Why it is sometimes hard to be a student on CD.

[Nathan Streeter]

I'm very impressed by the OP... quality post reflecting a tremendous amount of maturity!

I do think that he is onto something real... many mentors have been doing this a long time and have a strong prejudice against someone new who thinks they're a hot-shot (or acts like they think they're the next Einstein champion). I've seen many people with a slight bit of immaturity get some serious red dots and negative posts just because they aren't in the "ChiefDelphi Group Think" world... and I've sometimes seen the highly experienced mentors from reputable teams with a "reputation beyond repute" get a lot more benefit of the doubt than I often think their post should receive.

Originally Posted by JesseK

I don't think that mentors have a hard time taking good advice. I bet most of us have a hardened skepticism against "claims", "opinions", "thoughts" and "feelings" that are not backed up by data, facts, verified demonstrations or in some cases - common sense.

I disagree.

I think many of "us motivated, mature mentors that embrace FIRST values" still often react with our feelings, play favorites, and are defensive about some/many things... not to mention the many adults in FIRST that don't necessarily embrace FIRST values and have the maturity you'd hope! I think, yes, we like to think we're highly empirical... but from my experience, many people claiming to be highly empirical and fact-driven are actually highly emotional and defensive.

[logank013]

I think it's become easier to be a student on CD as CD has matured me. When I first joined almost exactly a year ago, my posts were somewhat childish and I was told a few times from a lot of different people what should and shouldn't be said on here. As I've been on here, the reputation system and reading what other people say and how they say it has helped my posts become more thought out and higher quality stuff. I think the biggest thing is if you join, don't be scared away. Feel free to PM some frequent flyers on this site and ask them about what should and shouldn't be said. Most of them would be more than willing to help. Remember that not everyone is perfect (but this shouldn't be used as an excuse either!). I know I sometimes slip up every once in a while and say something that shouldn't have been said or should have been said in a better way. About a month ago, I said something that was received as completely different than I meant it to say. Looking back at it, I saw how people received it in a negative way. Just try to cut out those situations by reading your post from all angles before you post it.

Don't be afraid to write a post for 15 minutes and then not post it. I've done that before many times. I tend to read my posts 4 or 5 times before I post them. When I first joined, I never reread my posts and said some really really odd stuff.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I think part of the issue is that students these days are so connected to the internet and social media that they over post. They come in all excited and saturate CD with a lot of useless posts and questions that could be found with a proper search.

Not to point you out as a negative but look at your numbers Sperkowsky.

You joined: Jan 2015 total posts 1280 in just over 15 months

Now look at me

Joined Jan 2007 total posts 966 in just over 9 years. (i had another account before but was inactive for a time on CD and couldn't remember it)

There are many times that I write up a post and then end up not posting it because at the end of the day what I was going to say wasn't really going to add to the conversation or after I typed it out I realized it wasn't really worth getting into the conversation.

I've preached this about team growth in FRC but it works here as well. Quality over quantity.

Oh, I definitely am way too connected and definitely made quite a few useless posts when I first got here. At this point I try to make my posts as productive as possible and definitely stay out of situations when I do not feel I have anything good to say.

[gblake]

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

...
I disagree.

I think many of "us motivated, mature mentors that embrace FIRST values" still often react with our feelings, play favorites, and are defensive about some/many things... not to mention the many adults in FIRST that don't necessarily embrace FIRST values and have the maturity you'd hope! I think, yes, we like to think we're highly empirical... but from my experience, many people claiming to be highly empirical and fact-driven are actually highly emotional and defensive.

Nathan - What you posted here isn't disagreement, unless you are trying to say that a non-trivial population of the sort of CD user Jesse described simply doesn't exist.

You both can easily be right. Many CD users can fall into Jesse's camp and many can fall into the one you described.

I think you are both right enough, and that you both are describing a part of the total CD universe.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by lethc

What constitutes certain reputation as unnecessary?

Ill give you some examples (I wish I could go back and get all of mine but a lot of the comical ones are gone)

Here are some recent ones
The 2056 Streak has... 04-02-2016 11:19 PM - they still won
like what?

or

pic: Rookie Mistake 03-28-2016 11:18 PM rambling post and bragging
The "bragging" was me saying that I read the manual a lot.
Side note on this one the person who redded me also redded a person in F4 for no real reason and even PM'ed me recently because he could not red me again.

Here is what you should use it for
Negative reputation should be given if the person is posting something that detracts from the conversation. If the post is rude, inappropriate, breaks forum rules, is not gracious, etc; these are all good reasons to give negative reputation. If you have a personal grudge with someone, their team, etc, is it not appropriate to give them negative reputation for no reason. Giving negative reputation because you don't agree with what was said is not an appropriate use of the reputation system. People are entitled to their own opinions, and just because you don't agree doesn't mean the user was wrong or not contributing to the conversation.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Carolyn_Grace

How do you better propose to encourage and teach students the proper way of interacting on CD?

Gray dots?

Again I like the dot system for the most part. I think a quick PM reminding someone that what they said is out of line may be the better way to handle the situation sometimes.

[asid61]

Personally I never give red rep, only grey, because I can never be sure if I'm contradicting an opinion, tone, or just facts. I've been tempted to give red once or twice, but it's just not worth it.
I don't have a lot of rep for my posts because many of my posts are just "great robot! I have some questions...", because I feel like giving compliments isn't really a wasted post.
Students are the ones who need the red rep the least, especially because many times they just don't know any better. The killers are the "mentor built robot blah blah" kids who just picked that up from their own teams. I know my team has had a huge bias against powerhouse teams for several years, and only recently has the leadership been able to lessen it. I can see many of the students, who are great in other ways, mess up by repeating that sentiment online.

[s_forbes]

When I was still a student, I didn't post very much on Chief Delphi because of the community's fixation with etiquette. The thing that brings us all here is FRC, so I expected more focus on robotics content. In the world of internet forums, CD is kind of like a staunch country club.

I still hold that opinion, but now I'm older and don't care as much about how other people on the internet think, so I just post about robots and try not to worry too much.

[cadandcookies]

Originally Posted by EricLeifermann

I think part of the issue is that students these days are so connected to the internet and social media that they over post. They come in all excited and saturate CD with a lot of useless posts and questions that could be found with a proper search.

I'm pretty sure this has been something that people have complained about on CD for a long time. It isn't limited to "kids these days." There's probably some interesting psychology stuff going on that I don't have the expertise to comment on.

Originally Posted by Nathan Streeter

I think many of "us motivated, mature mentors that embrace FIRST values" still often react with our feelings, play favorites, and are defensive about some/many things... not to mention the many adults in FIRST that don't necessarily embrace FIRST values and have the maturity you'd hope! I think, yes, we like to think we're highly empirical... but from my experience, many people claiming to be highly empirical and fact-driven are actually highly emotional and defensive.

Yup. Technical people love to think we're being objective all or most of the time, but we're just as susceptible to pointless "holy wars" as anyone else.

Real life example: You know those clothespins people pin to each other at competition? I hate them. Specifically I hate it when I'm in a conversation and no less than three separate people pin me. Is it a logical response to get angry at this? Not really. They're just pins. Still, I got worked up about this enough that I actually raised my voice to tell a student to stop it. Not really one of my finer moments, but for the rest of the tournament I just kept any of the pins people put on me on my hat, and moved on with my life, because it's entirely pointless to worry about some pieces of wood when my drive team needs to talk to our partners next match. I could think up a half dozen reasons to validate my frustration, but at the end of the day, they would just make me feel better at myself and put me further out of touch. Sometimes it's worth reconsidering why you're frustrated and either moving on or changing your tactics.

[Anupam Goli]

When I was a student, I don't recall having a difficult time on CD with the rep system or being taken seriously. For the most part, I just asked questions for help, with the occasional strategy and team organization question. The majority of my posts actually come from Fantasy FIRST. I think Eric Leifermann has a good point though, and today's social media and sites like reddit that are popular with high school students tend to have a lot of constantly refreshing content. When I was a student, i used to browse and "lurk" CD a lot, which I think is perfectly acceptable and, in fact, is a good way of understanding how to post properly and effectively in the community.

The best advice I could give to a student who is making their CD account is to just read the discussions going on and have an open mind before posting; this way the students can understand how discussions happen and how to contribute to the discussion.

[pfreivald]

CD is a community, and like any community it has its own culture. Unlike most communities, it's a tremendously easy one to join.

There's some impetus on the community-joiner to observe and acclimate (and/or deliberately not acclimate), and some impetus on the community to be welcoming.

Welcome to the wide world of human interaction, forum-style.

[JesseK]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Here is what you should use it for...

Herein lies the reason reputation flies around all willy-nilly going nimbly-bimbly from tree to tree*. It's merely a example from your post but it can easily be generalized to many who post on CD.

Who is "you"?
Why isn't this predicated as your opinion? Stating it as fact shows lack of humility and ignorance to the possibility you may be wrong.

*Super Troopers reference...

[Kevin Leonard]

I find people rarely give out negative reputation unless it's deserved. Occasionally a large group will all give deserved negative reputation to a person. But most of the time CD-ers give the benefit of the doubt in my opinion.

If you find yourself getting a lot of negative rep, I'd say it's probably you, and not the system that needs to be fixed.

I'm not going to pretend everything I've ever posted has been productive or as mature as it could be. But if you don't proofread, if you don't format your post in a readable way, and if you don't contribute to the discussion, I see no reason why people shouldn't give out more negative reputation than they do now.

Learning to deal with criticism, learning to discuss things in a civil manner in a way that is readable- these are lessons that CD can help teach students. I know it did for me.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by JesseK

Why isn't this predicated as your opinion?

Because it was quote from a FAQ http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/fa...reputation_faq

[Ari423]

Originally Posted by Sperkowsky

Ill give you some examples (I wish I could go back and get all of mine but a lot of the comical ones are gone)

Here are some recent ones
The 2056 Streak has... 04-02-2016 11:19 PM - they still won
like what?

or

pic: Rookie Mistake 03-28-2016 11:18 PM rambling post and bragging
The "bragging" was me saying that I read the manual a lot.
Side note on this one the person who redded me also redded a person in F4 for no real reason and even PM'ed me recently because he could not red me again.

Here is what you should use it for
Negative reputation should be given if the person is posting something that detracts from the conversation. If the post is rude, inappropriate, breaks forum rules, is not gracious, etc; these are all good reasons to give negative reputation. If you have a personal grudge with someone, their team, etc, is it not appropriate to give them negative reputation for no reason. Giving negative reputation because you don't agree with what was said is not an appropriate use of the reputation system. People are entitled to their own opinions, and just because you don't agree doesn't mean the user was wrong or not contributing to the conversation.

+1

The dot system works well when it's used correctly. The example you gave in the OP was a good use of the dot system. You made a post that breaks the community rules (i.e. insulting a team by calling their robot mentor-built), and you got red dotted. That led you change your ways, and now you have fully reformed.

In these examples, the dot system was not being used properly. Small mistakes (especially when they aren't mistakes) or differences in opinion don't warrant a red dot. Maybe just a grey dot or PM.

To give another example, in one post I called the cheval de frise the "shovel the fries". Is this the correct name? No. Should I have called it that? Probably not. Does it deserve a red dot? Definitely not. A PM asking me to call it the right name would have done just as much good. Thankfully, I'm pretty thick-skinned and this didn't turn me off CD, but if I were a new poster with little experience it could have very well made me never want to post again.

tl:dr the dot system is fine, our use of it might not be