FRC Blog - My Bad Call

[Chris Fultz]

Originally Posted by Jay O'Donnell

Gotta love Frank being able to admit when he's wrong.

I don't know that i would say Frank was "wrong". He made the decision he made with the information that was available / given to him at the time. As it turns out, that information was not complete. During the event, he made the right decision with the wrong information (he thought the team wanted a back-up, then got repaired, and changed their mind).

Later, given new / more information, he changed his decision to reflect the actual situation.

I think this is a great outcome.

[jvriezen]

Several are wondering why Frank/FIRST have not addressed other seemingly similar situations publicly as has been done here.

While I have no specific 'inside' information regarding any of the situations, lets give Frank/FIRST/HQ the benefit of the doubt here. It is clear that when the situation lends itself, a public explanation such as today's is given and the resolution is a good one. It could be that circumstances around other situations are such that a public 'airing' of the situation and its resolution is not in the best interest when all affected parties are considered. That doesn't mean that a best case resolution hasn't been made in ways that are not made public. FIRST has had more transparency in recent times, but that does not mean they can always be fully transparent on all matters.

The directly affected parties for such issues deserve to have their concerns considered and typically will communicate directly with FIRST. The rest of the FIRST community is not entitled to have all matters and their resolutions explained to them as doing so may compromise some confidential information or have other undesirable effects. In some cases, parties are asked not to discuss resolutions with others as part of the resolution. This is the way it works in the real world, folks. Again, I am in no way saying that anything like this HAS happened in any situation (I have no clue), just saying that hearing nothing doesn't always mean you can assume nothing has happened. If you are not a directly effected party, assume that you do not have all the facts and your conclusions are suspect. This was the case for some CD posters concerning the SVR issue, prior to Frank's blog post.

Thank you Frank for all you do for FRC.

[sbrierty]

Since there seems to be some lingering confusion on the Orlando situation I'm posting the link to the thread that has posts from 1902, 624, and 233.

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...127083&page=12

Judge for yourselves how similar or not the situation is compared with SVR. It seems in both situations Frank was asked to make a decision with incomplete or incorrect information.

**EDIT** 233 is the only alliance member left who does not currently have a spot at Championship. (They were also the alliance captain of that #1 seed)