2008 Documentation

[Rosiebotboss]

Not being posted until AFTER Kick Off......I am 99% sure I saw it in an email blast no too long ago.

[JohnBoucher]

Originally Posted by Rosiebotboss

Not being posted until AFTER Kick Off......I am 99% sure I saw it in an email blast no too long ago.

That's what the website says also. I thought it might be a typo

[Madison]

This season, the FIRST website has handled the traffic of registration well. Maybe they're confident the site can deal with the spike of traffic after kick-off?

...or maybe something has fundamentally changed about the structure of the manual that might tip their hand?

...or maybe there's an unusually short time between the holiday and kick off this year and we're all anxious to get started.

[Daniel_LaFleur]

Originally Posted by M. Krass

...or maybe something has fundamentally changed about the structure of the manual that might tip their hand?

Now there's an intriguing possibility.

[IndySam]

Originally Posted by Daniel_LaFleur

Now there's an intriguing possibility.

.....things that make you go hmmmmmmmm.....

[KathieK]

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...t.aspx?id=7494 "The remaining game-related sections will be encrypted and available for download on January 5th, 2008, after the Kickoff."

I'm not sure why they would be encrypted if they are not releasing them until after kickoff... but maybe I'm misreading it.

[JohnBoucher]

Originally Posted by KathieK

http://www.usfirst.org/community/frc...t.aspx?id=7494 "The remaining game-related sections will be encrypted and available for download on January 5th, 2008, after the Kickoff."

I'm not sure why they would be encrypted if they are not releasing them until after kickoff... but maybe I'm misreading it.

Perhaps you need the IR board to read them

[talltree357]

FIRST has their reasons, but I must say this is gonna be an interesting race to download before traffic gets too heavy...

[Kevin Sevcik]

If they were concerned about the document structure revealing something, they could provide an encrypted ZIP file or something. Or a very massive multi-section PDF. While their servers did do better this year, I'm not really confident they'll handle that many downloads at one time. Nor would I be happy that teams at local kickoffs without internet access would be deprived of a complete manual to glance over before touring the field. So I'm hoping this is just a typo or misunderstanding and the encrypted manual will be pre-released per usual.

[Stu Bloom]

Originally Posted by Kevin Sevcik

If they were concerned about the document structure revealing something, they could provide an encrypted ZIP file or something. Or a very massive multi-section PDF. While their servers did do better this year, I'm not really confident they'll handle that many downloads at one time. Nor would I be happy that teams at local kickoffs without internet access would be deprived of a complete manual to glance over before touring the field. So I'm hoping this is just a typo or misunderstanding and the encrypted manual will be pre-released per usual.

I completely agree Kevin. While the kickoff presentation does a great job of giving us an overview of the new challenge it also leaves MANY unanswered questions. And I suspect there will be many people attending kickoffs where they don't have internet access available. A serious waste of travel time back home ...

I would consider it a huge step backwards if the encrypted manual is not released ahead of time.

[aksimhal]

Would it be ok (as in gracious professionalism), for a team and/or some other website to put up the game manual as soon as it is released, as to lessen the traffic on the FIRST website?

Thanks

[Cory]

Originally Posted by aksimhal

Would it be ok (as in gracious professionalism), for a team and/or some other website to put up the game manual as soon as it is released, as to lessen the traffic on the FIRST website?

Thanks

You'd need a lot of bandwith to be able to do this effectively. If the FIRST site can't handle all the traffic, a team site won't be able to either.

[Gary Dillard]

Originally Posted by Cory

You'd need a lot of bandwith to be able to do this effectively. If the FIRST site can't handle all the traffic, a team site won't be able to either.

I seem to recall, back in the days when the manual was released at kickoff (no pre-release encrypted) they (FIRST) set up a couple of mirror sites for downloading. That was also before broadband was widespread and most people were using a 48k baud rate modem to download it. It took several hours.

[aksimhal]

Originally Posted by Cory

You'd need a lot of bandwith to be able to do this effectively. If the FIRST site can't handle all the traffic, a team site won't be able to either.

I was thinking about a Google hosted website such as pages.google.com.
But now that I know that I would need permission, I wonder, if it would be still worth it?

Any opinions?


Please Note: I am not questioning FIRST's capability to host the Manual. The comments above are just my thoughts, and I do not plan to post the manual in an illegal/ ungracious professionalism way. Thank You

[DanDon]

Originally Posted by aksimhal

Would it be ok (as in gracious professionalism), for a team and/or some other website to put up the game manual as soon as it is released, as to lessen the traffic on the FIRST website?

Thanks

You'd also need to attain FIRST's approval. And from what I understand, that's not too easy of a task.