Mini-subgroup for Chief Delphi?

[Mowling]

Originally Posted by Garrett.d.w

The only issue that I see with your current plan is involving the newer students (the ones that should be targeted in these exercises). CD contains a huge amount of jargon and issues that would easily overwhelm a rookie.

Ah!! You're right about leaving rookies out of the picture. Considering the fact that the majority of our team this year are new to FIRST, the test wouldn't do too much to benefit everyone. If I were to host a series of "Chief Delphi" lessons before the test, do you think that would benefit? Also, if there's anything absolutely necessary that needs to be covered in these lessons, I'd love any of your suggestions. Thank you for all of your help!

[Chris is me]

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

[slijin]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

This.

Seriously, CD is a great thing to use during the season but it's not a bible or something - it is what it is, a place for teams to communicate, sometimes collaborate - and sometimes conspire.

That being said, there's no reason for the majority of people on your team to not have a CD account, or at the very least, to not visit the site occasionally. I just keep my CD tab on auto-refresh

[Sconrad]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

I think you guys are taking Chief Delphi too seriously.

As long as you don't destroy your team's reputation here or something, there's not much need to take the website super seriously. We're a forum to help other teams, not an aspect of the competition itself.

Thanks for your input. I am on Meena's team and while it may seem like we are taking it too seriously, the purpose of this Chief Delphi thing is not only to figure out who can best represent our team on these forums in order to find answers quickly (Chief Delphi is an excellent source for this purpose ), but also to emphasize the concept of "everybody is a representative of the team." The internet is a great resource, but we have to remember, it only takes one poorly worded post or comment to aggravate or offend somebody.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by Sconrad

Thanks for your input. I am on Meena's team and while it may seem like we are taking it too seriously, the purpose of this Chief Delphi thing is not only to figure out who can best represent our team on these forums in order to find answers quickly (Chief Delphi is an excellent source for this purpose ), but also to emphasize the concept of "everybody is a representative of the team." The internet is a great resource, but we have to remember, it only takes one poorly worded post or comment to aggravate or offend somebody.

This is very true, and I'm very thankful that when I was on 1714 I was taught the importance of quality representation. I'm a bit of a loose cannon myself (really??? ), but I think the best way to address the issue is to make the responsibility of representing your team a fundamental part of the team culture. If you're preaching the values of being a good team representative routinely, you'll need nothing special for Chief Delphi. And it sounds like you guys are doing that already!

[EricH]

Definitely, a bit of teaching would help.

Some things to cover in teaching:
-Standard forum etiquette.
-Spelling and grammar (while we won't not answer you if you misspell a word, having the right spelling, grammar, and punctuation does wonders for understandability).
-Tone. So many things can ruin a good forum posting, but having an aggressive/flaming tone is probably the big one.
-Topics to avoid. There are a few of these, but in general, three stand out: student vs mentor debates, baseless allegations of cheating (which has an annoying tendency to come up in the student/mentor debates), and the classic "The refs made the wrong call, now my team is 60th instead of 45th" or similar discussions. (Though, the last is dependent on tone. If you ask for an unofficial, broader discussion of an interpretation of a rule because you want to further your understanding of why you got X instead of Y result, chances are that you'll be just fine.)
-Proper placement of a question (i.e., all the subforums)

You may also want to talk about a few of the features of the forums like the reputation feature and the spotlights. Oh, and the search feature. It's amazing how many people don't find that one without being told about it.

Oh, and skip the test. This is a class that goes straight to the final, and the final lasts for a long time.

[Mowling]

I wouldn't like to restrict Chief Delphi only to one group of students. That would be way too awful. The Chief Delphi group would just help our team with forums. It's also a lot easier for students to ask for advice from a specific person, rather than to ask random team members who may or may not have an answer.
Haha, I can see how this process might be going a little bit too far, but, at least for me, I'd rather have students take CD seriously, than not recognize its existence at all. It's hard to tell a large group of students to post on a forum when they have a question. Some of them don't even know what Chief Delphi is! I know several students who feel too busy and never go on Chief Delphi. Of course, they end up missing out on a plethora of information which is a huge loss for everyone. I definitely don't want this process to seem competitive. So I'm really sorry it comes across like that.
Thanks for your suggestion on what to cover! All of these are great topics to learn. Mastering the search feature will be a difficult lesson to learn, but I'm sure that the students could do it. XP
Maybe I'm a little biased, but I'd like to keep this test. The test is still a good team building exercise and the overall results could provide a better outlook for this year's students. Chief Delphi or not, a test like this could really reflect on the character of our team. Thanks for all of your support.