FIRSTwiki talk:Contact-A-Thon
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I don't think Phrontist is planning on coding the automated system any more, so I'm going to revert to the original plan, FIRSTwiki-ites gathering emails for portions of the list and emailing the lists of emails to me. --[[User:Max|Max [1257]]] 23:33, 17 Oct 2004 (EDT)
Uh-oh, Phrontist has that gleam in his eye...
What is the single thing any team can contribute to FIRSTwiki? Their Team Page of course! One of the big hurdles in getting people to become active in FIRSTwiki is fear of the wiki interface. Remember all those posts on CD? They all amounted to a big collective: "What?" Well I think I have a little scheme here. If we split up the Team Index over, say, 6 people, that leaves us with 250 teams per person. Every person would google around for the teams on their list and try to get an email address with which to contact that team. I'll whip up a little perl script that will automate the sending of emails to this effect:
Dear (insert name, if known, otherwise: "Team #### Member"),
FIRSTwiki ([1]) is an open content encyclopedia of all things related to FIRST. It is a wiki (see What is Wiki?, or website where anyone is able to edit almost any page). FIRSTwiki strives to serve the FIRST community by providing useful content and a historical record of FIRST's evolution.
We'd like to personally invite you to fill in your team's page on FIRSTwiki (This would be a link to THAT teams firstwiki page). Any information you could supply on your team would be greatly appreciated. For information on getting started with wiki, click here. For an example of a team page see Team 1257's. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to email us at: help@firstwiki.org or, if you prefer AOL Instant Messenger, talk to Max (AIM: Iammaxus), Bjorn (etherkill), Mark (CaudilloFranco), or Jamie (Astronouth7303).
After you've had a chance to fill in your team page, we'd strongly encourage you to make other contributions to the FIRSTwiki. We'd like to see FIRSTwiki become a comprehensive refrence on any and all FIRST related topics.
Thanks, (insert real name corresponding to username that found email address of team), FIRSTwiki
You get the idea...
I'm not so sure we should do this right now, as most teams are in a state of hibernation. But perhaps closer to the kickoff?
Thoughts? --Phrontist 17:20, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
UPDATE: Looks like this idea is actually going to materialize. First order of business is to come up with a letter format. I've posted what Astronouth was working on above, feel free to wiki away at it. Once we've all agreed on the format the process can begin. I'm working on a program (it will be done before the letter) that will make this easy as anything. Basically you'll login to the system and be presented with a list of teams for which there is no email address yet. Just pick a team and if you find an email address for it you will report it to the system. If you find an email address for a member of that team, you'll also report the URL where you found it, if applicable, as it could prove useful later. Also if you find the name of the person that the email address belongs to, that will also be submitted to the database. I'll also throw in some code to allow leaving flags like "Tried googling, no luck" so when the list really gets narrowed down we can start giving up on certain teams when we see 6 of these flags.
After all the email addresses are collected we'll vote on when to send them out I suppose. I'm not too keen on the idea of doing it twice, as this seems like we're nagging people. I know everyone here is anxious to get EVERYONE involved I really think we should wait until, say, kickoff 2005. But hey, lets vote!
Addendum: I'm taking a lot of precautions to ensure spambots we'll be totally unable to get our cache of addresses. No sense in contributing to what is already a serious pain in the ass.
--Phrontist 20:31, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- Why don't you run this script from FIRSTwiki.org. I can make an FTP account for you with access to /ContactAThon where you can put anything you like. More professional when the domain doesn't suddenly change on you. --Max 20:49, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- Hmm... that's about 17 teams each! (plus 3 more for each of us sysops! :ahh:)
- Eh, I doubt all 80, or whatever, registered users would participate in this. It is going ot be more along the lines of 100 each. --Max 17:47, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- How about 1-4 weeks before kickoff?--Astronouth7303 17:42, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- I don't see why we can't start now. We could always do a second run some time later. --Max 17:45, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- That's a pretty nice looking gleam you got stuck in your eye there, Phrontist. I copied from FIRSTwiki to the form and did some other editing. I think we should use a @firstwiki.org email, though, howabout help@....? I'd make the password available to a few sysops, in case we get 200 responses in the next week and we need to split up the replies. --Max 17:45, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- Wow, this sounds exactly like something a spammer would do.--Piotrm 20:42, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- No, no, I strongly disagree. As Phrontist mentioned, we would be using email addresses we found via google. These would be publicly published team addresses. If they are publicly available, I'm sure this would be proper use of the address. Maybe if they have a note where they publish the email that only emails of such and such purpose should be sent... Regardless, they are asking for spam if they have an email on the web... --Max 23:30, 13 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- What about just having the normal users(like me) find the addresses, but the sysops could actually do the e-mailing. Finding the addresses will be the hardest part, so it should be split up among lots of people. 205.222.245.43 10:00, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- Fine, anyone can look for them. --Max 18:06, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- You should make the e-mails more personalized, because you will get a better response, and also because it will be less spamish. For example, each e-mail should have a link to each specific team's wiki page. You should try to use the team's name in the e-mail somewhere, and you should link to 1257's page, if that is the example you are going to use. --Sciencewhiz 10:51, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
Should certain teams be exempt, or every team in the index sent one? --Astronouth7303 18:40, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- We might leave out the teams that have contributed significantly to their pages, but there is no real point to this as that would only reduce the list by about 15-20. Might as well make the list comprehensive. --Max 18:56, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
How big should the claims be? 69.140.173.196 21:33, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- as many as you can (and will) do throroughly in a week or two's time. --Max 22:01, 14 Jul 2004 (EDT)
- Ok, I have so much free time at work I can do some.
69.140.173.196 9:33, 15 Jul 2004 (EDT)
