Announcing MyLifeIsFIRST

[Basel A]

In its two decades of running robots competitions, FIRST has inspired great amounts of fanaticism and internet traffic. From the site of usfirst.org to these very forums, it's clear that we have many stories to tell about our times in FIRST programs.

I saw this as both inspiration and opportunity to create a focused, centralised location for these stories that tell a little about FIRST's culture, and plenty about our dedication and compulsion to living FIRST's message. While the Chief Delphi forums are a great place for more specific information and technical advice, I thought that a whole new site would be more open to non-FIRSTers, and more easily accessed by all.

Taking this inspiration and jumping ahead a few months, I am proud to announce MyLifeIsFIRST.

Created in a similar fashion to sites such as MLIA and FML, the general public - particularly you all - are invited submit their short stories of FIRST Fanaticism. Once submitted, they are anonymously and publicly moderated. Given enough approvals and disapprovals of the post, according to a certain algorithm, the story may be published or cast aside. This is largely to eliminate spam or stories that may not quite pull their weight (though you are encouraged to be highly inclusive).

We also encourage any users to submit suggestions via email, facebook post on our fan page, or tweet to our twitter.

This has been a project for quite a while now, and I hope you'll be pleased with this new creation from myself and Team 2337.

Thanks for reading,
-Basel Alghanem

[Libby K]

What a cute idea! I know I'm always glued to FML, MLIA and TFLN .... time to add yet another acronym to my bookmarks!

[Alex Dinsmoor]

Another website to spend my time on? If Chief Delphi wasn't enough already!

But this is an amazing site! Well built, fun, and about FIRST!

[ATannahill]

Can you add an RSS feed?

[rsisk]

Thanks Basel, great stuff!

One piece of advice, in order to get the word out there about the site, you have to promote constantly and make sure there is good content to bring people back.

[Basel A]

Thanks Libby and Alex!

Originally Posted by rtfgnow

Can you add an RSS feed?

There's a few upgrades and bonuses planned for the site, and I'll add that to the list. It being build season, my life is extremely hectic; I'll revisit these ideas once I get some free time (after AP tests when I'll have a total of... 1 real class).

Originally Posted by rsisk

One piece of advice, in order to get the word out there about the site, you have to promote constantly and make sure there is good content to bring people back.

Thanks Richard! Today was actually a pretty landmark day, with over a full page of stories shared. Now that the content is flowing, I hope the site becomes more attractive to wider groups of FIRSTers. That said, I've been trying to continue to get the word out.

Part of the onus is on the users. There's no way one person can contact the 50,000 student FIRSTers, let alone the 10,000+ mentors. As MLIF's fans grow, so too will the number of FIRSTers who at least encounter the site.

I encourage everyone to follow our Twitter and like our Facebook page for the latest updates.