the opportunity to preview some of our work. And not all of our new summaries once we get past the Super Outbreak will be behind the paywall.
We are so grateful for the folks who have purchased a membership to help support our site. It is through that support that we are able to continue to write these amazing stories, and continue to offer so many articles for free.