A membership list on a personal weather template is a citation instrument. It tells a later reader which people and which packages to name in a footer, a skin credit block, or a wiki Toolbox line. It is not a social graph and it is not a live roster. At /aboutus/memberships the historical Cumulus host kept that list-shaped About child.
This article is about lists as credits: what belongs on them, how templates used them, and how to keep them honest after the original CMS is gone. It is distinct from the network-role essay, which explains what “member” means as a sensor-contributor role. This page does not republish a recovered name file, does not invent a headcount, and does not restore logins.
Historical context
PHP weather skins often had a Members or Credits include. Sometimes it was a hard-coded HTML list. Sometimes it was a CMS table. Sometimes it was a sidebar of neighbor badges. The scientific job of that object was the same as a references section: attribution.
Community weather PHP was assembled from parts. Cumulus supplied tags and files. A skin supplied layout. Helpers supplied graphs and banners. Libraries such as GD and JpGraph supplied drawing. Other operators supplied snippets. If the only credit was a site title in the browser tab, a later fork lost the chain. A membership or credits list was the cheap way to keep the chain on the public site.
The Cumulus Wiki page for TNET Cumulus Scripts is itself a citation list at wiki scale (last checked 13 August 2026). Template-level lists were the same idea at page scale. The original table at this URL is not rehosted. Names and emails from a hobby CMS are personal data as well as possible copyrighted arrangement. What this path can honestly keep is the instrument: how to write a credit list that still works when the software is gone.
What a citation list is for
A useful list answers “who do I name if I reuse this page, this skin, or this helper?” It does not answer “who is online.”
Rows that belong:
| Row type | Example of what to record | Why it is a citation | |---|---|---| | Station program | Cumulus / MX, version if known | The file contract | | Template or skin | Name and origin | The HTML/PHP family | | Named helper | Project title and path | The graph, banner, parser | | Library | JpGraph, GD, and similar | Third-party code | | Documentation | Wiki, vendor, other operators’ notes | Where the contract is defined | | Operator credit | The station owner’s chosen public name | Who published the view |
Rows that do not belong on a citation list, even if the old CMS mixed them in:
- passwords, recovery questions, or member IDs;
- private emails published without a clear intent to be a public credit;
- visit counters dressed as prestige;
- “active members” counts with no method.
A citation list is stable. A club roster churns. If a historical page mixed both, the preservation article keeps the citation function and drops the club simulation.
How templates used the list
Weather templates typically surfaced credits in three places. A memberships URL was often the long form of all three.
Footer. One line: software, template, maybe “based on.” Footers rot when someone restyles the skin and deletes the comment. The About-section list was the backup.
About or Credits page. The long form: names, URLs, license notes if anyone recorded them. That is this path’s job.
Source comments. PHP and HTML comments that never appear in the browser. Those comments are the most accurate citation instrument and the first thing a minifier or a scrape throws away. A public list exists because comments are not enough.
When another site hot-linked a banner or copied a parser, the decent outcome was a credit line pointing back at a stable URL. When the domain later lapsed, those credit lines became dead. Keeping /aboutus/memberships as an article about the instrument is how the backlink stays meaningful without pretending the table is still maintained.
License identifiers, when they were recorded, belong on the list as facts about packages—not as a claim that this hostname may redistribute the files. Unclear-license scripts are described, not shipped.
How to keep a list honest
- One row per work, not per person-as-personality. Prefer “JPGraph graphs helper” over a nickname with no artifact.
- Point at a path or an upstream, not at a vanished forum avatar.
- Separate authors of tools from operators of sensors. The role essay holds that distinction; the list must not flatten it.
- Do not scrape Wayback HTML into a new public directory of emails. Summarize the function; omit personal contact details that are not needed for citation.
- Date the list. An undated credits page is as weak as an undated climate table.
- Record generator metadata nearby. Template name and software version on website info complement the human names here.
A list that only says “thanks to everyone” is not a citation instrument. A list that names Cumulus, the skin, and the helper paths is.
Distinct from the dotted memberships page
/aboutus.memberships is the role piece: members as people who ran sensors, publishers, and software contributors in a network.
/aboutus/memberships is the list piece: the table as a bibliographic tool on a template.
The first page tells you how to interpret the word. The second tells you how to write the rows. Cloning either into the other would waste a URL that search and old menus still separate.
This page is also not a login. CMS query strings that glued action=login onto About children are URL damage. There is no member sign-in here.
Practical checklist for operators who still publish a skin
- Keep a credits page with software, template, helpers, and libraries.
- Put the same facts in HTML comments for people who read source.
- Use stable paths for helpers you want others to cite.
- Do not use a membership plugin as a substitute for metadata.
- When you stop maintaining a package, leave the credit row and mark it historical rather than deleting it. Deletion is how citation graphs go blind.
Modern relevance
MX, GitHub, and package managers made dependency lists ordinary. A PWS memberships page was an early, clumsy version of NOTICE and README credits. The habit still applies: if a dashboard mixes vendor files, community PHP, and your own HTML, the public site should say so in a list a stranger can parse.
TNET does not claim the historical names and does not host a member directory at this URL.
TNET research bridge
Naming sources is how later work stays testable. TNET’s public framing of observed versus derived information, and of independent authorship, is how the service works. That page is not a credits table. The Cumulus legacy hub indexes related historical pages.
Sources
- Cumulus Wiki: TNET Cumulus Scripts (last checked 13 August 2026)
- Cumulus Wiki: Software (last checked 13 August 2026)
- JpGraph (last checked 13 August 2026)