Gracious Professionalism > Ungracious Unprofessionalism

[Mike Ciance]

I'd like to start off by saying one very important thing

This thread is one of the best examples of gracious professionalism I have seen here in a long time.

I have already given rep points to 9 people in this thread. it's really great to see that when GP is brought to our attention again we are able to pull it off beautifully. now what we need to work on is having this kind of attitude all the time.

for all the bad i have seen on these forums, the main problem has been people takign things too seriously. i think there are a few guidelines that should be followed, some of which have already been mentioned, and some i am bringing up myself:

• don't give negative rep points for "newbie mistakes"
• be polite when posting a "search before you post" reminder
• for mistakes that are careless, not malicious, try to take advantage of the "neutral rep point" to give them a reminder without harming their rating. we ALL make mistakes, even Brandon and Dave
• try not to give negative reps on controversial threads. somebody who expresses dissapproval of an idea is only insulting that idea, NOT the people who follow it.
• if you really want to practice gracious professionalism, only give negative reps to those who fail to practice it themselves

[Matt Krass]

First, I want to thank you all, your responses were more enthusiastic than I hoped, and there’s been a noted lack of the aforementioned hostilities. You’ve helped restore some of my faith in these forums.

Now, down to business…
The point of this thread was to bring to light some issues that I felt needed to be addressed, both within FIRST and on these forums. As many have stated in the pits I felt the familiar warm reception to questions and comments, and teams that were very GP and helpful. WPI (190) handed over several little things that saved us without a moments hesitation, whilst Jeff Waegelin in the 830 pit was always dealing with my crazy questions with a straight face on, no snappiness, even when things got really hectic. It’s on of the reasons I came back to FIRST this year and I’m happy to see it’s not gone. Thanks again for your kind words and let’s work together to make these forums, and FIRST as best as we can. I know I’ll be giving out more rep points now when I see GP on the boards, I ask that you all do also, if you don’t already. With positive influences, I’m sure we can improve the situation. I don’t expect perfection, and maybe I’m holding people to standards too high to be fair, but I expect we can all meet them.

Long Live Gracious Professionalism, and long live F.I.R.S.T.

Though I’ve been on these forums for nearly three years, I haven’t shaken things up much, or made any significant posts until recently, and the responses I received made me smile because they’re hard evidence GP is still around, thanks again for restoring my faith in it.

Thanks.

P.S. I’m just as guilty as everyone of skipping a search when in a hurry to post, I’m sure you’ve all done it too, let’s be a little easier on those that don’t search first? Genia’s approach is perfect, answers the questions, points out the search and manages to be tactful and gentle at the same time.

[meaubry]

Great thread - thank you to all of the contributors to it.
I just want to make sure everyone knows that we (ChiefDelphi leadership) appreciate and are also concerned about this issue.
My response will focus on the lack of GP on our website by the users, as the bigger problem (FIRST in general) is for another day.
Let me begin by not re-stating every GOOD thing that has already been stated, but instead present a couple of things that we struggle with as the host.
1) How to be fair and reasonable to everyone - and I do mean everyone - that visits and wants to share ideas, thoughts, questions, etc.
We request everyone be kind, be tolerant, be helpful, don't do this and don't do that.
We have the best group of moderators, helpful regulars, and mentors that any site could ask for, including the best webmaster.
We trust (maybe too much) that people that come here (to CD) are inherently good and want to help others.
We tend to allow everyone have their own opinion (sometimes others are not going to agree with everything someone else believes) and we have been discussing way to limit discussion on topics where there is naturally going to be differences of opinion. (Religious and Politically discussion to name a couple)
The site is intended to share ideas and help others - at times it looks more like an on line message board with multiple posts between few people that just won't let go of their argument. These are the ones that usually turn ugly - perhaps we need to implement the 2 post rule to each thread. I'll have to ask Brandon if thats possible.
2) How to improve the "Welcome to the community of FIRST- we really do want to help" feeling with newer users.
Again, some of you regulars have been a extremely helpful - and unfortunately some of you have not been.
The growth rate of this website has been a difficult thing to manage (and I am not referring to he technical side, I am referring the the HUMAN relations side).
I believe that our posting "rules" cannot by themselves fix the problem - that can only be accomplished by continued support by the mentors and more importantly by the non-newbies and in the way that each of you respond.
Everyone has a list of things that annoy them about website posting - please
a) review your list
b) determine if there is something we (CD) can do to avoid those annoyances
c) send your suggestions to us (we are always looking for ways to improve the website)
d) add at the bottom of your list "I promise to be more tolerant with the people that post on CD, they may not have the same opinion as me - but that doesn't make them a bad person."

Sorry about the long post - just wanted to encourage everyone help us address this issue.
If we don't do something, we will lose the ability to be what we truly want this website to be.

Mike Aubry
ChiefDelphi

[Justin Montois]

Originally Posted by Dave Flowerday

I agree 100%. All too often people just reply with "Search before you post" with a link and it always sounds very harsh to me. Honestly, I find the "Search before you post" people to be way more annoying (and rude) than the newbies asking simple questions.

To those who love to slam people with "Search before you post": maybe you should think twice before you reply too. If someone came up to you at a competition and asked you how many points a tetra on a goal was worth, would you snap back at them, "Read the manual!" I hope not.

I agree, granted I do see where koko Ed is coming from with the dozens of duplicate posts(The howstuffworks posts come to mind) I think that there are much nicer ways of letting people know that someone has alrady posted their topic.

I agree 100% with Tom Bottiglieri

Originally Posted by Tom Bottiglieri

I think some people just take all of this too seriously.