The complaint was that Gracious Professionalism and Sportsmanship (AKA the FIRST way of doing things) seems to be at an all-time low. Case in point, someone saying “You did something stupid two seasons ago and disqualified your alliance, therefore you don’t know what you’re talking about”. If that wasn’t the sort of thing y’all would say a few seasons back, then consider his point proven.
We are not in the same country. The fact that it is well known in Mexico doesn’t mean that news crossed the Rio Grande at any point between the time it happened and a couple hours ago. If you want to bring me up to speed, DMs are open. (Though I will say that if it wasn’t a conduct rule being violated, I’ll be sure to point that out as that fact would completely undermine the statements made in this thread.)
There are ways to tell someone they have issues without resorting to public shaming. For example, if your fly is open, I could mention something in passing to you privately about how “it must be nice to feel that breeze, no?” Or I could get on a megaphone and say “Juan, your [dirty word] is showing”. I get the feeling you don’t want the second.
By saying “you were the reason–not the best example–I’ve been here longer than you” and “you have no stance at lecturing–trying to get the moral high ground”, that’s more of an aggressive “shut up, hypocrite” attack-type talk. At least to my take. A better way might be to ask “Weren’t you the guy that got a [conduct] red card a couple years back?” This doesn’t say “you have no grounds”–it just pulls the rug out from under what they say unless they then come back and say they’ve learned better. Even then, it adds some doubt.
I do agree that there’s something up with the comments. Most of them are simply asking for clarification on the process; some transparency is definitely to be desired here. Even just a clear-ish process. I suspect there’s a message trying to be sent with the selections, but what I don’t know. And why the questions of “what’s going on” are being deleted.
Something for all y’all to consider, possibly for the near future: The transparency we all get from FIRST HQ was something that had to be “fought” for, some years back. When you follow the link, note the 10th name in the list of signers… there was some rather opaque dealings going on back then, and a lot of people said essentially “we need more info”. Cut to 15 seasons later and FIRST HQ is essentially giving us info as soon as it’s able to be officially confirmed and locked in. Maybe a similar letter might be in order?