Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

*timidly climbs on to soapbox*

Hi everyone, I just wanted to post and make a point here, you can either read it, or ignore it, but I think this needs to be said. As you can see from my profile I first registered on these forums in October of 2002, and I'm coming up on 3 years on these forums. And in those three years I regret to say I've seen it slowly slide from a highly respected forum to a moderately respected forum with a lot of hostility and 'maliciousness' for lack of a better word in the eyes of many of my peers. I admit I've said some things like that myself, the site just isn't the same. When I first came here it seemed to be a great place, everyone was nice, there were many willing to share knowledge and help others. Now it seems more and more like a training ground for verbal snipers. Waiting for an opportunity to attack someone, and I'm seeing what appears to me the apparant breakdown of the principles of FIRST.

On my team, GP was always hammered in to us, and explained when asked and CD used to be the example we always used. It saddens me that GP is less and less prevalent around here. I've seen CD go through two upgrades, a few format changes and a lot of personality changes. The site no longer seems friendly and welcoming, and when I sent newer team members to the site to ask questions I was horrified when they came back saying "I don't think they'll be much help, they're just squabbling." So I'm coming out of my hole to make this point, and if it's Forum Suicide, so be it.

The hostility levels need to come down, and fast. Let's bring CD back to the proud peak it once had, we have the awesome Brandon Martus maintaining the site like crazy and we have all of your brilliant minds just waiting to work together, and I know the spirit of FIRST and GP is still around, so let's not hide it.

I admit I am scared to post here, often because I'm worried I'm going to get torched for disagreeing with somebody. I was even afraid to post this until a few more well known CDers told me to give it a try. I shouldn't be scared, it's silly, but there shouldn't be any reason for me to be scared either. I hope my point isn't coming off as too brash, as there are many helpful discussions and posts abound still, I don't mean to say CD is a doomsday remnant. My goal is to try to stem the flow of anger and hostility and Ungracious Unprofessionalism.

GP > UU.

Always.

*steps off soapbox* have your way with it, that's my two cents. I'd really like to see the return of the old CD. You're all so special, and if we work together, and make this site great(er) again, we can spread FIRST even faster and with even more open arms to new people.

Thank you.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Cheers! Very well made point Matt. I've noticed something similar as well, but in FIRST in general. It seems that for some reason, or at least what I see, GP has become a superficial item in much of FIRST, just some phrase that is hammered into everyone's head without explanation as to why. I've seen this on teams as well, competitive levels have risen and taken the place of GP. Of course, many teams still show the value of GP, but perhaps as a result of such quick expansion GP has gotten lost in the overall FIRST experience.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Very good post Matt... you are making a good point there in your post.

... one thing I definitely have to agree with you is we are not welcoming the new members the way we used to. All of us (no offense to anyone) need to face the fact that they are new, they don't know the forum rules by heart or as well as most of the veterans do on the forum. I admit, when I was a new member on the forum, I didn't know half of the things, took me a while to get used to it. For example, it took me a while to get used to the search feature on the forum.

Thats my opinion.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Last Season (2004) that was brought up at the NJ Team Forum, and one of the things we have discussed was FIRST is getting big, word is out, the fever is spreading, and that means more and more regionals, and one person said (names changed cause i forgot how to spell them) It used to be Woodie Flowers and Dean Kamen went to every regional, or nearly every regional, and well hearing Woodie and Dean talk about gracious professionalism, is somthing completly differnt, comming from, Jeff Seaton, and Paul Copi-oil, or Dan Green, it just doesnt have the same impact as when i used to hear it from Dean and Woodie, durning their speeches.

and acctully, as can be expected on any web based forum we have our goods and bads, but i think the moderator team does an excellent, job, not to take away from "Brandon's Mystical Thunder" (patent pending) but he isnt at the computer 24/7, well maybe he is, but he has other stuff to do, so the mod team increases in size with the membership and such, but to be honest, the good outweights the bad anyday, i mean we have our share of spam and people who seem to think CD means Complaint Department, but all in all i give it a 7 out of 10 on the GP-o-Meter

But all in all Matt, your right, if FIRST can find away to bring back the impact of Dean and Woodie's Old GP speeches, then i think FIRST will only get more exciting

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I really think you've hit the nail on the head. I know I've tried to convince my friends to join the site and they come back to me TERRIFIED. That's a real shame because I honestly feel this community has so much to offer. Chiefdelphi is where I really got to see GP in action, and I got to make a ton of friends. CD is almost like my second home because I really felt welcome and appreciated here. No one ever stepped on my toes or yelled when I made small mistakes. I would love for everyone to experience that same feeling.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I'm only hostile toward a few things. The first one is lack of searching. I like to come on here partly and answer as many questions as I can to help as many people as I can. Especially during the build season, the number of posts just explodes. I am probably one of the most frequent visitors to this site and even still it gets difficult for me to keep up with it all with over 100 new posts per day during that time period. It is even more difficult when many of the threads are duplicates. I can't find the posts I need if there are a bunch of duplicates that some simple searches could have prevented.

Also, posts in wrong forums really annoy me. If you can't take the time to get that right then you shouldn't be here.

Another thing is when people ask something that is clearly spelled out in the rules, like "how many CIM motors can we use?" The key to the success of electronic media is having good searching skills. Get some.

ANothEr thng tat ReeLY ghets ME is WhEn all the pEEps come in her WiD al dis FunKy righting ANd spelkling abnd GrammER misTakEs. It took you twice as long to read that sentence as it would have taken had it been written properly. And run on sentences that never use punctuation it gets really annoying when you have to sift through a whole paragraph of babble that has no pauses it just keeps going and never ends.

So mainly, I'm just against things that decrease the efficiency of these forums. Keeping the efficiency is the key.


The bottom line is if you come in here with a little Gracious Professionalism, you will most likely get a lot back. But if you are lacking the GP on your first few visits, be prepared for a slamming of Malicious Amateurism. Is that the way it should be, probably not. But that's the way it is, and most likely will stay.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Dudes and Dudettes,
I think one of the things we really need to concentrate on is that it takes a lot of courage to write something here. Doing it the first time takes a while to mustard up the intestinal fortitude to open your mouth (figuratively). Believe it or not, it was a couple of months before I started to get the feel of the boards and actually write something. (I think it started as an retort of a clearly wrong statement but that is a story for another day.) A new poster whether they are asking an obvious question or something that was put to bed on a previous post, needs to feel comfortable here. It may be the only way they can think of to get started. If they walked up to your pit and asked that question, you wouldn't send them away to go look somewhere else. You wouldn't berate them for their lack of knowledge of the English language or use of local colloquialisms. The point is, we need to make people feel comfortable and use this board for info and friendship. Let's welcome them in and when they are seasoned users, remind them that there are features like search. Encourage them to make their posts in a manner that everyone can understand and respect. Show them by your example that punctuation is your friend, spell checker should not be an option, and reading your post before submission is a must for self preservation. If they then choose to ignore the gentle hints...

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

As a mod on these forums it is tough to get through them all. It is even tougher to find ways to decide what is and is not a good or allowable post. We do our best and kudos for all of the other mods who usually beat me to the problems.

To start with, I believe that the only bad question is one that is not asked. Sure it seems wrong that someone ask what a CIM motor is or how many they can use but that is in my eye not the askers. We need to train them on how to find things and where. To teach a child to speak , do you get mad at them when they can't say DaDa or do we keep repeating, in loving ways, to encourage the learning curve. We need to be more sensitive on how other people see things because they always don't have the same perspective or insight that you/we do.

The bigger issue is the constant slamming and put downs that I have been seeing. The FIRST bashing that goes on (I am guilty sometimes, I know) really needs to stop. We/I need to find other ways to get to FIRST and have them listen. Sometimes I think that if we push hard enough here that FIRST will do our bidding when in truth, they are probably not even listening. This is not their board and they do not have to read here even though some do.What would be the impact on CD if we implemented a NO FIRST Bashing policy. That does not mean that we cannot discuss problems but that we just don't bash FIRST (or others).

It is the responsibility of every member of CD to help make the boards better. If you see someone making a bad post or needing help with the search engine, then we should be PMing them with helpful suggestions and not slamming them with neg reps. We all need to pitch in and it wouldn't take much to improve the best robotics site in the world.

The large growth of FIRST and CD is great but will also bring a larger demand on all of us as we try to educate and demonstrate what FIRST stands for. GP was not explained to me but shown. My first experience was at my first event as a spectator in Cleavland. What I saw in the pit area was all I needed to see in order to understand GP. It also sold me on FIRST. GP is best shown and lived and not talked about.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Last weekend I met Sabrina Varanelli, founder of team 1302, and I asked her what was the hardest part of starting her team up and she replied "getting the team to understand gracious professionalism". It really is a foreign concept to most people, especially those new to FIRST. We live in such a competitive society, where it often seems that the majority are just in it for themselves, that the idea that you would help strangers - your competitors no less - seems almost blasphemous. Witness the popularity of TV shows like Survivor and The Apprentice.

Another factor which may contribute to the challenging nature of some CD posts is the "banter" (as my daughter calls it) in many of our normal conversations. To listen to her talk with her sister, you might think that they loathe each other, though they are really very close. This challenge-based communication is fun when used between friends and well-known co-workers, but it's likely to intimidate, or even enrage others in a public forum like CD. Maybe we need a [BANTER] <your flame here> [/BANTER] tag!

So what to do? Think Tolerant. For example, rather than reply to an un-searched post with a flame, reply with some links to the posts they would have found if they searched, and a gentle reminder about "search is your friend" at the end. Remember that it is a really good thing that everyone thinks different and has different beliefs. What fun would life be if we did all think alike?

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Great point, I've been a frequenter of ChiefDelphi for about 7 months now, and even in the short time that I've been here I've seen the forums go up and down, at times its Cutthroat (recently is an example) whereas other times it was the great thing since robots were thought of (such as just before the championship) But something I've definitely learned is to ask myself after i click the Spell Check button (spell correctly people!) Do I want to submit this? lets take a look at this people, this is a public forum where many of our peers read, a couple of aggravated posts can change what people think of you.

Here are a couple of tips that can always help when posting,
-Do you really want to post what you just typed? its OK to delete it or edit it!
-don't take things too seriously, there is a tendency around here to for people to take a couple of remarks too seriously
-Search before creating a new topic, also make sure you search all forums, you may have missed a topic devoted to what you are looking for
-There never is a "best" its always opinion
-Spell Check!
-Try not to go political or religious in these forums, there are other sites for stuff like that
-Respect any Admin/Moderator decision
-keep a sense of humor, watch posting and you

Happy Postings!

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I could write 3 pages about my outlook on this situation, but I decided to be concise.

I think some people just take all of this too seriously.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

First of all: Excellent total post, Steve. You shared some great thoughts!

In response to the first paragraph quoted, you are absolutely correct. As you know, I sometimes work very closely with some FIRST people, and you are absolutely right in your supposition that they're not listening to the Forums...many are unaware of what the forums do, or even of the existence of this site. Someone else, I don't know who, made the suggestion to suggest to FIRST that they have someone scan the site, at least occasionally so that they have some idea of what's being discussed.

As far as posts are concerned, it's always much more gracious to make a suggestion privately, rather than make a public display! You both look better to each other and to the community at large. ;)

Occasionally, the behavior of others does need a direct bit of assertiveness. It's only lately, and perhaps more so this year, that I have personally seen or heard of less than gracious behavior from teams. I was really disappointed, because I've always thought that this was one activity where people were consistently nice to each other. And it wasn't always the young people. We need to stress the idea that grandma's watching everybody!

Now, what's the best way to get these messages out and about???

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I agree! This is especially true in the Rules/Strategy forum. Someone asks a question that could have been answered just by looking in the right part of the rule book (usually game rules or robot building rules). Then someone else looks it up and responds. And about ten more people do the same with their take on it. Takes up time needed to build a robot...

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Memo to Brandon: here's one for the Newbie button!

Thanks for sharing this - I still have a grin and giggle thing going.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I think these really need to be emphasized. We've developed the "Search before you post" mantra lately. Search is a great tool that everyone should learn how to use, but:

1) I did a brief search for "search before you post" and the threads they refer to.. on a few occasions, the original poster had negative reps with total post counts less than 10. Someone had it on their first post. To the rest of us that have seen the reputation debates and made up our mind that it's not really so important, this may have little effect, but on the user's first few posts?

2) One of the great things I like about FIRST competitions is that I can go up to a really veteran team, ask a question (that may turn out to be very obvious and seemingly quite stupid), and get a courteous, helpful answer without getting a "stupid newbie" or "you should know better" feeling. I might be alone in this, but seeing everyone spout out "search before you post" doesn't quite give the same effect. If someone is asking a simple question, perhaps "I found this answer to your question in this thread using search" or "{quick answer}. If you want more details, you might want to check out this thread I found using search." If someone is making a discussion question, perhaps, "I saw some other people discussing the same topic here:". The threads can then be closed/merged/etc. Text on the internet is very impersonal, and knowing FIRST's target audience, there's the possibility that a new user has never used the internet before. Some need a special welcome into the community, and the less impersonal our responses are, the better...

"I see you're pretty new to these boards. Welcome to the ChiefDelphi community! You'll find that there's a lot of helpful people and resources here that can help answer your questions and share the FIRST experience. Regarding <topic>, there's a lot of discussion about that topic <link>here</link> already. I found it using search function, which can help you find if someone else is wondering the same thing already. There's a wonderful tutorial about how to use search here. Hope that helps, and welcome again!"

We don't build robots because it's easy, we do it because it's hard. Maybe we can work on giving new members a warmer and gentler welcome, because it's hard ;).

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Good list! I would also like to add:

- You don't have to have perfect syntax and grammar, but if you want other posters to take you seriously, it helps to be able to form a coherent sentence. And let's face it, it's not really that hard, is it?
- Use your English skills to find the nicest way to say whatever you want to say. If there isn't a nice way to say something, you probably don't need to say it, at least not on a public forum. For example, disagreeing is fine, but instead of saying, "You're wrong!" you could just as easily say, "I disagree with you because..."
- Easy on the smileys! Please?
- If you're in so much of a rush that you can't type out entire words ("you" instead of "u", etc), you probably don't have time to be browsing an online forum.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I'd agree

I don't post much (if you can't tell), but i read alot. Sometimes i want to post and return the fact that they're being a little short tempered there, and it kinda stops me. I'm not going to waste all my time doing that stuff.
It's not nice. End of story

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

wow! I made the mistake of venturing into a thread a couple days ago on a political subject, and I got absolutely HAMMERED with assualts on my intelligence, comments on my grammer and punctuation (or lack there of)

I was accused of spreading half-truths and lies (with no rebuttal to the actual statements themselves, whatever they were)

and I was repeatedly hit with thinly vailed insults

To put it bluntly, Im appalled to see people on this forum think that insulting someone, name calling, labeling, or criticizing someone elses language, spelling, punctuation... is either appropriate, acceptable, or that this somehow makes your point for you

or that flinging a mulititude of insults and induendos is even better

If you know what someone is saying then they have communicated their message, there is no need for every post to have perfect spelling or grammer

logic and reasoning skills should be required in public schools. If you are in a passionate debate, insulting the other person and criticizing their language skills contributes nothing to your position.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I agree 100%. All too often people just reply with "Search before you post" with a link and it always sounds very harsh to me. Honestly, I find the "Search before you post" people to be way more annoying (and rude) than the newbies asking simple questions.

To those who love to slam people with "Search before you post": maybe you should think twice before you reply too. If someone came up to you at a competition and asked you how many points a tetra on a goal was worth, would you snap back at them, "Read the manual!" I hope not.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Yeap, you two are 110% right. just saying, go Search it is rude at times. Its more constructive to teach them something as well as give them an answer.

Appropriate Answer: They are worth 3 points on top and 1 point if they are underneath the goals. If you have any more questions you may want to consult here if you have any more questions.

you guys get the idea, you should think of Chief Delphi as an extention of the pit area, everyone is really friendly, love robots, and you can always get your questions answered. not as a forum where people slam each other just for the heck of it.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

The reason why that is done is so the page doesn't get flooded with duplicate threads. It is not meant to be rude it is meant to keep the page neat and orderly.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Simply saying "search before you post" can be interpreted as rude. All it takes is some grace, shown by the eloquent Genia. Look at that. She was helpful, concise, and said "search before you post" in a tactful way. Let's learn from her.

Andy B.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Yes, I understand why it is done, however, to the uninitiated, it looks like a very short, very unfriendly response.

How is a response that says "Search before you post" any more neat and orderly than one that says "I searched the forums and found that the answer to your question is {blah}. Here's some threads that came up that have already discussed this topic: {blah} {blah}."? To me, the latter just sounds a lot more friendly.

I guess I don't like it when people get publicly scolded for making a newbie mistake. Searching first is an etiquette thing that we take for granted but the fact that so many people make this mistake is an indication that it apparently is not common knowledge for new members and therefore we need to be nice about it.

The fact that it's in the rules when they sign up for this site should prevent it, but face it: a lot of people just don't read that stuff. Do you know how many teams I've inspected at competitions that failed to put the team number on their robot? It's one of the most common things that I have to tell teams to fix. And, it's in the rule book and it's the very first item on the inspection checklist and it's an easy one. As much as it irritates me each time I see it, I don't yell at the team and make some sarcastic comment about reading the rules. This is a very similar situation, and it's more important because it's very easy for people to misinterpret emotions and intentions when they're only reading text (especially if they're relative newbies to online communities such as this).

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

2 Thoughts:

- Efficiency, neatness, and orderliness are useful tools, but they aren't the end-all-be-all of a team or a forum.

- My rookie team went to Atlanta this year, and they were disturbed by the lack of GP shown by other teams, in contrast to the Las Vegas Regional (the only other competition we'd been to). The friendliness and camaraderie at the Regional was missing in the pit and on the field. There were even teams who covered up their robots in the pit when asked a question! It made the team question whether they just wanted to stick with Regionals next year!

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Why is it that I didn't hear stories like this when I joined FIRST three years ago?

It could just be me, but it seems like the emphasis on GP has decreased. Significantly, and not just on this website.

I'm not quite sure if this is on-topic in the thread, though, since this seems to be dedicated to the website more than FIRST in general. That said, I've got a few ideas brewing that I could post here (or elsewhere) later on...

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Genia rocks my socks! she is a very nice person and she always uses smileys and replies to PM's! I think we should all use her as a role model... :D

yeah about the lack of GP thing, I am a rookie and I found most people to be REALLY nice at competitions, both Pacific Northwest Regional and Championships, but I have noticed that sometimes on the forums people are a little less than nice. so let's all be like Genia and use smileys and be good FIRSTies
-anjali

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I have to say that Sabrina did a very good job in teaching her team what Gracious Professionalism is. She is one of the few examples of great student leaders in FIRST.

I feel the level of gracious professionalism has gone down(just a little bit) in the past year or so, but it can be re-enforced. Yet, FIRST is one of the few sports in which Gracious Professionalism prevails at such a good level. These are principles we students need to learn while we are young.

I think the "Search before you post" response was formulated because everyone was frustrated by the re-occurring threads.

Anyways, you brought up a nice point Matt, good job.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Gracious Professionalism is supposed to be the backbone in FIRST competitions. When I talk about the program I explain how even though it's COMPETITIVE we still work TOGETHER. One of my fondest memories was 2003's NJ Regional. 1156 (from Brazil) was a rookie team as was 1089. Unfortunately, the team had to ship their robot in pieces and reconstruct it the Thursday of the regional. I remember 1089 and team 25 coming together with tools and help to put their robot back together.

After 56 won Philadelphia, 1089 had a large discussion about raising money for them to go to Nationals. Nationals, for me, was one of the best experiences I've had in FIRST and it's one of the main reasons I keep coming back. Everyone in FIRST deserves the opportunity to experience what I have. They too have worked hard on they're robot and are worthy opponents- they beat us !

Our team is about helping, inspiring, and overall just being friendly. What better way to show how we feel about FIRST than to do anything we can to support it?

Something Mr. Gregory said that I find inspiring is the following:

" [FIRST] is ultra-competitive, but the point is that you're not trying to out-do your competition off the playing field. You want every team to have the best chance that they possibly could have. It could mean different things at different times. We've had numerous cases where we'd help a team fix their robot only to face them in the next round. Why? We want a good round, and we'd hate to see someone have to forefeit because of a broken bot. Someone needs a sprocket? we're there... a spare motor? sure thing... and in return, we hope that other teams would do the same thing (and they often do)."

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Does anyone have a good "one-pager" on how we (within FIRST) define "gracious professionalism"? I want a short description to give to incoming students in order to "set the stage" as newbies on the team.

Also, I've seen 99.9% living examples of gracious professionalism here on the CD forum as well as in the various FIRST events. Sure, in written form on this forum (and any other e-mail written correspondence) it is MUCH MORE IMPORTANT to follow these rules than it is for an in-person dialog:

1) Read the person's words twice; first for content and again for "tone" of writing style
2) The internet forums and e-mail is NOT a place to practice "text messaging" shorthand. You've got a full-screen view, so use it and use the language properly.
3) Sure, do a "search" first. They call it "putting your brain in gear before engaging your mouth". Then when you do post a query, it's fine to state "I tried to do a search, but....."
4) And....when you do reply....pretend that you're the recipient not the author. Many times I stash an outgoing e-mail for 24 hours before sending just to see if my "tone" and "mood" might have changed. Also, spell-check will get you lots of "points" with the person reading your thread.

I'm so thrilled and proud to be a rookie part of FIRST. Even at my age, many of the students have taught me so much about the true meaning of "gracious professionalism". Keep it up.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

The poster in this white paper may do the trick: http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pa...le&paperid=117

It's two years old, but GP is GP.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I'd like to start off by saying one very important thing

This thread is one of the best examples of gracious professionalism I have seen here in a long time.

I have already given rep points to 9 people in this thread. it's really great to see that when GP is brought to our attention again we are able to pull it off beautifully. now what we need to work on is having this kind of attitude all the time.

for all the bad i have seen on these forums, the main problem has been people takign things too seriously. i think there are a few guidelines that should be followed, some of which have already been mentioned, and some i am bringing up myself:

• don't give negative rep points for "newbie mistakes"
• be polite when posting a "search before you post" reminder
• for mistakes that are careless, not malicious, try to take advantage of the "neutral rep point" to give them a reminder without harming their rating. we ALL make mistakes, even Brandon and Dave
• try not to give negative reps on controversial threads. somebody who expresses dissapproval of an idea is only insulting that idea, NOT the people who follow it.
• if you really want to practice gracious professionalism, only give negative reps to those who fail to practice it themselves

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

First, I want to thank you all, your responses were more enthusiastic than I hoped, and there’s been a noted lack of the aforementioned hostilities. You’ve helped restore some of my faith in these forums.

Now, down to business…
The point of this thread was to bring to light some issues that I felt needed to be addressed, both within FIRST and on these forums. As many have stated in the pits I felt the familiar warm reception to questions and comments, and teams that were very GP and helpful. WPI (190) handed over several little things that saved us without a moments hesitation, whilst Jeff Waegelin in the 830 pit was always dealing with my crazy questions with a straight face on, no snappiness, even when things got really hectic. It’s on of the reasons I came back to FIRST this year and I’m happy to see it’s not gone. Thanks again for your kind words and let’s work together to make these forums, and FIRST as best as we can. I know I’ll be giving out more rep points now when I see GP on the boards, I ask that you all do also, if you don’t already. With positive influences, I’m sure we can improve the situation. I don’t expect perfection, and maybe I’m holding people to standards too high to be fair, but I expect we can all meet them.

Long Live Gracious Professionalism, and long live F.I.R.S.T.

Though I’ve been on these forums for nearly three years, I haven’t shaken things up much, or made any significant posts until recently, and the responses I received made me smile because they’re hard evidence GP is still around, thanks again for restoring my faith in it.

Thanks.

P.S. I’m just as guilty as everyone of skipping a search when in a hurry to post, I’m sure you’ve all done it too, let’s be a little easier on those that don’t search first? Genia’s approach is perfect, answers the questions, points out the search and manages to be tactful and gentle at the same time.

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

Great thread - thank you to all of the contributors to it.
I just want to make sure everyone knows that we (ChiefDelphi leadership) appreciate and are also concerned about this issue.
My response will focus on the lack of GP on our website by the users, as the bigger problem (FIRST in general) is for another day.
Let me begin by not re-stating every GOOD thing that has already been stated, but instead present a couple of things that we struggle with as the host.
1) How to be fair and reasonable to everyone - and I do mean everyone - that visits and wants to share ideas, thoughts, questions, etc.
We request everyone be kind, be tolerant, be helpful, don't do this and don't do that.
We have the best group of moderators, helpful regulars, and mentors that any site could ask for, including the best webmaster.
We trust (maybe too much) that people that come here (to CD) are inherently good and want to help others.
We tend to allow everyone have their own opinion (sometimes others are not going to agree with everything someone else believes) and we have been discussing way to limit discussion on topics where there is naturally going to be differences of opinion. (Religious and Politically discussion to name a couple)
The site is intended to share ideas and help others - at times it looks more like an on line message board with multiple posts between few people that just won't let go of their argument. These are the ones that usually turn ugly - perhaps we need to implement the 2 post rule to each thread. I'll have to ask Brandon if thats possible.
2) How to improve the "Welcome to the community of FIRST- we really do want to help" feeling with newer users.
Again, some of you regulars have been a extremely helpful - and unfortunately some of you have not been.
The growth rate of this website has been a difficult thing to manage (and I am not referring to he technical side, I am referring the the HUMAN relations side).
I believe that our posting "rules" cannot by themselves fix the problem - that can only be accomplished by continued support by the mentors and more importantly by the non-newbies and in the way that each of you respond.
Everyone has a list of things that annoy them about website posting - please
a) review your list
b) determine if there is something we (CD) can do to avoid those annoyances
c) send your suggestions to us (we are always looking for ways to improve the website)
d) add at the bottom of your list "I promise to be more tolerant with the people that post on CD, they may not have the same opinion as me - but that doesn't make them a bad person."

Sorry about the long post - just wanted to encourage everyone help us address this issue.
If we don't do something, we will lose the ability to be what we truly want this website to be.

Mike Aubry
ChiefDelphi

Re: Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism
 

I agree, granted I do see where koko Ed is coming from with the dozens of duplicate posts(The howstuffworks posts come to mind) I think that there are much nicer ways of letting people know that someone has alrady posted their topic.

I agree 100% with Tom Bottiglieri