[sammyjalex]

I'm curious why a Q&A forum was the solution that the group pursued instead of any number of other sorts of community-building platforms. I'd love to hear from Sam.

I think that there's a need for more support for students that start outside of their comfort zone and less than comfortable and confident in the FIRST community - more guides like the 358 electronics guides and Code Orange videos, more Karthik presentations, more FRCTop25s. But absolutely - student-focused.

But I'm also concerned, with the CD hivemind, I suppose, that more forums draw participants away from anything that could centralize that community. What I hear from a lot of the folks that are posting is that teaching students to search CD whitepapers, old threads, and photos is an important skill and offers a lot of learning. There seems to be concern that there's fortress getting built around the notion that CD is scary. Maybe it's a concern that this reputation will deter students from ever using CD and it will start to be less used by students. CD only works because so many folks use it year after year. Otherwise, it stops serving as a resource. I think about how NEMO and some Facebook groups have information that's valuable but work more like archives of past work. Why don't we start by working to remove that reputation. I think there's a lot that we can do. Where do we start?
Perhaps, I'm very wrong. I do think that this is a really cool project. I'm excited to see its growth and its success.

I've shared some of these thoughts with other students talking about similar ideas. I would love to see an advice podcast that supports FIRST participants team relationship questions. There are so many relationship advice podcasts - it'd be a fun take on a familiar idea. I would love to see a Facebook page that posts anonymous Q&As - the comments could be cool too. What other solutions did you consider? What other solutions could be fruitful in this community?

I have a question for anyone. What's an experienced student? If I'm a student and I want to ask a student a question, who do I ask? Who identifies the experienced ones. Is it about more posts on CD? Or a team with more banners? Neither seems like a particularly great solution. What do leaders look like in this broad, virtual community.

And there's no correct advice, let's be clear on that. Every major newspaper has an advice column. I think of Social Qs in the New York Times. All of these have a group of folks answering different questions. And they all think about situations very differently. We can certainly have opinions regarding helpful and terrible advice.