No More Teasers in 2007?

FIRST General Forum
1

I’m not sure how well this’ll be received, but I wanted to make a plea before the new season started to all of the forum members.

Over the past years, the number of folks posting ‘teasers’ of their robot to the CD-Media gallery has gone through the roof. Each of these photos needs to be approved by a moderator, have its tags checked, and discussion watched – all creating a lot of additional work for a team of folks who’re also busy with their own teams. What’s worst is that the discussion about these teasers is almost never helpful to the community and instead consists of a lot of guessing, questions, and vague comments. A thread with twenty posts trying to discern what’s shown in your blurry photograph of nuts and bolts is wasting everyone’s time – including your own! Your wheels, no matter the pattern you’ve cut into them, are still just wheels and probably aren’t noteworthy.

Instead, if you’d like to post photos of your robot and your work to CD, I encourage you to give full disclosure. Show the whole mechanism, part, or robot and honestly and explicitly describe its function and design. Answer questions fully and honestly and help the community grow through your participation.

If you’ve got something to say, to share or to question, by all means do so! But consider that, if you’re posting only to generate hype, awareness or envy of your team, your robot or your work, you may be creating a lot more work for folks who’re volunteering their time, more to read for folks already on a tight schedule and more that will clutter the forums and make it harder to find relevant, important information.

Edit:
Quickly searching the gallery for ‘teaser’, I found these:

Bad:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22770
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22652
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/25704
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23497
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22995

Good:
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23015
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/23063
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22802
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/22563
http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/19859

Pictures that show entire mechanisms are fantastic – sometimes even when unaccompanied by explanation. It’s the photos that show common items like wheels, sprockets and pieces of aluminum that’re just clutter.

Edited again to add:
Dave reminded me that what I’m writing might be considered by some to be policy or a decree from on high that this stuff isn’t allowed. I can’t do that and I sort of expected that everyone knows that, but in case that’s not true – I’m not speaking in any official capacity here. I’m just asking, as someone who’s been reading nearly everything posted to the forums for five or so years, that we’re all considerate of the time and effort of others in the coming season. I’m really very personable! Honest.

2

Madison,

I will be the first person to thank all of the CD mods for everything they do. That being said, every feature of this site takes mods, that includes chit chat, technical etc.

I find teasers fun, especially from big name teams. It builds the excitement and encourages the imagination. I do not, however, consider a picture of a pile of screws teasers. Pictures like this are fun (and yes, I’m using my team’s in a link because I liked the way it was done). Obviously we don’t need 10 teasers of each team, but I like to have a teaser from teams. Especially for the younger teams, it adds to the fun!

If the mods don’t mind a little bit of extra work, I’d like to see teasers say. And Brandon, if that means you need more mods, I’m on here constantly and will help out if you need it

~Beth

3

How about instead of saying no teasers, we just keep up the rule of no dumb pictures? Just because you aren’t impressed by the pattern that somebody cut into their wheels doesn’t mean that other people aren’t. I personally like teaser pictures of novel mechanisms, and I understand why teams don’t want to give away the whole idea when we’re in the heat of build season. Blurry pictures of nuts and bolts would probably qualify as “dumb”, but if it’s something you’re proud of, why not show it off, even if just in part? Not everything about FIRST always has to be about inspiration… sometimes it can just be about fun.

4

I think its an issue more about “trigger happiness.”
I’ve seen a lot of members (ehm myself:p) go crazy on posting teasers, which (i do agree) adds up the work for the moderator. But on the other hand, as Beth has mentioned, Teasers can be a lot of fun and adds up the excitement of whats the actual bots gonna be like.

So here’s what i sugegst…
It should be team’s (or members who are representing that team) responsibility to post only one teaser, and than keep an eye on that particular teaser to answer all the questions. I think one teaser per team is not a bad idea (but remember, thats still 1000+).

So CD members, i know pressing that ‘submit’ button and adding teasers can be really fun, but at the same time no one wants brandon (or any other moderator) running after us with a stick:p. I appreciate (and we all should) the work put in by the moderators to keep this site running, so please give them a break. Only one teaser per team. Thanks

Imad

5

Sometimes i find teasers nice when they show part of an uncompleted mechanism. When you are showing pictures of an entire robot thats not really much of a “teaser”. Pictures that things likes wheels aren’t really teasers in my opinion. I still like to see them because it is nice to be able to see how other teams do things and get ideas from them.
In your list of pictures that were good and bad you went against what you said made a good teaser. you posted a picture of one of 111 wheels (just the wheel from a cool angle) and you listed that as a good teaser but you said “It’s the photos that show common items like wheels, sprockets and pieces of aluminum that’re just clutter.” so i dont understand how this is good.
If it is such a horrendous task for the mods (im not saying it isn’t) why dot you solicit to make more people mods. I don’t know the criteria but im sure there are a good number of people who could be given the job of approving pictures and tags who are trustworthy and well known on CD. and if cluttering the forums is a problem make a sub-forum for just teasers.

just my $0.02

6

How about we limit each team to ONE teaser? And also, no ones that are so obscure and random that it offers absolutely no insight into what you’re doing (a bolt, CMUCam, shaft encoder, pile of wires, etc.)
If you want to put more up, upload them to your own site, and then link them in the thread of the first one.

7

As a photo mod, the process of going through these pictures is not so bad. The real pain comes when a discussion of a picture goes no where, such as discussing a picture of 2 people or a person in a place, etc and we have to move the discussion to Chit-Chat or watch it constantly to make sure people aren’t posting back and forth and what not.

I am all for discussing robots in progress and pictures that have worth. But if someone is going to post a picture of a piece of metal and 20 people are going to reply with “Oh man what is that? I bet its going to be an arm, awesome,” then our job becomes tedious and a pain.

Post meaningful photos and create meaningful discussions, but if its something that can be discussed in an IM or email, don’t bring it to the forums.

My $0.02.

8

I added that one explicitly to show that, sometimes, there’s value in a picture of a wheel. That photo is explicit enough so as to allow someone to, at the least, infer and copy its design. It’s fundamentally more valuable in that it shows a mechanism or series of parts than does a photo of a wheel made from a single billet of aluminum or something similar.

It’s by no means black or white, obviously, and I mentioned in the beginning that it’s possibly many will disagree with me. I just though it might be time for a friendly reminder to everyone that there are people behind the scenes and, perhaps more importantly, there’re folks reading the forums during the build season that don’t have hours a day to pour through threads that have no value – and fun isn’t valuable to someone trying to find an answer to their question.

9

I agree with this sentiment. I think some teasers are cool. I don’t want to see a pile of skyway wheels lying next to a kitbot gearbox. There’s nothing interesting about that. If I wanted to see that, I’d walk over to our KOP bin and pull them out.

However, I think finished custom wheels, transmissions, etc are cool, even if theyre not shown in a full pic of the bot.

10

So perhaps we need to make a rule that the only “teasers” need to be of completed and assembled mechanisms?

11

I spend a lot of time as a mod (not pictures yet) and I really don’t mind the discussions. As far as I am concerned I have no problem with even a couple of pictures. The teams that post more than that I find annoying and mark that team down on my don’t want to meet list.

Are they then teasers??

12

If it’s not clear from my original message, I want to mention it again – I don’t know or think that we need a hard and fast rule about anything. Rather, we can and should think about the contributions we’re making to the site and the gallery. We ought to be intelligent enough to police ourselves, as it were, and keep the clutter to a minimum. I started this thread because my perception is that a lot of the clutter comes from teasers. I’m sure someone could just as easily say again that there ought to be no more Chit-Chat – and we know what’s always come of those discussions.

13

I agree. I think sometimes teasers get out of hand.
However, I don’t think it should be limited to complete robots or mechanisms.
Take the word teaser itself. They tease people, and provoke interest. Teasers are meant to spark interest, and I know that completed robots do that, but not in the same way as partly revealing a robot or mechanism.
We can see those on websites and such.
I love this teaser Rees took here…
I think that this picture is a true definition of a teaser. If you look closely, you can see part of the arm mechanism used to lift up the boxes in 2003, in the reflection of the light. The picture reveals some of the robot, but not the whole thing. It adds suspense to the completion of the robot, and not the completed robot itself.
So what to do to solve this…? Maybe allow each team to post one teaser, and one completed robot picture? Maybe you could start a thread of 2007 robot teasers, and one for 2007 completed robots. Just a suggestion. You could even make the forum locked, so people have to go through a mod to post something. But I also think that people need to come to the understanding that a pile of wires, or just a pile of metal is in no way a real teaser, and it doesn’t help CD users or mods.

14

I agree with the idea of one teaser pic and one finished pic,
but wouldn’t

just add to the work that the mods will have to do, since everyone would be contacting them to try to get something posted?

15

This is what I’m gathering from what people have said.

If it came from the KOP - Don’t post it
If it was bought - Don’t post it
If it is strikingly similar to something that could have been bought (ie: custom sprocket) - Don’t post it

Am I remotely correct?

16

I kinda like seeing what other teams have done even if its vague or not very interesting. I understan that the mods have lots of work to do, especially since each image is approved so that there is no spam. However, I dont think we should start limiting what images can be posted because the mods dont wanna deal with it. If it is becoming to much for the mods then lets add a few more mods. Its not like there arent lot sof people here and many willing to help out. Again, thank you mods for your work, but lets not limit CD just because we dont currently have enough mods.

17

It may be as simple as

  • quality not quantity
  • using common sense when making a decision regarding a teaser -
    does it add, does it detract, does it clutter?
    –
    To add to this, when making suggestions/comments/referrals to threads - we can be gracious.

Jane

18

Well I think that what we’re facing is a common sense issue. Like someone above me put it, people are getting trigger-happy with CD media. There’s really not much to be done about that unless Brandon et al want to put an upload cap on every user.

Like you said, there can’t be any hard and fast rules, and lacking hard and fast rules, I’d rather see a few bad teasers than a bunch of people withholding information in fear of mod wrath.

Everyone should think before they click submit, but not everyone will read this thread, and not everyone who reads this thread will always remember to stop and think, so it looks to me like there’s nothing that CD can do but add more mods.

That said, I think this forum takes itself too seriously sometimes. The backlash you can get for making a new thread bearing any similarity to a previous one sometimes approaches ridiculous. (I know the reasoning for this and in most cases it’s right, but when you get flamed for not dredging up a 6-month-old thread…) This is a massive forum, and it does need policing and a general attitude of maturity and, at times, restraint, but it’s still a forum, a place of free expression and communication between, to a large degree, high school students. (Woo, run-on!) This isn’t an official business site or any other professional discussion, so sometimes there’s an occasion to lighten up.

(I suspect that that last paragraph may cause a stir, and I really hope it doesn’t, but I felt it should be said, and I think I said it politely and maturely.)

19

Half the fun of a teaser is just that… teasing. If I saw a completed bot or chassis or anything nearly finished I wouldn’t be teased at all. I do agree that some photos of bolts and chain and other random parts are uneccesary, however, the lasercut/waterjet parts in the first “bad” teaser link you posted are perfect teasers! It makes people think “how could those possibly fit together, and what function does that mechanism serve.” Bottomline - it’s fun guessing what people are doing. Truly good teasers should give people a good place to start guessing, while still leaving some mystery and uncertainty.

20

The first is spot-on, but I think the other two pretty much have to have some wiggle room. An AndyMark shifter isn’t particularly noteworthy, but a truckload of paint rollers would probably qualify in my book.

The custom sprocket example is the same thing: a sprocket you hex broached off of McMaster won’t work, but this is certainly fine.

Then again, there stands to be an exception for mass quantities of special items. Unless you’re AndyMark or the NiagraFIRST Triplets, I’d say a box of fifty of those hex-broached sprockets would certainly turn heads.