rec.autos.simulators

Kyle Langston

Kyle Langston

My estimations project an easy approval.

It is probable there will be a vote date in the not too distant future.

Ed Martin, Tony Johns, Richard Roddy and others should be getting back
to me tomorrow and helping with the assistance I requested of them.
Even if I hadn't started the ball rolling it seems given the response
I've received that r.a.s.n is likely very soon.

Those of you in ICR and GP2 I am sorry if this appears elitest, however,
given the numbers I am looking at in support of this new group, it
appears there has been an under-lying desire for it and no one spoke up
until recently.

Well, I would personally like to thank Microprose for releasing GP2.
Now, I don't have to answer as many questions! <G>

Ed Martin
Producer, Series Director
NASCAR Racing League
Papyrus / Sierra On-Line, Inc.

:       Now that we have Tony Johns leading the way and Ed Martin behind the
: idea, there's no stopping the creation of a new rec.autos.simulators
: newsgroup(s).

Care to explain this to me?  Since when did Tony Johns, Ed Martin and
Kyle Langston Company control USENET?  If you haven't noticed that there
are more than 3-4 people contributing to this newsgroup.  There are even
far more people outside this newsgroup that control USENET.  It will
eventually come down to a vote.  Any anyone who uses USENET can vote.

I am not knocking you.  You are welcome to campaign for your cause all
you want.  But what we want here is a logical discussion of the facts
and issues.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

: I agree with you that rec.autos.simulators does not need to be split
: into 10 separate groups for every software package that comes along.
: But you have to realize that within the automotive simulators market,
: there is a submarket called "racing sims," and within that sub-market
: are some VERY distinct divisions.  With the rate of growth not only in
: racing simulators (i.e. Visiware contending with Microprose for F1
: dominance, EA's planned stock car sim, etc.), but in the racing
: leagues that spring up from them (ESPECIALLY NRL, which is corporately
: backed and is projected to generate a huge following), we need to at
: least make these divisions.  Dividing the newsgroup will not kill the
: old hierarchy -- it will generate growth in each of the new ones.
: Take for example my earlier example with rec.autos.sport.  Once those
: groups split, there was a meteoric rise in usership in all three
: groups.  The same will happen with r.a.s.f1, r.a.s.nascar, and
: r.a.s.indy should they be approved.

In the following r.a.s. will stand for rec.autos.simulators:

Tony, I can see were you are headed here and yes there is a correlation
here to a degree.  However, if I recall rec.autos.sport was way busier
than r.a.s has ever been.  Though I am not saying that r.a.s. is not
growing, it is.  I also remember that alot of the reasons people wanted
to "segregate" rec.autos.sports in their heart of hearts was that they
were sick 'n tired of "my race sports better than your's and your's
sucks" kinda things.  In a way dividing up rec.autos.sports helped due
to the large traffic it generated, but it didn't really help me because
each of its sires generates way too much noise and traffic.  Underscore
noise, I don't necessarily see where dividing up r.a.sports, cut down on
the flaming or other ill-mannered posts.  It just keeps them all neatly
in separate boxes.

: What it WILL prevent is the necessity for Ed and Adam to have to
: answer for a product they are not directly involved in.  The obvious
: question some might pose is, "Why SHOULD they be able to avoid the
: questions?  They work for Papyrus, ergo, they should be responsible
: for ALL their sims."  I disagree.  Much of the flap over ICR2 stemmed
: from the fact that Ed had to get his info second- or third-hand from
: ICR2 techs.  Maybe if the groups are split, some of the ICR2 techs
: will actually get directly involved in r.a.s.i.

As much as I feel for Ed, Adam, et al @ Papyrus for the sh*t they put up
with.  They were forwarding "company" policy issues to the public.  It
wasn't that Ed was simply guessing about something about ICR2 or NASCAR
program structure for that matter.  The issue being addressed had
nothing to do with "tech" matters.  I appreciate their attempt to keep
us informed.   To the best of my knowledge, the information they gave
us was true.  It just wasn't appreciated by the masses.  I've seen Ed
provide information recently that was corrected by another member of the
Papyrus team.  It all boils down to providing information.  I am all for
what ever we can do to facilitate this.  It just seems a little naive to
think that splitting up a newsgroup will help with this problem.

: It depends what you're looking for.  Think about it.  If you want
: information on NASCAR Racing, and there's only one newsgroup, you have
: to pick around a ton of threads that have no mention of NASCAR at all
: looking for information on it.  I take from my Agent article list on
: this last pass:

: "Modem Play?"
: "P200 frame rate?"
: "Re: Rain"
: "Release Date"
: "Pity me and help !!!"
: "TYRES"

: ... etc. etc. etc.  Not everyone puts the "required" subject header
: information in their posts.  Whereas, if you had specialized
: newsgroups, like rec.autos.simulators.f1, if you had a question about
: the F1 3-D physics model on a P200, you'd know EXACTLY where to go.

Okay, splitting up a newsgroup is going to help this a little bit.  But,
there will still be "Help ME"  "Question", etc. posts.  So we've cut
down the confusion a little.  But, this also causes important
information that can be shared across sim disciplines to be lost.  So
here I am posting a long treatise on setting up a Stock car for a road
circuit.  Hell, it's a brilliant piece of work.  In fact the theories
will apply equally well to all disciplines of the sport.  But, since I
am a NASCAR-Head, it gets posted in NASCAR and the Indycar racer never
sees it.  Yes, I know the arguement, "cross-post" it.  Well, as you
probably have realized 87.5% of the readers/lurkers don't even know what
the hell cross-posting is, let alone how to do it.  If they knew this
much, they would be putting proper Prefixes in the Subject Headings ;).

Okay, let's say I finally learned the fine art of cross-posting, that
still leaves 87.49999% who don't know how to "un-cross-post" a followup.
Especially the followups that have long since left their original
subject matter.  For example "Freon" -- "Driving Rental cars to Death".
Admittedly these didn't belong in r.a.s. EVER.  But how long did they
persist?  How many r.a.s.'ers posted to it (cross-posting & all)?

Yeh, I know, there will still be the r.a.s group to post things that
should be shared by all.  Sorry, it will happen very rarely.  If I am
spending the last few months honing my NASCAR setup, why would I think
of posting to r.a.s or r.a.s.i. about how to improve my frame-rate.  But
what is valuable in one situation is easily translated to the other.
Lost information again.

Another draw back to segration, is that people will not be exposed to
the wonders of Hawaii (a.k.a. NRL), if they are a GP2 junkie or an ICR2
junkie.  How many people got jazzed about Hawaii, cuz they saw a mention
of it in r.a.s.?  Some of them didn't even own NASCAR Racing, didn't
even real care that it existed.  But, hey, they saw all of the postings
and all the excitement and went out and bought a copy of NASCAR and now
own their souls to the phone company.  LOST if we split up the group.

: >Once again, dividing up newsgroups is not going to solve this issue.
: >Creating a "moderated" newsgroup may be the only solution to prevent the
: >above from happening.  

: Who would moderate it, though?  That's the only thing keeping me from
: doing a RFD for that idea.  Ed and others have mentioned their desire
: for such a group, but since a) we don't have IMPARTIAL moderators
: lining up for the job and b) censorship issues have been raised
: (USENET is a public resource), a better solution for moderated
: discussion is a mailing list, which I am currently in the process of
: creating on my new server (if anyone is interested).

Maybe we should have a simple rec.autos.simulators.announce group that
is moderated.  This would deal with the important and informative posts
and would require little or no real moderation.  It would be more of a
one-way broadcast.  If any topic in r.a.s.a causes a need for discussion
it could then happen in r.a.s. (or its many sires -- depending on the
outcome here).

: >Besides, what are we doing discussing this here?  Doesn't this belong in
: >another newsgroup?  Actually, this is exactly what will happen when the
: >groups get segregated.  There will be posts which get ignored, cuz it
: >supposedly didn't fit the "criteria" for said group.  There will usless
: >posts flaming someone for posting something in the wrong group.  There
: >will useless cross-postings generated because someone has something to
: >say which they fill is approriate to another sub-group.

: Yes, it does belong in news.groups, and I have cross-posted this
: thread there to divert traffic to that group.  But questions raised
: here must be answered as well to present both sides of the question.

Sorry, Tony I was being facetious.  But, there is a valid point to this
"go back to your corner of the world" attitude that is generated by
"segrating" commonly linked groups.

[my comments snipped]

: I disagree again.  There is a lot of discussion on NASCAR going on --
: it's just hard to pick out from all the rest of the topics.
: Basically, I see this argument coming down to a division of
: lassaiz-faire vs. expansion.

Actually, I think my arguement is more in lines of avoiding
"segragation" and compartmentalization of  topics that share more in
common than they do exclusive issues.

: Here is the reality of the situation.  In November, NRL will ship, and
: it will be online and competing within six months of its release.  It
: will REQUIRE its own newsgroup, simply because it will move NASCAR
: Racing out of the traditional realm of just another automotive
: simulator -- it will be a racing series unto itself.  My personal RFD
: that I composed is designed to keep ahead of that, while at the same
: time offering the F1 and IndyCar camps the same opportunity to divert
: and expand their own content.

You may have a valid point here.  However this is pure speculation based
on conjecture.  Maybe what we really need is a new newsgroup devoted to
Simulating Auto Racing On-Line and not the break-up of the r.a.s.
community.  Or do you forsee having to sub-divide r.a.s.n. in the future?

: But hey, if you wanna vote no, that's fine -- everyone's entitled to
: their opinion.  But in my eyes this is not only necessary, but
: beneficial in the long run.

Hey, who said I was gonna vote NO.  I thought we were just discussing
the issues and facts here.  At the moment, I feel just the opposite.  I
am afraid, that in the long run a "segragated" community is detrimental
to our interests.  But, I am trying to keep an open mind about this.
It's just hard to make much of an opening in such a "pin-head" -- of
course that would move me up to "needle-head" ;-)

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.
...

read more »

Kyle Langston

: >
: > pure speculation.  Where is your evidence.  I hope you don't say it's a
: > gut reaction, because that is called divination.  Which by the way can
: > be done by reading the entrails.
: >
: > Using your logic we would have tons of "forecasted" newsgroups
: > based on "vapor" demand.
: >

: If you don't want to be a part of it then don't, but don't tell the rest
: of us to stay...I've already been in contact with many of the simulation
: series directors and Ed Martin, and already submitted a proposal.

Hold on here just a minute.  I am not telling anyone to do anything.  We
are in the discussion stage of this at the moment.  We are supposed to
be airing our concerns & voicing our opinions.  All that has been
"submitted" is a "request for discussion".  That's what I thought we were
doing.  Later we can vote.  Then we will find out what the majority
wants.  Until then, let's please attempt to have a civil discussion of
the issues and attempt to respect each others opinions.  There are alot
of people who have a vested interest in this.  You, the series directors
& Ed Martin aren't the only people who use this forum.  Besides, I don't
want this to turn into a battle of "us" vs. "them".  

Feel free to voice your opinion and please allow me to be free to voice
mine.
: My estimations project an easy approval.

--
**************************** Michael E. Carver *************************
     Upside out, or inside down...False alarm the only game in town.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=<[ /./.  [-  < ]>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

[snip]

No one can say Mike doesn't have a sense of humor.  :-)

Kyle Langston

On Sun, 21 Jul 1996 19:32:04 -0500, "Thomas E. Retkowski"

On what, your CFD??  Did you even READ the procedure for submitting a
newsgroup proposal?

Man, you're just dying for attention, aren't you?  Well, great then.
I'll step out of the loop, let YOU do all the followup on the RFD when
it comes through the administrative system for discussion.
--
Tony Johns (Hawaii: IWCCCARS)
IWCCCARS Project Coordinator

     Tony and Michael both have some great points for both sides.  In my
experience, r.a.s. was a place to go AFTER I got NASCAR Racing.  Once I
knew how to search for websites related to it,  these websites mentioned
there was a newsgroup called r.a.s.   And newbies aren't going to know to
post with a header related to which sim they're referring to.    Many
times I've opened a thread thinking it was talking about NASCAR Racing
when it was actually talking about another sim.

     I have to put in my vote FOR a divisional newsgroup.   I don't
normally read threads about F1 or Indycar sims but if I did, switching to
that newsgroup wouldn't be that hard.   After all, this IS the
information superhighway ! :)
The r.a.s. group should be a generic announcement and referral-type page
for any racing sim fan.

My 2 cents,

P.S.    When referring to posting debates and articles in various
places, I wasn't talking about this thread in particular, and I wasn't
trying to infer that I'm a crucial part of this debating process.
Occasionally I get the motivation to type away about this issue, but
when I see someone else has responded completely, which is usually the
case, I'm not going to reply to that with "Yeah, I agree."

Kyle Langston

sent shooting through ***space:

I apologize; I shouldn't have led you to believe that SIZE is the
issue here -- compared to other groups this one is a low volume group.
But what IS at stake is the content.  Rec.autos.simulators is
undergoing a microcosm of what happened with rec.autos.sport a couple
years back.  The EXACT same reasons for "no" votes were forwarded, but
the CFV eventually went through because of the logic inherent in the
proposal.  

I agree with you that rec.autos.simulators does not need to be split
into 10 separate groups for every software package that comes along.
But you have to realize that within the automotive simulators market,
there is a submarket called "racing sims," and within that sub-market
are some VERY distinct divisions.  With the rate of growth not only in
racing simulators (i.e. Visiware contending with Microprose for F1
***, EA's planned stock car sim, etc.), but in the racing
leagues that spring up from them (ESPECIALLY NRL, which is corporately
backed and is projected to generate a huge following), we need to at
least make these divisions.  Dividing the newsgroup will not kill the
old hierarchy -- it will generate growth in each of the new ones.
Take for example my earlier example with rec.autos.sport.  Once those
groups split, there was a meteoric rise in usership in all three
groups.  The same will happen with r.a.s.f1, r.a.s.nascar, and
r.a.s.indy should they be approved.

What it WILL prevent is the necessity for Ed and Adam to have to
answer for a product they are not directly involved in.  The obvious
question some might pose is, "Why SHOULD they be able to avoid the
questions?  They work for Papyrus, ergo, they should be responsible
for ALL their sims."  I disagree.  Much of the flap over ICR2 stemmed
from the fact that Ed had to get his info second- or third-hand from
ICR2 techs.  Maybe if the groups are split, some of the ICR2 techs
will actually get directly involved in r.a.s.i.

It depends what you're looking for.  Think about it.  If you want
information on NASCAR Racing, and there's only one newsgroup, you have
to pick around a ton of threads that have no mention of NASCAR at all
looking for information on it.  I take from my Agent article list on
this last pass:

"Modem Play?"
"P200 frame rate?"
"Re: Rain"
"Release Date"
"Pity me and help !!!"
"TYRES"

... etc. etc. etc.  Not everyone puts the "required" subject header
information in their posts.  Whereas, if you had specialized
newsgroups, like rec.autos.simulators.f1, if you had a question about
the F1 3-D physics model on a P200, you'd know EXACTLY where to go.

Who would moderate it, though?  That's the only thing keeping me from
doing a RFD for that idea.  Ed and others have mentioned their desire
for such a group, but since a) we don't have IMPARTIAL moderators
lining up for the job and b) censorship issues have been raised
(USENET is a public resource), a better solution for moderated
discussion is a mailing list, which I am currently in the process of
creating on my new server (if anyone is interested).

Yes, it does belong in news.groups, and I have cross-posted this
thread there to divert traffic to that group.  But questions raised
here must be answered as well to present both sides of the question.

I disagree again.  There is a lot of discussion on NASCAR going on --
it's just hard to pick out from all the rest of the topics.
Basically, I see this argument coming down to a division of
lassaiz-faire vs. expansion.

Here is the reality of the situation.  In November, NRL will ship, and
it will be online and competing within six months of its release.  It
will REQUIRE its own newsgroup, simply because it will move NASCAR
Racing out of the traditional realm of just another automotive
simulator -- it will be a racing series unto itself.  My personal RFD
that I composed is designed to keep ahead of that, while at the same
time offering the F1 and IndyCar camps the same opportunity to divert
and expand their own content.

But hey, if you wanna vote no, that's fine -- everyone's entitled to
their opinion.  But in my eyes this is not only necessary, but
beneficial in the long run.
--
Tony Johns (Hawaii: IWCCCARS)
IWCCCARS Project Coordinator

You said it, what's the big deal.  There's no reason why subgroups should
get any feathers ruffled.  It's just like sports newsgroups.  There is a
main, general discussion group, and a subgroup for each team, for
specific discussion.  It's not a big deal, and some people are really
getting carried away about this.