Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Here is where I stand. I'm the leader of 188, but I am leaning against something like this. I might change my mind. For the moment, let's ignore the feasibility of determining who these 'team leaders' are, and let's ignore the fact that different people will have different definitions of what a 'team leader' is (thoughtful mentioned a small number of team leaders on his team, whereas If I read shyra1353's intent correctly, it was to give the team leader access, and Elgin Clock seems to be thinking more along the lines of adult mentors speaking with each other). I’m willing to bet that at least two-thirds of the participants in this forum have some kind of leadership role. But we can deal with those issues later.

Now, Brandon, judging by his relative silence, is (I think) leaning against this as I am, so the proponents of this proposal would probably have to put forth a strong argument for it to convince him of its necessity, but I'd really like to hear why this forum wouldn't be a fancy euphemism for a place for the 'elite' to vent, which I think is neither gracious nor professional. CD is a very self-sufficient forum. This is shown most recently by the popularity of reputation points and by the fact that we basically moderate ourselves. Now of course there is the odd person who doesn't think before posting, as JVN points out, but it's also true that they are learning as they read and post (and that they lose credibility and thus are effectively gagged, for lack of a better term); John in fact says this was the case for him ("When I started posting here, I was a moron"), though I doubt that. I fear that people might, well... stay moronic if this forum goes in, to use his terminology, because there won’t be that educational aspect that CD has right now. Will instituting this forum really help? Wouldn't such a forum hurt this CD environment I described?

I can see some of the topics that Andrew Dahl mentions might work in a leader’s forum, but at this point I’m not convinced it’d make very much change for the better.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Brandon among the brightest and best web guys I know. I cannot give him enough praise for the hard work, spirit and energy he puts into making this site what it is today... ...but... this is not his site to do with as he likes, nor is he the sole arbitrator when it comes to what happens on this site.

The idea for these fori came from many members of the Chief Delphi team and once it was up and running, the Chief Delphi online community.

On another thread, folks ask, "Why is the Chief Delphi Forum so popular, given that other fori exist?"

Brandon is a big part of it, but even more important, in my view, is the Vision behind the technology.

ChiefDelphi.com was formed when the Chief Delphi team leaders decided that the future of FIRST literally depended on teams talking among themselves with out having to involve Mom and Dad back in Manchester. We felt that we were never going to grow up as teams unless we had an effecient method of sharing information.

I am sure that many folks do not realize that in 1996, mass FAXES were the only method FIRST had to communicate to teams (and it sometimes took days for all the faxes to go out over the phone lines).

The Internet hit the popular culture and some folks on the Chief Delphi team had the vision for how it could be used to facilitate that team to team data sharing.

Just a small list of features we were early with and continue to lead in:

• Pictures along with poster names (implemented BEFORE the switch to vBulliten which made this more or less automatic - FYI)
• User Uploadable Picture Galleries
• User Uploadable White Paper section
• User Polls
• Paramutual Betting (Ventures)
• Private Fori (for FIRST Judges and others to communicate -- even WE could not view them -- Rats!)
• The list goes on and will continue to expand.

When we feel there is a need for a feature to help facilitate team to team communication we will do our best to add it.

Bottom line: Near infinite kudos to Brandon, but he is not all there is to the Chief Delphi online community...

Joe J.

P.S. Sorry for the thinly veiled bragging nature of this post, but I had to get that off my chest... ...I am better now. JJ

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Yep. What Joe said. When I make big changes, I still run them past at least my dad, if not all the team 47 leaders.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

I thing I don't quite understand about the first argument is the assumption that the only purpose for this idea is for team leaders to come in and "vent". Can you see no better purpose than that? My belief is that controlled amount of venting is healthy for someone under stress and pressure, but those venting would be kept in a personal level between friends and colleagues. So that would not be a good purpose to start this "team leader forum". I can think of something like "A smaller, more focused place for team leaders to chat about things in FIRST without the massive amount of posts filling the CD foruming right now", but that's just something on top of my head.


The second argument is assuming that if such a place exist, all the team leaders will stop posting in CD forum. I can safely say that, including myself, a lot of team leaders enjoy posting in CD forum and have intelligent discussions with the students and just about everyone else in the FIRST community. They take their time off their busy schedule to come in and post messages. That dedication isn't going to go away because a seperate, smaller forum comes up. You can notice a lot of team leaders aren't posting messages right now. Those prefer to keep their silence will do so anyway. And those who prefer the experience of posting on CD forum, they will continue to do so too.

These are just my opinions anyway.

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Sorry for sounding like a lawyer.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Leung I thing I don't quite understand about the first argument is the assumption that the only purpose for this idea is for team leaders to come in and "vent". Can you see no better purpose than that? My belief is that controlled amount of venting is healthy for someone under stress and pressure, but those venting would be kept in a personal level between friends and colleagues. So that would not be a good purpose to start this "team leader forum". I can think of something like "A smaller, more focused place for team leaders to chat about things in FIRST without the massive amount of posts filling the CD foruming right now", but that's just something on top of my head.

This is fair, but I fear it is a bit too idealistic. To suggest that team leaders universally embody some kind of superiority is not right and not accurate. I fear that that is what the mere existance of this forum will suggest. Team leaders are just as guilty of whining and talking behind people's backs as the next person, and encouragement of this certainly isn't the aim of this community. Leaders clearly are not an exclusive group (an example of what I would say is an exclusive group warranting closed discussion would be referees, as Joe Johnson said).

To those that think a 'venting forum' is good, are you saying that it's healthy to vent about non-leaders to others without their knowledge? I'd say if that is what the forum encourages, then it's encouraging pretty childish behaviour, from the eldest of us at that. Venting is fine and healthy, but not here.

I cannot fathom a reason to have an exclusive forum for leaders; in the current system, if someone says something silly, uninformed, or preposterous, the experienced forumgoers have the choice to ignore them, or to teach them and help them understand. Do we really need to create an environment where this is not the case? Hey, if someone can find an example of a topic that shouldn't be discussed in the open or privately, I'm all for it. But I can't think of one. I'm not suggesting that the purpose of this forum would be venting; I'm suggesting it would be used as such, because leaders are no better than their teammates.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ken Leung The second argument is assuming that if such a place exist, all the team leaders will stop posting in CD forum. I can safely say that, including myself, a lot of team leaders enjoy posting in CD forum and have intelligent discussions with the students and just about everyone else in the FIRST community. They take their time off their busy schedule to come in and post messages. That dedication isn't going to go away because a seperate, smaller forum comes up. You can notice a lot of team leaders aren't posting messages right now. Those prefer to keep their silence will do so anyway. And those who prefer the experience of posting on CD forum, they will continue to do so too.

I'm suggesting the possibility of that happening. If leaders--those with presumably the most experience, knowledge, etc.--begin to a) concentrate on that forum, or b) become encouraged to think they are 'too good' for conversing with less experienced members to any degree no matter how small, the community will suffer. I don't think either of these will happen to an appreciable degree, but it's nowhere near impossible either.

Your logic is flawless speaking for yourself. Speaking for myself, if I participated in such a forum, it wouldn't change how I posted elsewhere, but I can't say the same for everyone (nor will I give examples of who I think this might be different for :D). The likelihood of anything in the second argument happening is miniscule. Consider it debunked.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Johnson Brandon among the brightest and best web guys I know. I cannot give him enough praise for the hard work, spirit and energy he puts into making this site what it is today... ...but... this is not his site to do with as he likes, nor is he the sole arbitrator when it comes to what happens on this site. The idea for these fori came from many members of the Chief Delphi team and once it was up and running, the Chief Delphi online community. [...] When we feel there is a need for a feature to help facilitate team to team communication we will do our best to add it.

I don't believe I suggested otherwise. But Brandon is the most vocal, and the one that actually implements all the features. But you're right of course. So then what are your thoughts about this topic?

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Perhaps I have misread the initial post in this thread, but the "venting" aspect to me played a minimal part in the thought process for this new forum. In fact, over the past few days that I have been following this entire thread, I have thought that this is very similar to a "teacher's conference room". (I do not mean to imply that all team leaders are teachers. I am merely using this for comparison purposes.)

The forum would be for the team leaders to discuss issues that they may have already attempted a solution to, but need other assistance from more veteran team leaders. These issues, however, do not need to include anyone other than the team leaders. For instance, in dealing with a problem between a student and a mentor, the team leaders on the forum would be the people that had previously dealt with this issue and, therefore, can offer guidance.

To go back to the comparison of the "teacher's conference room," a teacher will often talk to other teachers and administrators about students in their classes. Perhaps one teacher will have noticed that a student is disruptive in his classroom, but not in another. The teacher with the problem will then ferret out the other teachers of the student to determine what solutions are possible to stop the disruptive behavior. This discussion, however, is not one that the students in the school should have the opportunity to listen to.

As a person who was taking credential classes while in the classroom, I can tell you that the other first-year teachers in the classes with me would often discuss possible solutions to problems we were each having in the classroom. I could have turned to my students and said, "You have been disruptive again. How can we change your behavior?" If I did that, I would never have had any semblence of control.

Other issues that were also discussed included lesson plans. What lessons worked and what didn't? What would the other teachers have changed and why? There are things that adults often view in hindsight that a student would have missed, such as covering the topic of plagiarism on a research report. In addition, there are standards that the students are not necessarily aware of, yet they must still be kept in mind during lesson planning.

Again, there are just some issues that the team leaders have either attempted solutions to and need more assistance or that just don't need the attention of the students to begin with.

At least, that was my take on the whole idea behind the new forum.

indieFan

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Allison,

Would it help if we set up some sort of anonymous letter corner type of section, where people can send an e-mail or PM to a person running that section, who will post the message (and remove the sender's name) so others can respond to those questions or concerns?

Because that could be done really easily, without damaging any one's or team's reputation, or hurt their feelings, if the letters are written correctly. Of course, it will only work if everyone understand that it is not a place to vent, or intentionally say bad things about your own team, but a place to ask for advice or seek help from other people in FIRST. And people would only use it if they don’t want their own team to know they have these concerns or problems. But like you said, the problems won’t go away by ignoring them.

This is still an idea to be thought out, of course, but I just want to throw out the idea and see what people think, and how it can be better.

-Ken L

Re: seperate section for team leaders
 

Without showing any hard evidence, I can only speak what myself would do, and see if others agree or disagree. Speculation can only take us so far, without trying things out. I guess we will never know what other people will do unless they tell us, or use experiments to see what happens.