**FIRST EMAIL**/Competition Manual Q & A System Live on Wednesday, January 9th, 2008

[dlavery]

Greetings Teams:

FIRST recognizes that teams may have questions about game rules, robot construction, event logistics, and more. FIRST will offer a Question & Answer System, on FIRST Forums, which will allow teams to post questions pertaining to a specific section within the 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual. Your posted questions will be reviewed by the appropriate moderator and answered in a timely manner. The Question & Answer (Q&A) system will go live on line on FIRST Forums tomorrow, Wednesday, January 9th at Noon, EST.

In order to access the Q&A system, your team’s specific login info can be found on the Team Summary page in your TIMS record. Please assign one individual from your team to act as the Team Rules Expert and only share your team's unique User Name and Password with him/her. This Team Rules Expert should be the only person responsible for posting questions to the Q&A System.
Before posting a question on the Q&A system, we encourage teams to look for the answers to questions first within the 2008 FRC Manual and Team Updates. You can review these documents here: http://www.usfirst.org/frc/2008/manual

Go Teams!
--
FIRST Robotics Competition

(p) 1-800-871-8326 x 0
(f) 603-666-3907
frcteams@usfirst.org
www.usfirst.org

[Tetraman]

Greetings FIRST:

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU.

[Gary Dillard]

To submit a question:

1. Click the above link.
2. Log in with your team's Q & A User Name and Password.
3. From the "FRC Submit A Question" area, choose the 2008 FRC Manual section to which your question relates.

I can't find the "submit a question" area, even when logged in under our team ID; it was there yesterday.

[dlavery]

Greetings Teams:

FIRST recognizes that teams may have questions about game rules, robot construction, event logistics, and more. FIRST will offer a Question & Answer System, on FIRST Forums, which will allow teams to post questions pertaining to a specific section within the 2008 FIRST Robotics Competition Manual. Your posted questions will be reviewed by the appropriate moderator and answered in a timely manner. The Question & Answer (Q&A) system will go live on line on FIRST Forums tomorrow, Wednesday, January 9th at Noon, EST.

In order to access the Q&A system, your team’s specific login info can be found on the Team Summary page in your TIMS record. Please assign one individual from your team to act as the Team Rules Expert and only share your team's unique User Name and Password with him/her. This Team Rules Expert should be the only person responsible for posting questions to the Q&A System.
Before posting a question on the Q&A system, we encourage teams to look for the answers to questions first within the 2008 FRC Manual and Team Updates. You can review these documents here: http://www.usfirst.org/frc/2008/manual

Go Teams!
--
FIRST Robotics Competition

(p) 1-800-871-8326 x 0
(f) 603-666-3907
frcteams@usfirst.org
www.usfirst.org

Emphasis mine. The "submit a question" capability will not be enabled until noon on Wednesday.

[Gary Dillard]

Ooops. I saw the time but missed that the day/date was tomorrow. I lose track of what day it is during build season.

[Gary Dillard]

I see this under the instructions for "Submit your question here":

"2008 Q&A Responses" section below. Please note that your question will not be visible until the answer is posted."

Was this the case last year? I thought they moderated the questions but still posted them, even though they frequently did not post an answer for several days. I assume this was to minimize the number of duplicate questions, but doesn't look like they are doing that this year.

[Mark McLeod]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

I see this under the instructions for "Submit your question here":

"2008 Q&A Responses" section below. Please note that your question will not be visible until the answer is posted."

Was this the case last year? I thought they moderated the questions but still posted them, even though they frequently did not post an answer for several days. I assume this was to minimize the number of duplicate questions, but doesn't look like they are doing that this year.

I remember them not being posted until answered last year.
It helped eliminate multiple identical questions I imagine.

[Steve W]

Originally Posted by Mark McLeod

I remember them not being posted until answered last year.
It helped eliminate multiple identical questions I imagine.

I think it would be better to have them visible to eliminate multiple same questions. Last year they were not visible either.

[Tomasz Bania]

Originally Posted by Steve W

I think it would be better to have them visible to eliminate multiple same questions. Last year they were not visible either.

Is this the reason I no longer see any threads in any of the question sections, I was just logged in 5 minutes ago and saw threads in each section and now they are all gone. Is that supposed to happen?

Tomasz Bania

[Gary Dillard]

Looks like some of the answers are starting to come through (as of 10:30 last night).

[GaryVoshol]

Originally Posted by Gary Dillard

Looks like some of the answers are starting to come through (as of 10:30 last night).

All very reasonable answers. Good job to the GDC - especially the GP shown on answers that could have been, "Yes, that's what the manual says."