Rules dictatorship here ?

[Administrator]

Matt (Mustangman) brought to my attention that he (and anonymous "others") deem rules and our way of post race incident maintenance spoil fun in racing. Ron claimed Speedsims rules handling would require driving perfection to NOT being penalized all over

Unfortunately that complaints didn't come along with any constructive critcism. I suggested to make public suggestions how to specifically improve rules, but the answer (from Matt) was that I wouldn't listen anyway, I'd rather run some kind of dictatorship.

Private complaining doesn't help or improve anything. Thus I'd like to have this discussed in the open public, but please in a constructive way. We had this kind of discussion before already in some LFS series, after that series' incident list top scorers complained about getting penalized too often and for too minor incidents

Maybe I should once more explain what the basic idea about the rules is. Penalties on incidents are given for how much a driver spoiled another driver's race by causing an incident, and as weighting factor for how little he cared about it. Our idea of a perfect race is that everybody has fun because nobody got pissed by getting kicked off on the track by someone else who rated his own ambitions higher than his opponents' safety. Rules and penalties are for making drivers adopt to that idea

Obviously not everybody does share that idea or agrees to the way we try to make sure drivers obey to the referring rules.
So pls post your opinion here so we could get an idea how to proceed and if something needs to be changed/improved

[triz]

Rules dictatorship here ? ->
Nope, there is always communication before getting a penalty, and always 2nd and even 3rd opinions asked from others on a situation.


Well my opinion is simple : Keep it as it is. And the reason for that if you start easing up on the rules there is no way back.

If you allow pilots to just wheelbang their way up the ranks because they have a somewhat faster speed then i think the majority of pilots will leave Speedsims all together, including myself. We had this discussion before.

Racing is not just about having fast laps and being faster then the other guys, there comes the art of overtaking as well, and there lays the real deal... You overtake without causing problems for the opponent while overtaking. If we were to permit everybody to just bang their way through the field then its not racing anymore. Penalties are to safeguard the rules and to make sure someone is "discouraged"not to make a habit of making "silly moves" on other cars.

If i were to punt someone out of competition gaining an advantage, then thats unfair. You get a penalty for that. In fact in my case it happened racing on Oulton with BurnOut. I gave him a push, he lost control, and lost positions because of me. I waited for him to get back on track and resumed behind him. I got a warning for that (would have been a penalty if i didnt give the position back). Then 2 races later same kind of incident happened between me and Karl, i gave the position back, but still got a penalty simply because it happened before. That's the correct way to apply the rules, because now i'd think twice to overtake in a spot where there is no room.

Thats what the rules and penalties are for, not to personally set you back, but to let you think twice to make a silly move. Besides... where is the challenge in overtaking if you are just permitted to bang your way through the field?

cheers,

Triz

[BurnOut]

Im in the same boat as triz, and I've been asked in the past to give my point of view if usual admins are involved in the incident being judged.

So far, I've been given my fair amount of penalties in speedsims series and I've never felt that they were unfair. I dont always agree in the kind of penalty, but theres always good communication between the admin team and the admins, so my 2c also go for keeping things as they are.

[ucrdoh]

Do you have to drive perfectly? No. But when you wreck someone, you deserve a penalty, end of story. If you hinder someone's race, you're in trouble.

I'll show an example, I watched the second Kyalami race, when Bmx wrecked karl, he backed off, let karl go, and moved on. Hence why only race accident, when he hit chris however, he didn't wait for him, not to mention chris suffered major damage. Does it require perfection? No, things do happen. But these cars you cannot bounce around with. You have to practice overtaking, be patient. I know you can also race hard, watch the very end of the first Kyalami race where Ron, Karl and I are fighting for 3rd. That was awesome racing, no incident, just tough racing.

I know the penalties I've gotten I accept because I usually see where they're coming from, I know in the moment, it gets intense. So sometimes I get in trouble, still my fault. When the want to win is there, sometimes you're going to push the limit, but the limit should be finding the best times, not by wrecking your way to the front. We don't have time for cautions. Hence this is the best system for what we have.

In short it is fine. You can appeal to a third party if you wish, if you need to. but usually at some point, you have to accept the consequences of your actions.

I also know rules go both ways, if you get spun out, you'll want that administrative hand in helping you. It prevents a revenge scenario. If the administrators provide the punishment, i.e. the institutional reaction to a misdeed, then the victim is less likely to seek revenge. All parties benefit. This isn't have at it boys, and it really shouldn't be.

[DaveO]

I first started racing heat back in 2003 on IRF doing pickup races in the evenings.. About a year later I joined a few oval leagues and started racing in league sanctioned races.

When SCGTS was released in 2007 I started racing it offline and enjoyed the mod big time.

Then all of a sudden I noticed on the TMS site that, Raybee and a few other guys were thinking of doing an Ezine magazine, and were looking for guys to do reviews on mods. When I saw that post, I jumped at the chance to write the article about the SCGTS mod because I've always loved running the mod offline and also because I always had a passion for RC racing.. That’s when I first met Karl to interview him about his new mod. Then I was invited to race in there first ever SCGTS race @ Northpoint.


Well from that moment after talking with Karl, and racing with these guys back in 2007 at NorthPoint, I knew I found a great league and a great bunch of guys to race with. The first person who I recognized was Chris, from both of us racing in a WGTC series together back in 2004. But what really opened my eyes was the way they ran the races here at Speedsims, Everything was and is done very professional, and in a friendly environment. I was having so much fun, I couldn’t wait for the next race..
They opened there doors to a former ovaler and I never looked back.

In early 2009 my buddy Karl asked me if I would like to team up with him in co-maintaining Speedsims, with helping with the site, and running online races. Also during this time I was also helping Blaxman with doing some testing/feedback and creating some base sets for some of his mods and started to slowly learn a little bit about modding. Then when Karl started modding the S.A. Shelby CanAm mod, my interested started to peak,by watching him creating his mod from the ground up, and suddenly I started getting more addicted to that sort of stuff.

Well to make a long story short, since the first time I set foot into Speedsims back in 2007, I’ve always found there was a sense of security at Speedsims as a driver. You know if someone does the wrong thing they will be penalized, or get a warning about it. If you start being lax in the rules then that is when things start to go down hill. If you let someone get away with they think are small indiscretions

We sure don’t like giving out penalties that's for sure. I like to think of them as like as an educational tool to be used, so drivers can learn from there mistakes and hopefully move on and become a better and safer driver from it. The admins are also subjected to the same rules as the drivers. As you all know we get penalties from time to time also. Were here to have fun, to race with our friends, in a friendly, professional and competitive atmosphere.





I

[Blaxman]

SpeedSims has, in my opinion, the best set of rules in this community. Is it perfect? Certainly not..... but we see people complaining about real life motorsports rules everyday in Nascar, F1, Indycar, or whatever series around the world.

That's enough to realize rule enforcement is a tricky matter and there will always have discussion about it. SpeedSims is not immune to discussions, what not necessarily means things are being done the wrong way. It's just the nature of things. People always complain....

Being SpeedSims the "most international" league in HEAT is also a factor to be considered in the discussion. We all come from various driving schools all around the world and there's a significant variety of driving styles and more importantly...... the way people interpretate ontrack actions.

The latter factor is what I think creates some friction here. Drivers tend to drive based on their background knowledge. That's why most of the complaining come from US or North and South-American drivers. I had myself to adapt my driving to the Euro style of racing SpeedSims employs, that is waaaaay less aggressive than anywhere else.

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

That said, I would say there's two options the parts involved should think of:

Or drivers get themselves adapted to the enviroment found here, always having in mind they should obbey the set of rules SpeedSims offer....... or SpeedSims get its set of rules (and incident interpretation method) reviewed and adapted to a more 'universal' racing style.

Personally, I rather the first option. SpeedSims is an european based league and having them running under european style is something that adds "glamour" to the experience.


.

[DaveO]

The latter factor is what I think creates some friction here. Drivers tend to drive based on their background knowledge. That's why most of the complaining come from US or North and South-American drivers. I had myself to adapt my driving to the Euro style of racing SpeedSims employs, that is waaaaay less aggressive than anywhere else.

That's very possible that some people may not understand things. I'm from North America, and I never really had a problem interpreting the rules, maybe it's because my heritage is European.
But we do have an "open door" type of policy to where drivers can always ask us questions, and were always here to help out with any type of questions they might have. If it's regarding rule interpretations, or even if they need help with a setup. We've always gone out of our way to help guys out in this area.

Another thing which I think, that is very unique and different from other heat leagues that you see, when a driver is involved in an incident, we always take the time to get there statement, so they can tell us there view point of what happened in a certain situation. We also respond back to try and educate them on what happened, and if there is something they don't understand they can always feel free to ask anything.

[ucrdoh]

one thing we must recognize is that this hasn't built up overnight either. This breakdown was a long time coming, I'm not saying the rules have broken down. But the grumbles have been there, just now they have reached a crescendo, and now it seems we're at a cross roads. Those who don't like it, don't have to race it. It seems there is just frustration with the rules at hand, I was watching American football yesterday, and someone was talking about that the refs are enforcing the rules, and the people that complain just don't like the rules.

I should point out as well though, that our refs race with us. Yet, like I stated before, when something happens between Karl and I. Dave messages me, which as sadly been more than it should have been, and when it happened the latest time, I'm like NOT AGAIN! lol. When Dave and I crossed paths, Karl messaged me. And I'm sure someone can be called if Dave and Karl wrecked each other. Blax, or someone like that. I think they're very fair, even with the arbitrators racing with us.

[triz]

Well, I think Speedsims has been doing it's leagues the same way for a long time, and I never noticed any difference over the time. So what I wonder is, why the complaints now? While the rules have been like this for a long time? If the rules were a problem for the majority then Speedsims wouldnt have many racers left.

Yet there are quite few people still racing here, so it is a very small minority who seems not to agree. I dont think there should be a change of rules just for this very small minority. I think there are different and better options for this minority, which they best can fill in themselves...............

You're free to race here, abiding the set of rules which have a long history already. Either accept them... or you dont... it's not mandatory to race with us.

Everyone is welcome here, its an open community. There is always communication and everything is clear. There are always some people who complain. But that doesnt necisarily mean there is something wrong.

And as for a difference between the Americas en Europe... Perhaps, but its the way it is. Like Dave said, if you let loose the rules a bit there is no turning back and things go down the drain. In the end noone would come back and race here. I hope the minority of forces at play here change their mind, rationalize a bit and see that in the end the rules are for everyones benefit. To protect the community from going down the drain and keep quality racing.

[raybee1970]

Hmm... is this Cuba or Venezuela? ;D

Nah, didn't think so.

I don't race with you guys, but I don't ever see Dave or Karl either one complaining like a little sissy when they lose a race in this game... and I rarely ever see any complaining about any penalties that are handed down. Well... unless it is from someone who takes it all too seriously.

[humty]

IMHO we have to keep the rules as they are.

Those rules are enforced to help people learn drive more carefully when approaching and overtaking a car from behind.

In real life racing when there is a incident most of the time it's the end of the race for one or both drivers.

To make it more intresting for us online racers and give those who got wrecked in a earlier race, penalties have been handed out to the one who caused the incident.
Now if a person learns from his mistakes and drives more carefull without wrecking he certainly will end up high in the standings at the end of the series.

Now I've had my share of incidents and most of the time I got penalized for it.
On several occasions I was the cause of the incident and what I would do after the race is contact the admin of the series and explained what had happened and that I would take full responcibility for it and that I would respect the penalty that he would see fit for it.

As a admin of several series I had to hand out penalties to people who caused a incident and except for some persons there was never a complaint against the penalty because we respected each other as a driver.
At several occasions I even handed out penatlies to myself because I know I was the one who caused the incident.

There for keep the rules as they are.

[Cholerix]

Instead of voicing his concerns and suggestions in an open public discussion, even though explicitely having been asked to do so, Matt had started to plot in the background, suggesting to other members to leave to force admins to

change [their] ways and we can get back to the speedsims we had years ago.
...
We need to fight for what is right and not support this stupidness.

Neither me nor Dave have any problems with people being of a different mind or disagreeing. We'd always consider suggestions for improvement that are based on valid reasoning. Even in case we wouldn't agree, we'd set up a public discussion to make people get themselves an opinion on the topic

What we don't tolerate is continous insulting, even after having been warned numerous times. We furthermore don't tolerate notorious wild accusations about almost literally everbody deliberately hitting either of the twins on the track, or that in case the admins see it different, accusations about that this is only because admins are biased and unfair by default.

And for certain we won't tolerate people that refuse to participate in public discussions to prove their point but instead prefer to plot in the dark. In every community people would get banned for what Matt was just doing here. And no different here

So congratulations Matt. You made it !
Like your brother, you did everything you could to leave us without option but now to throw you out for good.

[triz]

Seeding unrest and divide in a community for their own advantage is outragious. I am glad this is not being tolerated. People like that don't add anything to a community.

I am not sorry to hear the expulsion of these two individuals as their history is speaking for itself. I hope that these people realize some day what they did wrong and maybe grow a common sense.

I guess that if they continue this way, sooner or later in other racing communities the same will happen to them.

Triz

[DaveO]

Jan 26, 2011 14:21:22 GMT 2 triz said:

Seeding unrest and divide in a community for their own advantage is outragious. I am glad this is not being tolerated. People like that don't add anything to a community.

Well Matt, just tried getting on here and posting as a guest, under another IP address.. just a few minutes ago. It's unbelievable what there trying to do.

[Cholerix]

Jan 26, 2011 14:21:22 GMT 2 triz said:

I guess that if they continue this way, sooner or later in other racing communities the same will happen to them.

Oh, this has already been the case. So far as I know NHRL had banned Bmx at least temporarily in the past for about similar reasons