rec.autos.simulators

Having watched from the side-lines for awhile and participated to some
extent in both F2/F1 communities, I have to comment.  This is not about big
things.  This is about small things.  Petty things.  Unintentional slights,
virtual territorial disputes, sprained feelings.  Welcome to the ***world
of GPL.

What gplrank and its PR guys haven't gotten into their heads yet is that
there is a certain inferiority complex associated with driving F2/F3, and
just about everything I've heard from gplrank seems designed to exacerbate
this complex.  There's never been an admission that "yes, gplrank screwed up
in the original design by not separating F1/F2/F3 in the first place; yes,
F2/F3 are just as valid as F1 and they should and will be supported fully."
Instead, the standard response to F2/F3 complaints is how on the one hand,
Uwe is an overworked guy doing this for the love of the GPL community, and
on the other hand that there aren't enough F2/F3 drivers participating to
bother with.  The F2/F3 guys respond that gplrank obviously considers them
second-class citizens by not supporting them directly, and that's why they
don't participate.  You can picture the two sides virtually flipping each
other off over the internet.  Stupid?  Petty?  Yep.

This F1-2/F1-3 vs. FD/FG naming snafu is a perfect example of the
thoughtless disregard of gplrank for F2/F3 feelings.  What it comes across
as is "ok, let's throw these pesky F2/F3 guys a bone by putting them on a
sub-menu, while making it clear that FD/FG is an inferior F1 variant."
Consider these points:
1)  Everyone who's bothered to read this far knows full well that RA spent
time promoting the FD/FG naming.  Was he doing some virtual territorial
grabbing for his league?  Sure.  Was this behavior perfectly harmless?  Yep.
There is nothing inherently better about F1-2/F1-3 nomenclature over FD/FG,
so why not humor someone who everybody knows and who has put alot of time
into supporting the GPL community.  Beats me why not.
2)  Those who race FD/FG on vroc use the FD/FG nomenclature almost
exclusively in their player names, as well as in the server descriptions for
this type of racing, and have for some time.  But I guess Uwe never races
FD/FG, so he wouldn't know this, would he?
3)  FD/FG has been incorporated into the user interface for GEM itself!  Oh,
but Uwe has never actually ran the engine swapper, so he wouldn't be aware
of this, would he?  Oops.
4)  When these points were made to a gplrank PR guy in the vroc-F2 forum,
his response was like a lawyer defending a guilty client in court.  Don't
admit that gplrank screwed up (even completely without intention), defend!
Defend at all costs!

Sigh.  What gplrank needs to get into its corporate mentality is that there
are no bastions to defend.  No usurpers storming the gates.  No territory to
stake out.  Its a simple service for the GPL community.  Hello?  gplrank?
F2/F3 drivers are the GPL community.  Support them.  Don't defend gplrank.
Fix it.  Please.

rms

While I agree with your points about naming conventions that
became standard "de-facto", I don't think that your criticism
of gplrank guys is correct.

You have made a point about Uwe being unfamiliar with F2/3
community and GEM. It is his choice what cars to race, and
he is doing great job with GPLRank. To help him F2/3 community
could have written clear specifications for requested feature.
I don't mean to offend anybody, but vague requests often
produce this kind of result.

Also I would suggest another explanation. It is usually
very difficult to convince any professional programmer
(including myself) to choose unobvious arbitrary name (FD/FG)
instead of logical one (F1-2/F1-3) :>

Alex
(alexti).

The F2 & F3 communitys put a damn lot more forward than vague requests
Alex.
We continually asked for seperate recognition, and also asked for the
data base to recognize "-fd" & "-fg", and were told it couldn't be
done, which is total rubbish.
Like i said in a earlier post, we don't class the FG & FD cars as a
bastardized off-shoot  of a F1, so we don't intend naming them as one
either.
Both the FD & FG classes deserve their own class name, and to the guys
in the F2/FD & F3/FG leagues, they have them already, without a "f1" in
their names.

Anyway, it's all a mute point really, as other people have already
stated that it is a free service and the programmers can put in what
they like...
It would be a shame to work together though wouldn't it.
How hard is it to remember 2 damn class names.
Maybe if you F1 drivers had to re-name your driver names to include
something other than what your class is known as, you might be
complaining too.
Ah well, no probs...   just means that most of the FD & FG drivers
won't bother submitting times anyway, which it seems is the ultimate
goal of this exercise anyway.
Lets keep F1 superior, and dictate terms to all "lesser" classes.

Cheers,
Ron

  I think the concept of FD(which I 'still' don't know exactly what it
means)
and F1-2 (which to me is clear as a bell) is this.  The guys who accepted
the swapper, and found a formula that raced nicely, came up with their own
nomenclature.  Fine...except then they approach RAS and say...
'hey we've used this swapper and we've named the cars this....'
  Perhaps a better solution would be to have gone to all the leagues or ras
and promote a discussion about what naming conventions would be best.
Then UWE and the rest of the GPL community could have a framework to
work with.  But now we have at least two camps of users The 'letters' guys,
the 'numbers' guys and ...<just thought of a third> the 'we don't use the
swapper or the lower class cars guys'.
  Do I have a solution?  No...do I have a preference?  Yes, but since I
wasn't involved in these issues, I don't feel proper sticking my nose in
much further than I'm doing right now....
  dave henrie
We wouldn't be having these problems if we had a proper CART sim..

Fair points on the whole (especially the one about "FG"/"FD" being well
established). Now I'll make a couple:

1) GPLRank was not designed from the start with everything exactly in its
place. Uwe & co are quite open about the fact that the code is - er - "not
exactly textbook". This makes it difficult to alter some parts. What might
otherwise be a simple fix would take a *lot* of work.

2) Following on from the above, apparently "F1-2" and "F1-3" can be
incorporated without root-and-branch alterations to the code. "FD" and "FG"
can't. So it's either what we have now, a *long* gap with GPLRank offline
while the code is completely rewritten (if anyone wanted to do it), or
banning non-F1 completely. None of these is entirely satisfactory, but the
status quo is the least worst.

3) GPLRank has grown out of all proportion to what was expected at the
start. So the infrastructure struggles to cope, even with the setup there
is now. Adding full support for F2 and F3 (which is a good idea in
priciple) might make the whole edifice collapse.

Incidentally, the current poll on GPLRAnk is "should GPLRank be open
sourced?" - head over there, vote yes, and maybe soon you could rectify
these problems yourself!

--
David. (GPLRank handicap: -5.92)
The GPL Scrapyard - http://scrapyard.netcabins.com
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll, really" -
Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

<snip>

If you need some help, I would volunteer. I am good
at C++, SQL and databases. (at least better than at driving:>)

Alex
(alexti)

I also agree that FD/FG should be retained.  I have just started a league
for FD's and I am not going to change everything now.   Whatever GPL Rank
do, and of course at the end of the day they can do as they wish, the GPL
community has adopted FD & FG as the names for these classes and I can't see
them changing.

Chris Bloom FD

--

GPL FD League
http://www.egroups.com/group/gplfd
Simbok Racing
www.geocities.com/simbokza

Remove _your_clothes before replying

I hope I'm not being too blunt, but F2 *really is* inferior, by definition!
That's why they don't call it F1!  I'm sorry, but feelings have nothing to
do with it!

Poor Uwe probably just isn't very interested in anything but F1, and some
people just won't leave him alone for that.  F2 just ain't his thang, you
dig?  It wouldn't be much less absurd if they demanded that he added a
section for Nascar4 laps!  It's his website, and he's doing us a favor by
posting any rankings at all!

I "dig" that with attitudes like that, it is no wonder there is
childish  segregation issues building within the GPL community.

Disgusted,
Ron Ayton
Australia.

Alex wrote on 15 Jan 2001:

Don't tell me, tell Uwe!

--
David. (GPLRank handicap: -5.92)
The GPL Scrapyard - http://scrapyard.netcabins.com
"After all, a mere thousand yards - such a harmless little knoll, really" -
Raymond Mays on Shelsley Walsh.

AFAIK GPLRank was created so people could compare their times with the

"Papyrus benchmark", i.e. the laptimes of the replays which came with
GPL.  And since those replays are F1 only.....

Remco

There are no "segregation issues".  You're childishly blowing things
completely out of proportion.  Some folks love F2, some folks are relatively
indifferent to it.  End of story.

I just don't understand why some people feel that GPLRank is somehow
obligated to glorify F2, etc.  F2 fans are perfectly free to create their
own rankings system.

Amused,
Aubrey
USA

Ron, the only effort being put into building segregation issues, is being done
by you. I've always made effort to respond to and debate relevent issues here
on ras, but I'm not going to participate in the diatribe that you and Roger are
putting out.

Don Scurlock
Vancouver,B.C.
GPLRank -5.40

Come see how you rank, at the GPLRank site
http://gplrank.ringlord.com/

Myself and others, simply tried to explain where the F2 & F3 communitys
stood on this subject.
We gave GPLrank a viable and workable solution, and they were not
interested in even discussing it with us.
You have NOT tried to discuss this with the GPL F2 & F3 communitys at
all, we were simply told what was to be, and that was that, with "NO"
input allowed from the F2 or F3 communitys at all.
It doesn't surprise me that F1 drivers are not interested in the truth
or the feelings of the F2 & F3 communitys.

Your right though, enough has been said on this subject...

I wish you all the best with GPLrank, regardless of how you decide to
run it, as others have so elequently pointed out, it was designed  for
the F1 community...

Cheers,
Ron Ayton-fg
Ron Ayton-fd

Hi Aubrey,

I agree with you  that some folks love F2, F3 & F1,  but that doesn't
make 1 class better in a sim environment than another class..
That is what i took homage to, your attitude regarding all other
classes apart from F1 was inferior, and the sarcasm in your "dig it"
statement.

No-one feels that GPLrank is obligated to "glorify" F2 or F3, but it is
your (and other F1 drivers) continuing attitude with your ideas of "F1
is better, everything else is second best" that rubs me the wrong way.
We are talking a sim here, not real life racing.
You may not be interested in F2 or F3 personally, but that does not
make those classes inferior, as all of the F3/FG F2/FD classes of
racing in GPL, provide excellent and close racing, that is not only on
a par with the very best that GPL F1 has to offer, it is usually
better..
Many a F1 GPL driver has been shocked to find he wasn't as good as he
thought he was, when he joined one of our F2/FD or  F3/FG races.

After this fiasco, i also agree that the F2 & F3 communitys should
design and build their own ranking system, as the F1 community is hell
bent on segregating us anyway.

The problem wasn't that we felt we were entitled to a section of
GPLrank, it was the fact that we were being told what we had to call
our class of cars, and it is not what we call them amongst the F2/FD &
F3/FG communitys...

Be amused as you like Aubrey, i hope you feel gratified as one of the
"elite" F1 drivers.

Anyway like i said to Don, this has gone far enough.

Cheers,
Ron