[Moderator Note: The original poster on this thread has requested to have their posts removed. The contents of the first post have been removed to honor this request without removing the entire thread.]
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Foster 
Owen 
UNBAN OWEN
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I think Foster may have been referring to some users (cough cough Guyishere) and others who would routinely be made fun of. While some of it was warranted (and funny), I could see how people would perceive it as bullying.
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janny janny clean it up
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Foster brought up some great points, particularly around Chief Delphi. It’s been incredible to see such a welcome from the members, but I’ve also noticed a pretty big lack of professionalism from many of the VEXodus refugees, and it has been quite sad to see it degrade their forum. It almost feels like walking into someones house with muddy boots on and leaving horrible footprints everywhere.
Either way, I do think a bit more professionalism from the community would be very benificial for everyone involved.
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I’m going to start this with I’m against the misogynistic and grooming attacks by people (IFI/VEX/FIRST/etc) that have happened. It is wrong, it needs to stop (well never should have happened, but that boat has sailed). At this point we should, as a community stamp it out at the source.
There are now over a dozen posts about the issues at IFI and with mentors grooming roboteers. People that do that should be removed. Tony Norman is gone at IFI ( and let me say, he is gone from day to day, pulling apart his 50% ownership will take time, that does not happen over night) Others that are implicated will take time to happen. This is not CSI:VEX, it won’t be resolved in 60 mins.
Hey Foster here, thanks for the tag. There is a lot of bullying on the forum, more than I would expect. Need to remember that there are IQ Elementary on read only (younger than 13) and MS being taunted by HS. In fact, I’m 60+ an being taunted by HS roboteers should give someone pause. I’m amused by the abuse in the discord.
The reality is the VEX forum is run by a company. They can take the forum down any second (and they did and I lobbied back to get it online.) If you think it’s a valuable resource, treat it as such. If you think it sucks and should die, then just walk away, don’t ruin it for the rest of us.
I was referring to that and didn’t for a second think their posts were warranted.
/sigh
I hate social media. I hate the people that sit on their keyboards and write crap they would never say to a persons face. We have become quite isolated and our social skills (monkey skills) have fallen by the wayside. I’m not innocent, I have Foster rants that I’ve tried to move the community. And there is a key word community. We are mostly a community to work with robots and we are roboteers to extend ourselves to be better. There are a ‘surprising’ number that want to just cause discord in our community.
I laughed a the discord posts of “Foster found CD” I was there well before the VEX forum got started. Oddly I have an amount of street cred (user credibiltiy) with the CD people. I got poked by some and when I went “Hey, here since 2007 look back” people went “Oh Ok, sorry”.
There was a huge schism between FIRST and VEX and I chose VEX, I had a ton of parts, I was a EP, this was the way to go. Never looked back. Well that’s a lie, I do look back an see FTC struggle with their environment, I look and go Hey 5 VRC and 7 VIQ events in my region vs your two. But I work hard on keeping my FRC contacts and I send VEX+++ roboteers to VRC to help them grow.
I stand by my points on the VEX forum.
Think globally, act locally, but remember, building is hard, tearing down is easy. Pick the harder path.
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I want to address owen169 comments
It’s an image that I typed it be text, errors are mine
Ok here we go
Thanks, I think. But if I’m the worse you’ve seen, please stay where you are, there is an entirely political, social, economic world past your door that, sadly, will break your brain. And I say this as someone that climbs out of my robot lab and has my brain broken daily. But if you do get out, and I’m still high on your list let me know
Not silenced. They are still out there. They have been listened to. You have seen the CEO of VEX leave, the afterfall is underway. Their voices, combined are having a reverberating statement.
But my point was people in the forum that bullied people. Pick apart the forum. Its hard because the moderators delete faster than you can see. As around how you can get an instant feed and you too can watch in real time.’
Robin Leech here for the Life styles of the Rich and famous, tonight we are here a the home of one of the VEX forums moderators, on their 5000 acre ranch.
“Umm, sorry its a half acre”
“Oh but there still is the heliport ??”
“Oh the drone, do you want to fly it”
This is Robin Leech flying helicopters from a VEX moderator mansion
Words matter.
About VEX robots, VEX robot competitions, yep. Otherwise try reddit.
I know you are itching about Tony and other issues. Post them, keep it civil. Single shots directed at a target. CEO was bad vs Everyone that ever worked at VEX, touched a VEX product, thought about VEX, can spell VEX; not so much.
Have a better day today.
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You can’t use this word, its the name of an FRC team.
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/snort
I predate that team by a few years.
I’ve used the term roboteers since 2006, and to be honest, when I go to say students, I say roboteers.
You know when they say the world sits on a turtle and it’s turtles all the way down (google it), I go “It’s all roboteers, all the way, all roboteers engineering is all roboteers”
Thanks for the post
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Note: I will recuse myself from moderating this thread since I’m participating, and I’m speaking for myself and not on behalf of G2M
My concern is that we’re doing the thing where a bad thing happens, and then we focus on our disagreement with the way some people are protesting, rather than on what caused them to protest. I’m in no way condoning doxxing or harassing innocent parties, but while some people are reacting poorly, I think they’re right to have a strong reaction.
I have repeatedly given VEX the benefit of the doubt in my thinking regarding this. When the initial allegations came out, I didn’t expect an immediate response, these things take time. Then we did get a response, and that response claimed all the allegations were lies, and implied they might bring legal action against anybody making such claims.
Then, when additional allegations were posted, VEX shut down the forum. I thought maybe they panicked because things were getting out of control and they were taking the time to craft a statement that would adequately respond to the allegations and give us an idea of their path forward. The fact that there were reports Tony resigned made me even more cautiously optimistic. Then they reopened the forum with almost every post about this deleted, and with manual moderation required, and still no statement.
Actions speak louder than words and right now they aren’t saying anything, and their actions are to prevent anybody talking about it in the only place that will generate any serious pressure on them to make changes. Tony Norman stepping down while remaining a 50% owner doesn’t necessarily do anything to address the broader cultural issues.
In my opinion, even if they had locked the allegation topics, posted a statement that Tony Norman was out and listed what they were doing going forward, and temporarily restricted the forum, that would have been within a range I could give them the benefit of the doubt again. What they’re doing right now seems to be just sweeping things under the rug.
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I was active on the vex forums in high school several years ago, and then I took a few years off vex before starting a vex u team this year. In the multiple years I was active on the forums, Foster basically never missed an opportunity to be on the wrong side of an issue. He consistently had among the worst takes out of anyone active on the forum, and then he was the most sanctimonious and unwilling to admit that he was wrong. If anyone challenged him, he’d write paragraphs about how we should actually be thanking him for his service to us, and then bash the other person as “just a student” etc.
3 years later, I come back to the forums and I see that Foster is still making multiple posts per day, still consistently taking bad positions, and still flaming students 50 years his junior. I think it speaks volumes that he never condemned the sexual harassment of minors by vex employees until he did it as an afterthought while chastising students for “bullying” those same vex employees. Foster, shut up. Nobody would be persuaded by your 17 paragraph defense even if they read it. Everyone else, let’s just ignore him. We’re never going to persuade him that he’s wrong, but we can persuade ourselves that he’s not worth listening to 
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This thread appears to be getting somewhat heated, and posts have been made that border on breaking community guidelines. This is a reminder to all forum members to be civil, even with people you disagree with.
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Again, speaking for myself here and not as a moderator
In my interactions with Foster in the past, even when I’ve disagreed with what he’s said (and I quite strongly disagree with him in this instance), his motivation has always seemed to be helping students.
Also, I’ve only found him to be completely wrong in like half of his takes, and batting 500 isn’t bad (take this in the joking tone it was intended)
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Fair point Bean.
Based on this single post I’ll close up the 49 VIQ teams that I run in 7 elementary schools, 3 libraries and a additional parent run organization with 17 VRC teams.
Can you send me your contact info so I can transfer 100+ roboteers into your care. I’ll work on transferring websites to you once I get that. I have 12 events that you are now running, sent me your robotevents ID so I can transfer them to you.
I’ll give you the PIC and Cortex Hardware so you can test and answer questions that randomly pop up.
Please bring a truck so you can take both VRC fields, the 8 field controller sets that I take to events and both of the IQ fields. (I’ll toss in my mother in law china since that will empty out the robot garage)
I’d like to ask $800 for the 38 linear foot of shelving that everything is stored on. Bring cash, as a boomer I don’t do Venmo.
I’m excited to have about 1500 hours back to do woodworking, rockets, etc.
So happy that I never have to post again on CD, VEX forum and here.
@Bean my new friend, why didn’t you do this three years ago? I’ve been looking for an exit path, so much wish that you had taken over before Covid. VEX zoom has sucked. Building with gloves and masks seems cool until you do it.
So excited to turn something started in 2007 to a new generation.
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@Crumey - thanks for the skull. Not sure if that means you “bone approve” or that you will “skull be there for the truck loading” You are a Kiwi according to your profile, make sure @Bean gives you notice. I lived in Wellington can I ask a favor? When you come to help @bean can you bring some pineapple lumps, I love them and the ones from Amazon are not the same.
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If anyone challenged him, he’d write paragraphs about how we should actually be thanking him for his service to us, and then bash the other person as “just a student” etc.
EDIT:
This thread was locked but I want to add 2 points.
First, yes I correctly predicted the way Foster would respond. This was easier than it seemed given his ahem highly commendable forum history. Here are 2 examples (of the dozens to choose from:)
Second, according to Foster’s profiles, he has written 4400 VF posts and 1500 CD posts. If each post takes 10 minutes to write, Foster has spent over 900 total hours writing forum posts. Since 2013, ~1.5% of Foster’s total time on Earth has been spent making forum posts. But you know what he’s never said once? “I got it wrong and I’m sorry.” That’s just not something he’s capable of.
Haha, don’t worry, I think this probably explains my reaction better.
Also, will make sure to bring a few packs of Pineapple lumps to worlds, don’t worry about that 
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I’m not one to normally comment on things like this but is this not just
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