2006 Silicon Valley Regional

[Jason Morrella]

Originally Posted by TyffaneeSue

I thought it was a major insult to give the top award to a team that certainly did not embody the spirit of FIRST--unless FIRST strives to be the robotic counterpart to Enron. (Perhaps that IS the message here?)

I would have been fine with Gunn getting the Comeback Team of the Year award. But the Chair award, as with many of the other awards, seemed to be based on politics.

# 1 - "was based on politics"? You clearly didn't listen to the judges description of the award they gave. They detailed the reasons why they felt GRT 192 was a worthy Chairman's Award Team - community outreach, helping other teams over the years, always having great team spirit, supporting FLL, the obvious impact of their program on their students as demonstrated by the universities and companies many of their graduates/alumni have moved on to, and yes, some obstacles they overcame in the past year. GRT received the Chairman's Award in the past (BEFORE the issues of last year), and now this year. They received the award for many reasons - however "politics" was certainly not one of them - please give our judges a little more credit than that. To GRT - be very proud of your award, you are a great team.

# 2 - I wish CD had a rule that all registered users had to identify themselves to post - it would certainly eliminate most (not all) of the petty and slanderous posts made on this forum. But as Bill and others have pointed out - it is a private forum, they can run it however they want, they do (and should) make rules for their forum, and if you/I/we don't like it, then don't come on the forum. If they want to moderate/delete posts they don't feel are constructive or gracious, all the power to them.

# 3 - As a general rule, I know that most people I speak to in FIRST who frequent Chief Delphi do not put much stock in statements/comments/slander made by people anonymously. When I see someone make an anonymous post which flames/insults/slanders another team or person - I (and I think many) associate one, some or all of the following with the post and the person making it:

pettiness, frustration, anger, resentment, jealousy, poor sportsmanship, ignorance, cowardice, doesn't handle losing well, in most cases doesn't really know anything of substance about the person or team they are talking about, and their post is just assumptions and speculations they "think" are true but actually aren't (or flat out attacks and/or lies they know aren't true but are making because they can do so anonymously).

This is obviously not only about this post regarding GRT, it's about many posts over the years on CD where people let their personal issues (see above list) cloud their objectivity, and the result is that they put down an entire team which NEVER deserves it. If you have a problem with a person or a few people on a team, fine. Don't discredit all the students and mentors on that team who put so much time, effort and passion into their program.

My opinion - if you feel you have something of value to say, something important, something factual, and something informative to share with the community - then do so with some conviction and be honest about who you are and what your bias/agenda/opinion might be. Everyone on this forum has opinions and everyone at some point disagrees greatly with what others think/say - that's great in a constructive and respectful atmosphere - we can certainly agree to disagree and still share our views. But stand up for your views and make them YOURS if you are going to post them, not some anonymous view you don't have to take credit for.

sorry for the soap box - just hate to see posts try to discredit the accomplishments and hard work of any teams, and especially the students on those teams.