Quote:
Originally Posted by bduddy
Here come the false equivalencies again. No one is arguing that teams should have minimal or no mentor involvement.
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I disagree. I've seen students argue that teams ought to be run without mentors. Not a large amount, and not in this thread, but this is pretty much a discussion that comes up every six months or less, and a large part of the time either the OP or a poster early on talks about how great their student run, student built, no mentor team is and how it's exactly what FIRST wants. That's also when the thread usually takes the dive to dead horse emoticons and people complaining that we've had this discussion a million times before (big surprise).
// Meta thread discussion
Part of the reason I think many people are defaulting to arguing that point is that
it's the point that has been brought up in the past. While I agree that it would be more constructive to focus on the grey in between, it's very understandable that some (especially veteran forum members) default to this line of argument. I've been on here for the last four seasons, and I already put these threads in the "not going to touch that with a HAZMAT suit and a 30-foot pole" category. I can't imagine how some of the people who have been on here for the last 10-15 years feel about it.
I'm actually a bit surprised (pleasantly) that there's been a higher ratio of constructive conversation in this thread than there usually is. I have some theories on why I think this might be the case but I'll probably post them in a thread with a more relevant topic later.
// End meta-discussion
End note: In these types of threads I try to always remind myself that the people posting almost always have the best intentions in mind-- inspiring students, changing culture, the whole shebang. Sometimes it's difficult to figure out where people came that leads to their current perspective, but that difficulty makes it all the more important to try. Having been on the other side recently of someone assuming that I had poor intentions, it can be really bewildering and confusing when someone assumes you're out for blood on their ideas. For both sides of the coin, taking a step back and looking for alternative explanations to the first assumption can be very valuable towards having a constructive dialogue.