New First Robotics Discussion IRC channel

[Andrew Wyatt]

A couple members of team 524 have opened an IRC channel on IRC.sandwich.net solely for the purpose of discussing FIRST related issues.

The channel is #AORT, and is open 24 hours a day.

feel free to stop by.

I hope you arent trying to kill Tigerbolt chat...

[Dan 550]

No. FIRST has ONE IRC ROOM: Tigerbolt chat. Andrew, It would be so rude to even attempt to split everyone between the two rooms. It is much more effective to just use Tigerbolt Chat with everybody else. You at 524 are trying to temp the hands of fate here...

[Andrew Wyatt]

don't get your pants in a bundle, now.

I'm not trying to "kill" anything. our team started the IRC channel in response to a couple of shortcomings we saw in tigerbolt's chat (in relation to our needs)

1. it's on the east coast. tiger bolt is pretty much active only certain hours, and those ours aren't really compatable with a west coastie.

2. tigerbolt chat isn't really a good place to discuss heavy duty technical stuff. it's more if a place where first competetors can go and talk about stuff in general.

that's pretty much the whole of it.

[Dan 550]

Andrew, Tigerbolt is active most between the hours of five and nine on your coast, and any and all topics can and will be discussed if they are brought up. Try out Tigerbolt sometime, you may find it is indeed more useful than your team's IRC because of it's higher traffic.

[Matt Leese]

I suppose I should just add that the Tigerbolt chat is actually and IRC channel. The java client just connets to it. It's on irc.webmaster.com and it's channel #FIRSTRobotics (I got that all right, no?).

Matt

[Joe Ross]

Originally posted by Matt Leese
It's on irc.webmaster.com and it's channel #FIRSTRobotics (I got that all right, no?).

That is correct.

I see nothing wrong with a team opening another chat. There wasn't a public outcry when chiefdelphi opened their chat, or when Cyber Blue did theirs. I agree with Andrew that the Tigerbolt chat is severely lacking in technical discussion. If his chat room can fill that void the it's better for the FIRST community.

If you can figure out how to get the technical crowd to your chat room, more power to you.

[Ken Leung]

Originally posted by Joe Ross


That is correct.

I see nothing wrong with a team opening another chat. There wasn't a public outcry when chiefdelphi opened their chat, or when Cyber Blue did theirs. I agree with Andrew that the Tigerbolt chat is severely lacking in technical discussion. If his chat room can fill that void the it's better for the FIRST community.

If you can figure out how to get the technical crowd to your chat room, more power to you.

Maybe some how we can do some sort of organization for different chatting... A lot of times, people go into the tigerbolt chat room, and turns out people are talking about something already. So it is really hard to start another topic in the middle of conversation.

Some of these information would be useful:

Who is inside the chat rooms?
What topics are the people talking about?
What topics do the people want to start a chat about?

The only way I see this happening is a broadcast software, indicating who's inside which topic of chat room, and show a message to everyone that someone want to start a new topic chat in one of the rooms. So, a chat room with different channel would definitely help. Good to keep normal chatting and competition related stuff apart.

[Bill Gold]

No. FIRST has ONE IRC ROOM: Tigerbolt chat. Andrew, It would be so rude to even attempt to split everyone between the two rooms. It is much more effective to just use Tigerbolt Chat with everybody else. You at 524 are trying to temp the hands of fate here...

Dan, I hope you were being sarcastic. Because people can do whatever they feel like. Team 524 has every right to open a FIRST related IRC channel. Do not accuse any team of "tempting the hands of fate" that is totally uncalled for (imho).

Andrew, Tigerbolt is active most between the hours of five and nine on your coast, and any and all topics can and will be discussed if they are brought up. Try out Tigerbolt sometime, you may find it is indeed more useful than your team's IRC because of it's higher traffic.

How do you know that one channel will be "more useful" than another? Maybe 524's channel will attract more West Coast teams, which might be useful to their team.

[Carolyn Duncan]

Originally posted by Joe Ross
That is correct.
I see nothing wrong with a team opening another chat. There wasn't a public outcry when chiefdelphi opened their chat, or when Cyber Blue did theirs. I agree with Andrew that the Tigerbolt chat is severely lacking in technical discussion. If his chat room can fill that void the it's better for the FIRST community.
If you can figure out how to get the technical crowd to your chat room, more power to you.

I think Joe got this one right one. Field of Dreams was a holywood thing, I think it will be difficult to get a large crowd in your chat but hey, who am I to tell you it shouldn't be done? I'm no one so have at it. The chat on this site never had people in it (was that because of Tigerbolt?) and I didn't even know about Cyber Blue's chat. Ther are many teams who have team chats, but I think Tigerbolt is going to be the main draw. As Dan said, the chat is alive and kicking during prime west coast hours, I can name 4 west caosties with out even having to think who are often in the chat with us. Most of the time we are just in there talking about nothing so if you want to start a topic then just bring up a subject, you may get more responses than you are prepared for. So Andrew stop in sometime and say hey. I'm sure you'll fit right in with us.

[David Kelly]

we had a chat for a little while but i took it down because it wasn't very good. it was just one of those cheap bravenet ones.