[Matt Leese]

I'm going to go on record as agreeing with Andy (well, there's a surprise). However, I think the problem is generally bigger than simply criticism of other team's robots. For those who've been on Chief Delphi for many years (now I feel old), the same sorts of activities have been going on for those years (I seem to remember quite a number of fights in 2001).

In my opinion, a lot of these hard feelings and fights are related to misunderstandings. It's much more difficult to convey a message in text than it is spoken. There's a lack of voice inflection; a lack of body language. It's much more difficult to tell a joke in text than it is out loud. This is doubly so when you're attempting to tease someone.

In another direction, it's important when giving criticism to give constructive criticism. Criticism is useless unless there's somewhere to go with it. It's not required that you have a solution for a problem but it is required that you phrase the criticism in such a way that the actual problem is targetted and not the person.

I think I have to disagree with Andy over the idea that all criticism should be sent through PM's. I think we all can learn quite a bit from good criticism and there's something that we can all contribute to it. The opportunity is lost if it's not constructive criticism.

Matt