UNgracious UNprofessionalism

[ablatner]

@bEdhEd

…The topic I want to discuss is the amount of ungracious and unprofessional comments left by some FIRST participants accusing these incredibly hard working and productive teams of having robots that are mostly built by corporate sponsors, or robots that are barely built by students.

This topic pops often. Here is a big thread on it. It all depends on the goals of a team. Some prioritize winning, others inspiring, and others the students learning and running their own team. There isn’t a right or wrong choice here, but many people have very strong opinions about it. I have my own, but I’d rather not beat a dead horse.

Libby Kamen says it well:

@Libby K

There are approximately a zillion threads on this, and it always turns into an accusatory and awful discussion. If people want to discuss this, please do so calmly and without internet-rage.

If you’re asking for my $0.02, whatever a team needs to do to accomplish goals - as defined by that team and their dynamic (I’m talking mentors and students here)- is what works for them, and what they should do. So long as everyone on the team agrees on their process - that’s their process, and that’s that. Outsiders don’t get to ‘judge’, because it’s not their team.
…
Where teams encounter problems is when one “side” tries to “take over” the process and the team as a whole isn’t happy. That’s what I think you’re trying to get at here, and I think that deserves some discussion.

Chief Delphi always gets weird in threads like these. Keep it civil if you’re gonna post here.

Keep it civil here.