Censorship

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Posted by Patrick Bogard.

Student on team #103, Cybersonics, from Palisades High School and Amplifier Research, Lucent Tech, Lutron, GPU.

Posted on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST



Now I know this is a tad off subject but i feel that my team needs the help of the help of the FIRST community. I am a sophomore and one of the more active people in our school and team, it is a small school so things, tend to have a big impact. In recent weeks our webpage has been a source of controversy, it seems that the pictures of team members and of competitions exploit children. To me this seems a blasphemy, but I must not make this seem biased. The person or persons who feel this way do not even have a child on the team , they are members of our Technology committe. In our area we have pictures of students in the papers and on other school endorsed websites. So this seems ludicrous to pinpoint our technology team, but everyone feels how they do. Right now our webpage is hosted by the school's server so that could be part of the problem for all I know.

I was just wondering what the FIRST community thought of this.

Thanks for listening although this is off subject.

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Posted by Jon.

Engineer on team #190, Gompei, from Mass Academy of Math and Science and Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Posted on 5/8/2000 7:46 PM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



Off topic? Is anything ever off topic here?

Trying to understand the situation... Someone is saying that the pictures of your team and at competitions exploit children?!
If that is so... I'd love to know what their definition of exploitation is...

last time i checked exploitation involved the unfair or unjust use of something/someone and a quick survey of your site has a bunch of pictures that attempt to show a slice of FIRST life... as an honest to goodness firstaholic, i'd say its a pretty good slice... chaos, confusion, fun, robots... oh no... maybe the pictures on our site exploit children! they were randomly taken by students of other students doing random things... eek!

anyways, sorry to get rambly there but without more info i can't make a better point

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Posted by James Phillips.

Coach on team #284, The Crew, from Career Technology Center of Lackawanna County.

Posted on 5/9/2000 8:36 AM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



As a teacher of technology and coach of our team -- I checked out your site and I can't find any problems. In fact our pictures not only cover the competition but life during the free time of the comps. I think you should get your responsible team members and your team advisor to sit down with the 'opposite view' group and discuss the situation. Get everything taken care of fast -- can't let negativity take hold. Keep evryone together and help make the FIRST concept grow. Good luck and keep us posted.

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Posted by Joe Ross.   [PICTURE: SAME | NEW | HELP]


Coach on team #330, Beach Bot 2000, from Hope Chapel Academy and NASA/JPL & J&F Machine.

Posted on 5/9/2000 5:51 PM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



The first year that we put up a webpage, we ran into the same sort of problem, except that it was a parent of a team member. We had originaly planned to put a short bio and photo of each team member up. This was nixed so that a predator couldn't associate a name with a face.

This didn't appease the parent, though. Now to be safe, even though that child doesn't go to our school anymore, we ask each parent to sign a release asking for permission to put pictures containing their child on the internet as long as there is no name associated with the child in the picture. We also, just to be safe, ask each child to approve each picture before it is placed on the web. This may sound like censorship or paranoia, but in reality it has helped us to maintain a good relationship between the web team and the rest of our team.

Joe Ross
Team 330

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Posted by Thomas A. Frank.

Engineer on team #121, The Islanders/Rhode Warrior, from Middletown (RI) High School and Naval Undersea Warfare Center.

Posted on 5/11/2000 12:26 PM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



: Now I know this is a tad off subject

Not at all! This is just the sort of thing that needs to be brought to the attention of the FIRST community as a whole.

I went to your website, and I cannot for the life of me figure out how anything I saw there 'exploited' children, or anyone/anything else.

I would strongly urge that the school administration/responsible adults that are associated with your FIRST team sit down with the people who are making these accusations, and find out exactly what it is they object to. Once you know that, then you can decide how to proceed.

Once you know what they object to (and it *essential*that they be *required* to define how these pictures exploit children, before their objections can/should be given serious consideration), please be so kind as to post it so we can all become educated on this issue.

Maybe there is something there that I (we) are not seeing. Or maybe our love of FIRST blinds us to something obvious. Or maybe you are dealing with a crackpot. Until you can define the problem, there can be no solution.

Keep us informed, please!

Tom Frank

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Posted by Eric Reed.

Coach on team #481, NASA Ames / De Anza High School, from De Anza High School and It could be you!.

Posted on 5/12/2000 1:04 PM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



At our school we can post pictures WITH the students' permission, as long as we do not include a full name. I would be Eric R., for example.

Good Luck,

Eric.

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Posted by Jerry Eckert.

Engineer from Looking for a team in Raleigh, NC sponsored by .

Posted on 5/12/2000 4:18 PM MST


In Reply to: Censorship posted by Patrick Bogard on 5/8/2000 5:39 PM MST:



: Now I know this is a tad off subject but i feel that my team needs the help of the help of the FIRST community. I am a sophomore and one of the more active people in our school and team, it is a small school so things, tend to have a big impact. In recent weeks our webpage has been a source of controversy, it seems that the pictures of team members and of competitions exploit children.

It would help if you could explain WHY they feel the photos exploit children. If they haven't given a reason, then that is the first question which needs to be asked.

Jerry