I myself am "from" team 38, but graduated before this past season. I'm no longer a student on the team, and as a result of working full time, I no longer have the same type of time to donate to the team. I consider myself a "member" of the team, in that I do try to help out how/whenever I can, but officially, I consider myself a volunteer for FIRST (field reset at UTC and ref at Nationals).

My situation aside, I'm sure there are countless numbers of CD posters out there that are involved with more than one team, and wouldn't feel it fair to post one specific team for them to be associated with, and therefore use 000 to symbolize their involvement with FIRST, without showing alliegance to any one specific team.

Hi my name is mike

too many mikes on this site so just make up a name and call me by it. :) just make sure i know what it is so that i can respond to it ;) or just call me the following names

MOUSE
MIKEY
MICKEY
JOHN JACOB JINGLE HYMER SCHMIDT - someones gotta use this name why not me !! ;)

I think that for CD users who have an affiliation with more than one team should still put up the number of the team who knows them best or that they are most closely associated with. This way, random FIRSTers who are looking for them at competitions could have a place to start.

ByE

erin

I see two main issues in this thread that people are discussing, I will address them one at a time.

Putting Real Name as your screen name:

I've always used my original name for my screen name, even though I changed it from Ken Leung to Ken L. You know why? Because when people ask who I am, I tell them, "Hi, my name is Ken." Never bothered with "LKen5411" or the hidden screen name I use.

When I go to competition, and ask people who they are, all of them tell me their real name. They might say "oh by the way, I post as '******' on Chief Delphi", but I can never memorize all those names in addition to the real names. To me, knowing people's real name makes the competition feels a little more professional. Just like meeting new sponsors, engineers, and teachers, they always tell me their real name which appears on their business card. So much easier arranging people's business card with their real name.

Plus, all the people I really care about in the competition, I call them with their first name, such as Ken, Jess, Robby, Bill, Mark, Jim, Jeff, Carolyn, etc. Just makes the meeting with people a little easier, and friendlier. I never needed screen name with I am talking with close friends.

If you use a screen name that's hard to remember, or hard to pronounce, chances are a lot of people who only know you through the forum through one or two discussions probably can't remember your name. And then you start talking to people through e-mails, or PM's, or AIM, and different names started appearing and it get 10 times more confusing.

With so many names to remember in this forum... it's just so much easier to remember names like "Andy Baker", or "Joe Johnson", instead of "abubbabaker" or "drmotors".

Well, it is up to you to decide, but when it come to real conversations, I am going to ask you for your real name ;).

The second topic in this thread is about team 000, and here are my thoughts on that.


Traditionally team 000 is use for users who are done with their high school team, and no longer associate themselves with their own team. Another use is for official people like FIRST staff to post in the forum (although they rarely do now).

The current situation is, a lot of people on team 000 choose that number because they no longer wish to keep their talents in just one team, or they are sick and tired of their own team and no longer want to be associated with them anymore. They are still working with a FIRST team, but they are more of a free floater instead of a team person. They will volunteer at regionals, or participate with a team or two, but they want to be known as a person of their own, and not part of a group.

I encourage that kind of mind set. I myself used to work with Team 192 Gunn Robotics Team in high school, and us GRT people are "once a GRT, always a GRT". It's part of my past, and a big reason I am the person I am today, but I don't associate to that team anymore. I worked with multiple teams around the Bay Area because I want to help out more kids than the 50 on GRT, and now I work with WRRF running post season competition and teaching workshops. That's why I choose Team 000. To me, it is important to show that I don't just stick to one team anymore.

You can look at my signature and see what teams I've been with, but I prefer people knowing me for the person I am, not with whatever team I choose to help out in the season.


Frankly, there are too many stories behind each person for one number to show what status that person is in the competition. I know plenty of people who should be associated with a team, but at the same time, volunteer at the competition, and volunteer at off season events. The number 000 just shows they do more than working with a team.

And sure, I want to know the person when I am talking to them. That's why I encourage people putting up their real name as the screen name. But the team number shown on the left here was never quite as important. When I see a team number, I would say "hey, I heard about your team, what do you do in there?". When I see 000 I will say "I see you put 000 as your team number. So, do you work with a team, or do you do more?" And that usually work out just fine.

Being on team 000 Doesn't mean people are hiding themselves from the rest of FIRST, it just means they don't want to be known as part of a team anymore.

To All:
The AKA field is up on your profile...so you have no excuse for not using this feature, that brandon most graciously added for us, for putting your real name...or at least real first name...so that we can all know you a little better and know who to ask for at competition...and you even get to keep your 'custom user name!' :D

DONE! :D

Re: Re: Re: Re: Real names, please
 

You're right, there aren't 326 people registered under 0000, there are 265. Did you even do a search??.. cause I did. Your posts kind of came off as an attack towards people with the numbers 0000 for their team number. It wouldn't surprise me if there were that many volunteers... don't you know how many people are actually invovled in FIRST? Unless you have precise evidence supporting your claims, this is one FIRST-er you aren't convincing. :rolleyes:

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Real names, please
 

I am not trying to get this thread as a flame war like other posts have turned into, but what i want to say is ryan is correct that it takes a ton of people to do even a regional, i think there were over 100 volunteers at the utc regional, it doesnt look like many there but a lot of people do behind the scenes work. And there were over 20 regionals this year plus the nationals. There are a lot more then you would think volunteers that work for FIRST at events and other things. Again im nottrying to sound sarcastic or mean, but its the truth, you should actually sometimes take a step back, look at the true numbers and then talk.

~Mike

Alright, here's the deal, Andy Baker makes a good point, but what about all us with the common names. For example, I'm Sara...and there are a million Sara's out there. For me, if you went over to my pit and said "who's bandchick" (even if there were another girl) they would know exactly who you were talking about. It's how I've been defined for years now, so I will stick with the bandchick because it's easier, and it's who I am. Call me Sara, call me bandchick, call me girl, hell, you could call me Megan (right keith?). I don't see the need to change my username to be easier for everyone else. If you want to know who I am, if you want to meet me, I think you could take the time to find out.

--Sara Reffler--
(the bandchick of the bunch)

Good point...
 

as usual a good point made by Andy Baker.

My name is Carlo, it just shows how original I am with screen names. If anyone else finds a Carlo on Chief Delphi, I will gladly put my last name in my signature, but through my whole life I have met very few Carlo's beings it is an Italian name which got changed to Charles when people came to America.

There's a history lesson for the day on my name, so no it is not Carlos mispelled.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Real names, please
 

!!!!****>>>>>0000 - FIRST / Other 327<<<<<****!!!!
0001 - Juggernauts 7
0002 - 4
0003 - 5
0005 - RoboCards 15
0006 - ATK (Alliant Techsystems) & Hopkins High School 10
0007 - Parkville Knights 10
0008 - Palo Alto High School 2
0009 - Arial Foundation & Roosevelt High School 2
0011 - MORT 14
0016 - Baxter Bomb Squad 24
0019 - Mercedes-Benz of Greenwich/Beta Shim Co & Greenwich High School 9
0021 - ComBBAT 19
0022 - Boeing Rocketdyne/Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers/FADAL Engineering & Chatsworth HS 2
etc, etc...

Look under teams at the top of this page, right above the forum/thread link.

It's actually up to 327 right now. I have no idea where you came up with your number. Go figure. :rolleyes:

And i did do research. I searched for posts by team members of 000. Quite a few of them give themselves away as being on a team.

Here are some nice quotes: (leaving names out to protect the user, of course.

Someone's profile:
"Team# 0000
Location: Anytown, USA
Team Role: Team Captain "
^^^Oh yes, "he is not on a FIRST team, he is a volunteer"...NOT.

Quote from a post: "We are a second-year team and are considering this approach due to time constraints. Any suggestions on how get this assembly aligned with our drive shaft?"

Also, on a team: stating it him/her self. Another abuser of team #000.

Quote from a post about how teams pick drivers: "Our team this year is trying simon sez, the thought behind this is that anybody can drive a robot good with enough practice, and if the driver can listen to mentor and other team it is all for the better."

Also, on a team.


Another quote from a post: "We are wondering if we can add weight to counterbalance another component of our robot. We know that we cannot add "dead weight" to make our robot stronger but are not sure if we can add weight to counterbalance another component. "

Also, clearly on a team - who else would ask such a question, and who else would have a robot?

Another quote from a post: "We are having trouble with where we are supposed to hook up the power for the light. This is the only thing that is keeping us from having a fully operational light. Thank you very much"

Oh yes, FIRST staffers *really* need to know how to wire a light.

Once more, clearly on a team.

Quote: "Just how are you supposed to hook up the controller to a computer, for programming? I couldn't find anything that said exactly what port it was. I believe its 'Dashboard', but i just want to be sure... don't want to fry a 3000$ piece of equipment. :P"

Once again, clearly on a team. No one else would be asking such a question.

Quote: "I wonder? Is all there text computer made and text book tests. Are what we learning in school generated garbage from some people sitting there writing bs textbooks. How do we know if teachers arent part of this big brainwashing scandal to turn kids into stupid zombies. What can you really prove. Are the text books made by aliens?!? We could be getting stupid by alien textbooks. And really aliens eat stupid peoples brains!"

This guy actually has his team location and references to another team IN HIS SIG. Another clear case of someone being on a team. (He also got himself banned, so he clearly isn't too sharp on the uptake.)

Quote: "Actually our team is using a cannon to launch the boxes across the arena. It's still a little inacurate but were in the process of rifling the barrell."

Another reference to a team. Hardly a team #000 FIRST volunteer. :rolleyes:

Quote from a profile:

"Team Name rookie team in 2003
Team# 0000
Location Los Angeles
Team Role Student "

A student on rookie team #000 - right. Of course.:rolleyes:

************
And THAT was just the blatant ones in the first three pages of the Team #000 list. There are nine pages total.

Before flaming me, get your facts straight. There are many users that claim to be on team #000, that instead use team #000 to mask their identity.

Oh, and just a little point: I am not being disrespectful to those who are using the team #000 as it was inteneded. That is who it was designed for.

What gets me angry is those who are abusing it.

My question: Are these people so ashamed of themselves and/or their teams, that they feel the need to hide behind usernames and lies. Putting yourself on a team #000, designed for those not on a team, while atually being on a team, is a blatant LIE. I cannot and will not trust or respect those who seek to hide themselves from thier team, and lie to the rest of the people on these message boards. There is NO reason for people to hide behind false teams: I consider it no different than people using another team's team number, while they really are on a different team. It's wrong, and it should be discouraged.

I took me 10 minutes of detective work to figure this stuff out, btw. A little bit of research...

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Real names, please
 

His number is found when you click the 'members' button to view members of team 0000. I think the 327 is correct, I have to fix the list.

I suppose I could make '0000' reserved and the only way to have '0000' would be to message me. This way they are filtered and those that are trying to hide will be forced to either a) enter a real team number... b) enter a fake team number ... c) enter some designated 'not on a team, hiding' number (9999?, -1, etc)

That would be a good idea Brandon - though it would make more work for you. :(

I don't mean to be a militant nutcase in this thread - it's just something that bugs me: people abusing a system designed to do good. :mad:

First I'd like to apologize, I went to users and did an advanced search under team numbers.. it gave me that number, but I found what you were talking about. So, I admit I was wrong on that number thing...

Anyways, my point is, people have the right to choose what they want their number to be, whether to remain annonomous or side with a team. I mean , even if it was changed so Brandon had to set it to 0000, people could still just PM him and ask him to do it anyways.... I dunno, I don't really care.. it's just a number.

I'm here for the content people add to their posts... :D

Magnasmific
 

Well, i use magnasmific for just about everything i have; yahoo ID, AIM, MSN, ECT. So i just used this out of habit. Ill change my signature so that it says my real name, which happens to be

Alexander Steven McGee.

YEAH!

Anyways, magnasmific is my company name too. I have DBA for webdesign. Like i said before, it's just habit.

PEACE

If people are offended by what someone says, they have no business posting here.

I believe that people have a responsibility to their team, and the rest of the community here, to take responsibility for their own words/actions, and not blatantly lie by assuming a team number that was intended, if have the authority to say so, to serve as a place marker for those not currently on a team, but still involved with FIRST.

Those who take a team number 000 are lying: pure and simple. If I cannot take responsibility for my own posts, and my posts would bring shame to my team: I have no business posting here. The point of this forum is that we represent our teams, but we do not speak for our teams. I may represent 303 on these boards, but my opinions do not nessasarily coincide with those of my teammates. My teammates and I disagree constantly.

I'm sure I've made people upset on these forums. I'm sure people have become angry over the subject of some of my posts. But I'm not afraid to give my team number, sponser, and my teams web site. I even give people my SN and email.

No one should need to hide their team identity on these forums.

I remember a time long ago, as a newbie to this board, my reluctance to jump in and post. I had been reading the board for a long time but was just intimidated by all the others who posted regularly and seemed to have a working knowledge of the topic. I wouldn't be too hard on those who do not wish to become public, yet. Let them get their feet wet and be comfortable in the group and feel accepted before they proudly sign name and team.
We are not looking to place blame for anything here, I just like meeting people face to face and knowing that I address them as Clark or D.J. or Andy and not ***whatsacoolname***. It's hard to reply Dear ***whatsacoolname*** and sound knowledgeable and sincere.

It's always nice to be able to go up to someone like Raul, or Andy Baker, or D.J. Fluck, and just say... Hi, I'm Jeff Waegelin... and be recognized (or even be recognized from my Who Am I pic). If I used some of my oddball online names, that would be a lot harder to do. It just seems like a more personal connection when you know someone's real name. They can be more like a friend, even if you've never seen them in person.

Can't we all get along
 

I agree that names help in the long run. Everyone has the right to concel there name from the public for some reasons though. I mean you can have a screen name and then in the signature you could put your name and team #. Using our real names can be ok but i believe in the idea of using fake names. Using our real names leaves us up to the outside world and the sicko's out there, since this website is accessable to anyone. So the debate whether to have names as screen names should not be an issue. The issue is how we can get F.I.R.S.T bigger and better.

Good points, Mr. Skierkiewicz.

It does look a lot more professional if you post with a real name - and plus, people can recognize you at competitions.

I recogize names like Joe Johnson, Andy Baker, Ken Leung, etc. because they are real names, not just screenames, and I can match a real face to a real name, and when they speak, it's a real person speaking - they have credibility that comes with identity.

Who would you trust - someone who tells you their name and who they work for, or someone that does not give any information about themselves or their background?

It is obvious to me who I would choose when asking for information or answers to a question on these message boards.

I choose to remain as team 000
 

Just thought of a quick solution regarding the misuse of Team 000 as someone see it as...

For the people who wishes to not associate themselves with any one team should be given the option to describe their affiliation with other organization they are working with.

A lot of people choose to stay around for FIRST even though they are no longer with their old team, I don't think those people should feel bad for putting team 000 as their team.

I myself worked for an organization call WRRF, and I work at the regionals with the FIRST staffs, and I feel very uneasy if I am to put 192 (my old team) as my team number, simply because I don't work with them anymore, and people might ask me questions about that team that I can't answer.

There are many status out there that could qualify as team 000... Such as people in the up coming Freelance FIRST some of the people are working to set up right now, and in other RRF's like SCRRF, robotics educators, or any of the organization in the FIRST-related-organization shown in that sub forum.

People entitled to those status should have the freedom to choose team 000, and put up another little description under their name saying what organization they work with. As FIRST grow bigger and bigger, there will be a whole lot of people who don't have a team anymore.

So, what I am really saying is, keep the team 000 status for people who deserve them. If you don't think some of the people deserve such status, or think they are faking it and hiding their information... then ignore them if you don't want to read their post.

Otherwise, member profiles have very little to do with the quality of people's post. So, don't be so fast to judge people without taking your time to read what they have to say, and see what kind of contributor to this forum they are.

Don't trust someone's info if you really believes they are trying to mess around to fool people... But not because they don't want to put up a simple number. Otherwise you are limiting yourself to lots of good people out there. The number is only skin deep.

I have team 000 in my member profile right now, and I hope that none of you will force me to change it to something else.


P.S. I hereby claim myself to be an unofficial team captain of team 000 ;P ;P ;P. Challenge me if you want that title, but only in the rumor mill ;). :D :D :D

j/k!

My Views on Real Names
 

Usernames should always be your real name. There have been several instances where someone has come up to my pit asking me whether I was there or not. I was proud to shake their hand, and meet that person. It would have been strange for someone to come up to 519's pit and ask for "___blanK___" from Chief Delphi. All 11 of us would have been staring at each other, trying to find out who that was.

Now, only my first name is in my username, but that's because I have a ridiculously long last name. Everyone who knows me just calls me Marlon anyway.

Using your real name is the best
Shows that your not afraid of who you are

A good point Andy.


There, mines changed

Talon Kratochwill

If I meet you and you pronounce it corrsctly, I'll give you a dollar!

I use the A.K.A. field, if anyone wants to know my name, they know where to look (that's what the AKA field is for anyways, thanks Brandon ;))

There can be only one...

I don't really think you need my full name. As far as I know, I am the only Eddie (and if that's not the case, certainly the only EddieMcD). It's amazing how a nickname can be so... identifying. Especially when it's based on the real name.

::waves to Big Mike::

See, you people know who I'm talking about. And when someone says EddieMcD (or just plain Eddie), they know it's me.

Re: Real names, please
 

Well, since Jeff pointed for us to post over h'yah, I will.

I guess if I really really really wanted to, I could switch my name to "William Leverette." But I won't for three reasons:
1) If I'm checking CD on the road, that's (counts)...nine more letters I have to type. Time is usually of the essence in such situations.
2) I don't need people trying to butcher my name...
...you get the idea. (If you're really that curious, it's pronounced "Lehv-er-ET. Like "lever met" without the m.)
3) Even though it's not my legal name, if you call out Billfred and I hear you (that being the key part), I'll answer. Which I guess makes it my real name.
4) If Madonna can do it, Cher can do it, and Dave can do it, then by golly so can I!

But if I had a really cryptic name with lots of numbers and leetspeak, I'd be very much inclined to change it.

(Hey! Maybe I should change by name to B!11phr33|)twelveityninetythrizee. That could be fun.)

Re: Real names, please
 

I'm going to keep "Jay H 237" for three reasons.

1. The fact is all through my life no one calls me "Jason". Either they don't know or they don't bother to call me by my real first name. The only time I've been called "Jason" is when I'm in trouble! :p I've always been called "Jay".

2. Since I signed on I've had my real name, Jason Hartmann, in the AKA field. I just use "Jay" (what people call me), "H" the initial of my last name, and "237" my team number.

3. And the last reason. So far there's only two Jay H 237's on this forum. :p Jay H 237 #1 and Jay H 237 #2. If I was JVN then maybe people would get confused! :D

Re: Real names, please
 

Way to go with bringing back the old thread! (jk) there is another one on the exact same subject...post in that now, please!