Welcome the Newbies

[Booger]

yo i'm new to this forum.

whats up.

[Josh Goodman]

Sorta new, signed up a loooooonnng time ago though!

[Kaizer007]

Hi, everybody. I'm also new to this forum, although not new to FIRST Robotics Competitions.

[Gboehm]

Hi ny name is Greg, I am the current GM for team 1516, I am new to this peticular forum, but not new to posting in forums. This will be my third year in robotics, I am a senior at California High School. We entered the 2006 California games, and the aliance we were paired with did very well in winning the overall event. Big thanks to 254 and 698(?). But in all honesty we got very lucky because our shooter failed to work well later in the day and we resorted to playing defense. Anywho I hope to become a regular around here, and wish everybody well.

Greg Boehm
Team 1516 GM

[BandChick]

No matter whether you're a newbie or not, there is always going to be SOMEONE who doesn't agree with what you post, or how you post it. Negative reputation is a part of life, mabye it doesn't put a red dot next to your name or in your user CP, but people are confronted with it every day. Yeah, it's important to usher the newbies in with a bit of a rule-breaking grace, but you have to learn to live with disagreement.

Well said, Fin.

[Miss_Crocodilo]

Hey all!
As you can all see, I am a new member in this forum. So welcome me! lol

[SnareDrummer37]

I love all of you for spelling "Newbies" correctly.

[Audrey]

Hey everyone. :-)

I'm a n00b and pretty much the first person to join CD from my team, team 483 aka: Pankow G.E.A.R.S.. Sooooo.... hi!

[vivek16]

Welcome to the family.

-Vivek

[Katie_UPS]

I'm a n00b too.

Why is it so bad to bring back an old thread?
I understand repetitive questions, but what if was just an awesome thread...

and whats proper ettiquette for asking "can you please resay that in words that an educated-student-with-little-to-none-tech-terms-knowledge-but-still-knows-robots can understand"?

(sorry about the long hyphenated phrase.
its hard to sum it into a few terms)

[Vikesrock]

Originally Posted by Katie_UPS

I'm a n00b too.

Why is it so bad to bring back an old thread?
I understand repetitive questions, but what if was just an awesome thread...

and whats proper ettiquette for asking "can you please resay that in words that an educated-student-with-little-to-none-tech-terms-knowledge-but-still-knows-robots can understand"?

(sorry about the long hyphenated phrase.
its hard to sum it into a few terms)

Reviving old threads can often be quite confusing. Here's an example:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=57061

This thread was started last year. If someone sees this thread on the Portal or the top of the forum they will likely click on it and begin reading without checking the thread date. The part about San Diego is not true for this year and all the links in the first post are to Rack and Roll matches.

With regards to your second question it is easiest for someone to elaborate if you can be as specific as possible about what you don't understand (terms, concepts or whatever). Sometimes this is not possible and people will still try to help in that case but it is more difficult.

[aquapearl]

Welcome abroad vivek

[Blair Frank]

Hey there. I wouldn't exactly consider myself a n00b, but I haven't been around quite as long as some of the old-timers. Anywho, I have a proposal for the CD community. It comes from one of my other loves, Alternate Reality Games. On one of the forums devoted to discussing the aforementioned games, there is also the issue with newbies discussing things that have already been discussed, performing thread necromancy, the usual forum stuff. To deal with this, the term "trout" was created. I think the creator says it the best so, without further ado, I give you WALL OF TEXT.

So, I've been meditating on what we can do to make our newbies feel
more at home, and I've decided to use a strategy that's tried and
true: we'll make up something new.

In particular, we're going to use a new word from now on: "trout".

Of course, "trout" is an old word, but it's an old word with a new
meaning. When I say "trout" to you, I don't simply mean the fish, I
mean to say to you: "Listen. I respect you. It's great that you're
here and posting and that we're working together for a common goal.
Nonetheless, I have some polite criticisms."

You may use the word trout as its own sentence, as in:

"Trout. This is in the Trail, section 2.05."

Or, you may use it to refer to your polite constructive criticism:

"Pardon my trout, but we've been talking about this most of the
day... Read about it on CM-mod."

You may use it as a verb:

"I trout you. I think you've gotten confused about this."

Alternatively, you may use it as a pseudo- HTML tag:

"<trout>You must mean Jason Fertors-with-an-s, who IS in
PACO.</trout>"

You may use it as a post label, but try to use it in combo with other
labels:

"Subject: SPEC/TROUT Re: Evan is still alive!"

Finally, of course, you may decide not to use it at all. If so,
please use some form of polite disclaimer whenever you offer
constructive criticism, ESPECIALLY if that criticism is a correction
of some factual mistake. It's very hard to communicate a polite
attitude over e-mail. "Trout" will be one way to do it.

---------------------------------------------------

How will this help the newbies, you ask?

Well, those newbies who know and understand "trout" will understand
that we're not mocking or disrespectful to those with whom we disagree
or to those who post redundant information.

Those newbies who DON'T know what "trout" means will at least avoid
confusing polite criticism with mockery. Why? Because there's
something in the post, "trout," that they don't understand. It's hard
to assume that a post you don't understand is being unduly harsh. It
also leads the newbie to do exactly the right thing: to ask polite
questions.

Maybe this will work... maybe it won't. Either way, I hope that this
place will become a little bit friendlier on account of it.

Use "trout." Make this list a better place to be.

Thank you.

-Dan

The forum in question even has its own trout smiley (of one yellow head giving a trout to another) which by default links to that quote. IMO, it makes sense for CD to adopt something like that, since it really does change the tone of the discussion.

Well, that's my 2 cents.
-Blair

[Comatose]

Honestly, I hope this sums it all up.

If you have the time to post that they should search for same topics, you should just answer their question. It's rude to ask for someone to post his or her question somewhere else. If you don't like posts of previous topics, then ignore it and don't read it. This also applies to people who post "don't re-post the same topic" and then decide to create a different conversation, or just start another one without saying anything to the creator of the thread. I've seen this on so many other posts it makes me upset enough to log off for the day.

That’s my two cents.

Thanks,

Comatose

[darkshark0159]

Hello!

I am a senior at Middle Park High School in Granby, Colorado, and I'm happy to say that we have just founded our robotics team this year. There is certainly a great deal of excitement for the upcoming FRC, and we are frantically rushing to get all of our funding in order... woo hoo...

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to competing with you all in the coming months.


- I'm treating this like an introduction thread as I didn't see one.