Has ChiefDelphi.com Lost Focus?

[Joe Matt]

I was writing this after reading the all-to-memeorable posts at the top of the General FIRST topic forum and was thinking of this. Has CD lost it's focus? Not that it's not about FIRST, but wasn't CD always more like a hanging ground for FIRST people? Wasn't it a place to have fun? What happened? Am I the only one who feels that this has been ruined by the stiffness that some people have brought (not targeting anyone particular.) It seems like CD has moved from a fun place where people with similar passions can hang out and chat has now turned into a public relations filled mine-field of 'if he says that, then it must be true about the rest of the team' morals?

While I do agree that bashing, spam, trolls, and other things are bad in forms, but when someone expresses their opinions and they have to think about if team x will not like them and not pick them for their alliance, don't you think the soul of CD was lost? I'm not talking about slander, or anything else that's just negative, I'm talking about opinions.

I've always felt that this needed to get out there, I have had some unplesent moments on CD which I'm not going to get into. At one point I left it for good, only to be told to stay from a higher-up on the Sparky food chain. FIRST isn't about watching your steps and being cautious, but instead taking risks. Sure, your opinion might not be popular, but you took the risk that people might just agree with you and implement it.

As anyone who went to the CD web-hug at Nats this year knows, Mr. Martus said that FIRST wanted to censor the forums sometimes, and that he said that it was best for FIRST to get opinions out that arn't always with rose-colored glasses on. But has it come to the point where any opinions toward someone's ideas/robot can't be taken, or more importantly, that they won't be expressed since the person with the opinion dosn't want the person/team in question to start to dislike them?

It's even come to the point where I don't know if I should even post this thread, but it needs to be done. I think it needs to be done. So before you hit the reply button to this or another thread, you need to remember that this place was started as a discussion forum, not a press release forum.

*end rant*

Any comments are welcome. I have a feeling that I might see some...