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Unread 28-10-2016, 20:00
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Folks,

In my personal interactions with the folks at HQ, they do really care about each student, each volunteer, each teacher, each parent, and each team; but ...

Not everything they do is a home run.

And, in some periods, it's all they can do to deal with the subjects that keep catching their hair on fire .

It's not that the other subjects aren't important; it's that they get crowded out by subjects that are also important, and are even more urgent .

Somewhere, there is a person, who knows a person, who knows the person at First HQ who is the live human that needs to both hear these complaints from a helpful squeaky wheel, and publish some work-arounds.

Maybe someone who is suffering through the processes can volunteer to pick up a phone, start playing the anyone-shoud-be-able-to-reach-the-President-in-N-or-fewer-phone-calls game, and make that person-to-person connection with HQ?

Whoever does it can then report to this thread what they find out.

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Unread 28-10-2016, 20:07
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

We had an after school team meeting today. One of the parents drive in to pick up their child (who was going to carpool with another student) because they tried to sign up in STIMS and couldn't figure out what to do.

I'd almost be slightly more sympathetic if the interfaces that us more technical-minded used were a bit more 'difficult', but if you want to inspire the kids, you need the parents to buy-in and STIMS is anything but inspiring. In fact it's downright off-putting.

I think we may be going to an all-paper roster this year.
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Unread 28-10-2016, 20:24
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Fight to get 1 or 2 students into STIMS for awards, Per team. EVERYONE bring paper rosters this year. Make a statement.
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Unread 28-10-2016, 20:51
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

I am an veteran volunteer and mentor. I could not find the following information:
(A) Volunteer for an Event.
Goto FRC, click on 'volunteer' and you get a helpful message about volunteering, but no where is there a button that takes you to VIMS. Try typing 'VIMS' in the search box, and you get a bunch of links, but none are the VIMS website. I wound up typing FIRST VIMS into google.

(B) Confirm that I am registered with my team for this season. Am I ? Who can tell.

(C) Find the FIRST calendar. (google: USFIRST calendar)

UI and UX designers test interfaces by taking novice users and giving them a task or two on an App. I defy FIRST to do the same (1) Find a team in my area for my student. (2) Volunteer with a team. (3) Volunteer for an event.

If experienced users in FIRST cannot do it, how can we attract any new people ?
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Unread 28-10-2016, 21:06
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Ok, I know I'm just as guilty of "venting" about STIMS/TIMS/VIMS/website/registration and everything but the kitchen sink... but maybe we should set an example and change the direction of discussion:

How can we help fix this?
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Unread 28-10-2016, 22:46
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by bdaroz View Post
How can we help fix this?
What if FIRST uploads the website code to GitHub and makes it open-source so whenever someone has some free time they can help out. And GitHub already has the owners vet each commit before making it a part of the website.

Also, some of the old game documents need to be easier to find. If you're trying to look through old KOP lists to figure out what something is, it gets difficult. And only some of the links on the archived site still work - so if you get to the right page, you still might not be able to get the files. IIRC, there was a Google Drive folder that had all of the game documentation going back to 1992. I don't remember where it was, but I saw it here on CD about 9 months ago. Really, we need to make the resource library more user-friendly. And make finding useful pages a lot easier. Maybe like the wpilib site.

TL;DR - FIRST should make the website open-source and make historical and current non-game manual and non-KOP list game documentation easier to find.
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Unread 28-10-2016, 22:51
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by maxnz View Post
IIRC, there was a Google Drive folder that had all of the game documentation going back to 1992. I don't remember where it was, but I saw it here on CD about 9 months ago.
Technokats History Project. Speaking of which, if any of team 45 happens to read this, last time I tried to use it I couldn't get more than one layer into any given folder, so more publicly-available depth would be vastly appreciated.
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Unread 29-10-2016, 00:03
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Post Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

I think you have to realize that the website is not the highest priority at FIRST right now, you could argue that it should be, however, reality is reality.

Personally, I think it would best if we just created a list outlining specific issues, in order from most important to least, and let FIRST know, this could help alleviate some of the load. You have to realize that FIRST is a non-profit organization, they may be a tech-based company, but they don't have the resources of a multi-billion dollar company, but they have the needs of a multi-billion dollar company(a bit exaggerated, but you get the point). Yes FIRST's website is horrid to use, yes VIMS and STIMS and TIMS are hard to use, but I don't think that FIRST has the resources to make drastic changes to those workflows, they tried to modernize it, and it failed, but they don't have the resources to do it again.

So if you really want to see changes, rather than say how terrible the website is, or complain about issues that can be annoying, start compiling them, list them by importance, maybe provide a solution, and meaningful feedback, then post it here, and email it off to FIRST, and maybe it'll get better, one small bit at a time.

Also, you people complaining about searching through unorganized lists, simple quick fix would to just use Cntrl-F and search the page for whatever you are looking for, such as a particular name, or the location of an event.

TL/DR
We get it, FIRST website is bad, fix it by making a good list of issues, provide solutions and descriptions of the problems, and then submit it to FIRST. Plus some ranty stuff

Just my 2 cents....
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Last edited by jimbo493 : 29-10-2016 at 00:03. Reason: Fixing TLDR
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Unread 29-10-2016, 00:23
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by bdaroz View Post
How can we help fix this?
If someone has time to set up a web site that has reasonable search and navigation into firstinspires, and only send you to the backend when necessary, that might do it. Might.

Quote:
Originally Posted by maxnz View Post
IIRC, there was a Google Drive folder that had all of the game documentation going back to 1992. I don't remember where it was, but I saw it here on CD about 9 months ago.
In addition to the TechnoKats (linked above), there's also http://www.first-a-holics.com/ which has a good selection of game rules and such through 2004. Much of the more recent stuff (and overlapping) is on http://archive.usfirst.org/; this is the official first copy of the web site prior to the "upgrade".
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Unread 31-10-2016, 12:04
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by GeeTwo View Post
If someone has time to set up a web site that has reasonable search and navigation into firstinspires, and only send you to the backend when necessary, that might do it. Might.
Does http://frclinks.com suffice?
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Unread 31-10-2016, 12:35
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

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Originally Posted by EmileH View Post
Does http://frclinks.com suffice?
Works for me Thanks!
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Unread 29-10-2016, 00:23
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by jimbo493 View Post
fix it by making a good list of issues
A list of issues you say?

Some of the things from that thread actually have been fixed, but some issues still do remain.
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Unread 29-10-2016, 11:56
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by EricH View Post
Technokats History Project. Speaking of which, if any of team 45 happens to read this, last time I tried to use it I couldn't get more than one layer into any given folder, so more publicly-available depth would be vastly appreciated.

I guess I must not be seeing what your seeing. I can a access every folder on the history project and the sharing settings appear correct. Certain folders have less content, such as 2002, but every folder should still be accessible.
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Unread 29-10-2016, 16:06
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

Quote:
Originally Posted by Peyton Yeung View Post
I guess I must not be seeing what your seeing. I can a access every folder on the history project and the sharing settings appear correct. Certain folders have less content, such as 2002, but every folder should still be accessible.
Might have been me not being used to the new Drive format. Seems to be working now. (I was, in fact, hunting up stuff from the first Game That Shall Not Be Named.)
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Unread 29-10-2016, 16:17
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Re: FIRST website is an embarasment

I just sent the Chief Delphi link to a new team. I really hope they skip over this thread. This is not what we would want new teams to think of FIRST.
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