post race incident treatment ? how to ?

[Administrator]

As some of you may have noticed, we review each race quite thoroughly and list up all incidents. For each incident then we ask the ones who have been in for statements. On base of further replay analysis, those statements and not the least the series' rules we find a decision about who had caused the incident - unless it was rated race accident. The driver who has been found to have caused an incident gets a penalty if some other driver had suffered from the incident by loss of position or damage. We usually try to explain to the driver in detail why a certain penalty was given - and in case the driver disagrees, he can demand a third party review of the decision

Now some drivers have complained we do this too thoroughly, we even were accused to do all the review stuff just for the sake of putting out penalties because of the fun of it .. small surprise, that accusation came from drivers that have been found of having caused incidents frequently and/or having violated rules by massively regularly shortcutting repeatedly.


But that doesn't mean that their objection about too much regulation may not be a valid one ... maybe... Could be we are just some narrow-minded old farts that care too much about rules and have started spoiling the fun by this. In case it would be that way, we would never know unless you tell us... by reasoning


Which is why I'd like to put up the question what do YOU think how post-race maintaining should be done ?
- the way we do it, by checking replays for incidents and investigating in each one ?
- or by looking away more occasionally ? If so by what scale and what criteria ?
- or rather even looking away most of the time and only checking in case someone has filed in a protest ?

Furthermore I'm very interested to learn what do you think about the penalizing:
- too much, too hard, too often ?
- or too few, not hard enough ?
- just right ?

So please tell us what you think how the post-race maintaining should be done, or optimized/improved - and why so

[Blaxman]

Despite this thread is not in Heat section, I guess the subject is about the SpeedSims races in general... right?

So, In my opinion SS has the best management team and the best set of rules possible.

Speedsims leagues and special Events are flawlessly managed, the race enviroment is friendly and respectful not only because the people involved are nice but because there's a clear set of rules to be followed. That's the "secret"!!

I cant be called a veteran, when it comes to online racing, but I am a veteran on a lot of racing activities (of many types) and I confess I got positively surprised when I saw you SS guys ruled the leagues in such a professional level. I wouldnt change a bit on the way you guys rule your races/leagues.

Oh... so, the guys who are frequently punished are the ones whining and asking for weaker rules? Mmmmm.... why I'm not surprised? ;D


================================================================================================


A little testimony:

During this year, driven by long time requests, I gathered a research team in order to perform undercover visits to some G2 oval leagues.

The research team goals were:

1 - Checking the functionality of cheating detection alerts;

2- Checking the mod's online performance (lag, warp, crash errors, etc..);

3- Checking general aspects of racing management;


Well..... it happens that what we found Heat and the mod passed with honors on the first two goals but, many (if not all) G2 oval racing league admins failed big time on the third goal.

Poor league management make the leagues suck. Members fighting (and leaving because of that), new members getting scared away by the childish behavior of many of "league veterans". Rookies (or clumsy drivers) being openly mocked by others, etc...

Heck, they all ask for accurate mod physics, paints, models and everything else.... but, they dont do the same when it comes to provide an accurate simulation of a professional racing enviroment, do they? Let myself answer that... HELL NO!!!

Anyway.... the research team is still working and we'll even put together a Technicall Bulletin detailing some of the experiences and giving some tips on the best usage of the online features Heat and the mods provide. It's the best we can do but, it wont be any effective if the league owners/admins dont think about how they are ruling their leagues right now..... and if they actually want their leagues grow healthy.




.

[ksheppard]

I'd say that the checking is one of the things I like about how these series are run. In my opinion it's what sets these apart the others and is what makes it more realistic.

+1 for keeping it exactly the way it is.

[Harding Jr]

Wait a moment, I don't think I am getting this quite right. Someone who breaks the rules consistently is complaining that they are breaking the rules to much? AEEE!!! LOOK AT YOURSELF BEFORE YOU POINT THE FINGER!!! Speedsims league's are and have always been run with the up most professionalism. If you cheat or break a rule you will be brung up on it, if you don't want to consistently be bogged down by penalties it's pretty simple. Race cleaner and don't break any rules.

When I first started racing for the first 5 or so races I had a PM from Karl waiting in my inbox, because I was racing far to hard, outdriving myself bouncing of other cars etc. I started driving cleaner to avoid getting these penalties. Over the last 20 or so races I have only had one pm from Karl about one incident. Speedsim's penalty system made me a better, faster, cleaner driver.

If the penalty system changes to favor some cheating/rule breaking then that professionalism that puts Speedsims ahead of most over leagues will be gone.

[Administrator]

Dec 21, 2009 7:25:11 GMT 2 Harding Jr said:

Wait a moment, I don't think I am getting this quite right. Someone who breaks the rules consistently is complaining that they are breaking the rules to much?

Nope, you got that wrong

Some people who got penalties were complaining about penalizing being too harsh, and that rule violations they rate trifles are penalized at all (such as shortcutting in chicanes for example)

[BurnOut]

+1 for keeping things unchanged

[alang]

I agree, the amount of replay checking and penalties is right.

[Administrator]

Dec 22, 2009 6:05:04 GMT 2 Crash said:

The only thing I would possibly suggest is perhaps letting the aggrieved party have an option for dismissing a penalty against someone for very minor incidents, if they felt it was not a big deal or that they in some way contributed to the incident.

Thought about something alike some time back, but put it away

Reason was the argument, that this case you add some inbalance. Some drivers would get away without penalty where others were penalized for doing the same - and would feel this being unfair treated by their opponent, who didn't dismiss the pen. And this would add some "buddy" reason to the penalty system: if you had accidently hit some buddy, that one probably feels to have to dismiss your pen for friendship's sake.

The way we run it, the only "bad guys" are the race admins, and that way prevents bad feelings between drivers because of post-race incident outcome. And the race admins are "bad guys" to everybody at same level, even to each others ;D, so drivers cannot make assumptions that having got a penalty had been a personal matter

added
--------------------------------------------
btw: by giving back the advantage that was won from an incident (if possible), is not just gentlemen's behaviour, but helps avoiding to get a penalty as well in case you accidently have caused that incident and benefited from it

[DaveO]

Mustang I deleted your post, since what you posted had no relevance to the thread, and all you were doing was spamming Blaxman. Next time please stick to the topic on hand, and when you do post about this topic, try using complete sentences and correct spelling. Since English is a lot of peoples 2nd language, would be nice if they could understand what you were actually writing.

[alang]

I just saw something. Last race FOX penalties:

- #27 (me) minor incident 10 pos back next race
- #23 minor incident last row next race
- #17 minor incident last row next race.

Though I undertsand what might have been the thoughts about those decisions, without precisions it still might look odd to have minor incidents and different penalties.

[Administrator]

Difference is here that you "only" caused another car to spin and drop back, but no damage. While the other incidents resulted in loss of position and/or damage

[zay]

Well, I gotta say, even though I had a 10 spot back in final result penalty and a drive thru, you guys should keep it the way it is. I actually like it, even though I am one of those guys who got penalized pretty heavilly, I have to admire the way you are running this league, because you don't let anything slip, and you do watch replays sooo very closely. This is nice because in some other leagues(not just in LFS), you get spun and either the admin 'never saw it' or obviously the wrecker was his friend(or fellow admin etc). So ya, +1 to keeping it the way it is, and sure, some ppl are gonna be boiling, but a little later they realize that the action taken against them was for thier and thier competitors own good. I also like having the feeling that if something happenned to me, it will get looked at proffesionally, thoroughly,and fairly.

zay

[tdrt]

Dec 21, 2009 1:01:01 GMT 2 Administrator said:

We usually try to explain to the driver in detail why a certain penalty was given - and in case the driver disagrees, he can demand a third party review of the decision

Merry Christmas, all of you.

Some of TDRT raced the FXR Mini Series together with you and was happy about the overall organization incl. the post race handling of incidents.
IMO, it´s good that a racer from his race start knows and realizes that he won´t get away with "dangerous manouvres", due to admins post race checking all cars - all time. It just improves the quality of the races. I´d like to suggest to even take it a step further. We did it in our TDRT League 2008 and the ongoing LTCC uses it as well:

No appeal after the race
Official admins decisions are considered final and will be charged to the participant, without the chance to appeal.

Regards, R.Kolz

[DaveO]

Dec 25, 2009 11:12:59 GMT 2 tdrt said:

Dec 21, 2009 1:01:01 GMT 2 Administrator said:

We usually try to explain to the driver in detail why a certain penalty was given - and in case the driver disagrees, he can demand a third party review of the decision

Merry Christmas, all of you.

Some of TDRT raced the FXR Mini Series together with you and was happy about the overall organization incl. the post race handling of incidents.
IMO, it´s good that a racer from his race start knows and realizes that he won´t get away with "dangerous manouvres", due to admins post race checking all cars - all time. It just improves the quality of the races. I´d like to suggest to even take it a step further. We did it in our TDRT League 2008 and the ongoing LTCC uses it as well:

No appeal after the race
Official admins decisions are considered final and will be charged to the participant, without the chance to appeal.

Regards, R.Kolz

Merry Christmas Rudi!

Thanks for the compliments about the overall satisfaction that your team had with running in our FXR Series.

We don't like giving out penalties thats for sure. We think of it more along the lines as an educational tool to the certain drivers, so they can hopefully learn from there mistakes, and in doing so they learn from it, and hopefully it makes them a better driver in the long run.

About not having an appeal process. I doubt this will ever change, IMHO, If a driver thinks they were unjustly accused in an incident or the penalty was to harsh, we always give them the option of having a 3rd party review it.

[Deleted]

Dec 21, 2009 10:47:14 GMT 2 Administrator said:

....................(such as shortcutting in chicanes for example)

I just lol'ed at that ... we all know what your saying there. ;D