rec.autos.simulators

Facts:

Tim hasn't officially quit

Ed hasn't officially quit, but he's starting his own operation
primarily because of my refusal to disallow passing before the
backstretch and to disallow racing back to the caution.

I don't know why Michael Loos quit - he didn't say.

The rest of the people (Mike Grandy, Guido, Bruce K, and Travis Lind)
said that their scheduled didn't permit them to participate.

Colin doesn't often have time to race with us, but being a legacy
RASCAR driver of considerable skill, he will always have a spot in
RASCAR.

Gary Kendall was removed from the roster because of a lack of
participation, but he can re-apply if he thinks he'll be able to make
the races.

--------------------------

If you quit now, you'll still be able to re-join if you reconsider
and think you can live with the rules.

Righ now, the only thing that sucks about RASCAR right now is that I
have to put up with whiners.

And yes, Jan, no matter what slant you place on it, it is *still* a game.

Bruce.

"The following rule set is a living thing, and can change from day to
day. It is up to you to stay informed, so before each race, I suggest
that you preview the following to make sure something hasn't been
added, changed, or deleted."

In fact, only one "rule" has been added, and that's the one about not
discussing races beyond the Tuesday following the race.

Another rule was moved to the "Common Sense" section (I forget which
one precisely).

The rest of the recent changes to the rules page have been
*clarifications* of existing rules based on past and current
discussions, and adding penalties for breaking those rules.  I added
clarification so that the penalties would make sense.

Other than those things, the rules HAVE NOT CHANGED.

says...

Regardless, once the novelty of racing people you know from the newsgroup
has worn off it had to become more regulated to keep it enjoyable. Messing
up in a RASCAR race can not continue to be without consequences or there is
no incentive to actually contribute to a good race. It has to become more
league like in that sense and I think that would be hard to do without it
actually being more league like.

That said, I still believe we can make a big difference just nagging away at
people's sensibilities with the reviews, but John wants to take it further
and have I no problem with taking a step back en letting him.

You seem to think once this is in place there'll be no room to manouvre with
regards to the rules, which is unfounded, IMO. On the contrary, I'm sure
they will require adjusting in ways we can't even foresee at the moment. In
my league, even after 4 iterations, people still find stuff to do which
isn't covered by the rules.

Jan.
=---

If Mr. Pickett owns or controls the server, then he can make any rules
he likes. However, he /does/ have ultimate authority. If he gave Mr.
Simmons "powers" like that of an official, then he too can make rules on
a whim. This is how it works on MUD's, MUSE's, MUSH's, etc. When you're
on their server, they can do whatever they want. It's not fair (unless
it's set up as a democracy), but that's sadly how things are.

Per your "volunteer" statement, I do agree. They're performing a service
for the drivers, free of charge....as you mentioned. Then again, they're
under no obligation to do what the drivers request. Once again, the
drivers don't own and operate the server. That's why I brought up the
idea for you to possibly get your own. ;)

Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do apart from the suggestion I
made. Many of us enjoy the idea of a player-driven (no pun intended :)
server and community, where we get to vote on rules and changes. Many
others, too, don't mind being *** to others in charge.

 From my little time of reading the RASCAR forum, Mr. Simmons is a
self-admitted paint and rule nazi. It just depends on how the drivers
feel about him and his rules. If the majority like him, then remove your
support. If more follow your lead (or if you start up your own server),
then RASCAR /could/ be up the creek without paddles.

If such a "talking" rule is or comes into effect, I'll sit back and
enjoy the show. We both know, without a doubt, that someone is unwilling
to compromise. Does he have to? Hell no. Should he? If he wants "his"
drivers to be content, then yes.

It's all the nature of the beast of online ***.

-Will

Jan: Also, I can't help it you pissed off DGF last Saturday, that discussion
has nothing to do with any review. If I have any time left tonight I'll add
my views to that discussion as well.

John: I recommend that you don't. First, further discussion about Dave being
mad about Michigan is pointless. Second, I've officially warned people not
to discuss it any further, so I would be obligated to penalize you if you
did. I honestly hope you don't force me to do that.

Jan: Well, there were certain points in Dave's post which you didn't pick up
on and there are certain aspects to your driving style that you may not be
aware off (note, though related, neither is specifically related to
Michigan). I wanted to comment on those when the thread had just started,
but I didn't have time. I haven't followed the thread since, so maybe what I
wanted to contribute to the thread has meanwhile been said and it would be
pointless for me to post. If they haven't and I still feel as strongly about
it as last Wednesday I'll risk the penalty, thanks.

As long as you don't censor me, it's ok for you to penalize me if you feel I
have broken a rule.
--------

You didn't add anything yet, so I was wondering if it was because you are
afraid of being the first to be penalized (ooooh), or if there's some other
reason?

David G Fisher

"Right now, the only thing that sucks about RASCAR right now is that we,
the drivers, have to put up with John Simmons' rules that we, the
drivers, don't agree with."

People "whine" for a reason, Mr. Simmons. Go ahead and ignore them.
Refuse to compromise. Both you and I know that RASCAR will not last
forever. So, enjoy the ego trip.

-Will

I wont get into the semantics of why or when anyone quit.  Thats their
business not mine.  Youre not going back far enough anyway <g>.  Part of the
reason some have quit is because their aren't any rules, that im sure of.  I
want a couple rules to improve the racing.  Most of your rules dont
accomplish that in the least.  Knock knock knock, no man Dave's not here...
C&C <vbseg>

Other than it doesn't work when you actually try to do it that way, I can't
find any theorethical objection to running a league as a democracy, true.

Trouble is, in simracing the vast majority of the drivers doesn't care who
runs it an how, as long as there's a server to connect to and race on every
week. It's usually just a couple kiddies throwing tantrums if things aren't
run "their" way.

It's not... in the beginning it was just some guy taking charge out of
nescessity to keep things from falling apart. And now, as recent events have
led this person to impose measures to try and clean up the racing a little,
there's a couple drivers, who seem to dislike being told they made a mistake
by him, making a fuss over that.

Eagerly helped, of course, by those very able seamen sitting on the keyside.

Jan.
=---

The initial idea was great: a place for RASer's to connect and race
weekly without the many demands and rules of a league. Sure, I
absolutely love the idea of having few rules and players choosing what
rules they want and don't want. But the reality is, it won't happen.
And, realistically, your only options are to hope something changes, or
quit.

-Will

Above and beyond anything else, RASCAR is here to provide clean close
racing with a set of drivers that raced every week. To make things
easy on those of us with little time or talent to develope setups, we
decided on fixed setups, and fixed weather.  To keep a touch of
realism in the races, we settled on double-file starts realistic
damage, and cautions on.  To still keep it fairly friendly for new
drivers, we did not force anything on (smoke, windshield debris,
***pit view).

And that ruleset was proposed as a DIRECT result of the quality of
racing we were experiencing. We were running 50% of the total laps
under caution. People were complaining about the racing. I proposed a
new set of rules, complete with penalty points. Despite the fact that
clearly 80% of the new proposed rules were comprised of original
RASCAR rules, along with more strict rules regarding chatting, people
were not happy.

So, I ran the ruleset against our most caution-filled race (17
cautions) to see if the penalties would result in any race
suspensions.  Nobody earned enouugh points to be suspended for a
race.  Since that didn't work out, I *abandonded* that proposed
ruleset, but I was still faced with trying to make the racing
cleaner.

That's when I decided that if a driver broke a rule in a given race,
making him start in the back in the next race in which he ran was a)
better for him because he could still race, and b) let him and
everyone else know that the rules would be enforced.  Again, the
black-flag system was implemented to keep rogue drivers in check and
to hopefully clean up the racing.  If that doesn't work, we'll try
something else.

Based on everyone's propensity for arguing about past races till
we're blue in the face (and I'm just as guilty of this as everyone
else is), I added a rule that stated that no discussions of past
races would be tolerated beyond 9pm central of the Tuesday following
the race (allowing three and a haldf days of virtually un-restrained
bickering).  If discussions continued beyond that time-frame, each
person guilty of contributing to the discussion would be penalized
with a one-race suspension.

This penalty will be changed to an admin-black flag thrown on the
grid to force the guilty driver(s) to do a stop-n-go at the start of
the race if the patch does indeed allow a driver to serve a black
flag (the unpatched sim always DQ's the driver for such a black flag
despite the fact that the driver did indeed serve the penalty).

Like I said, the rules haven't change regarding the racing. We've
just decided to enforce them.  And if we decide that a rule isn't
working, it will be changed or deleted.

Having written the original rules, it's my job to maintain them and
make sure they are benefiting the racers. Everyone else wanted the
rules to change, but in different ways than what I had in mind. As it
stands right now, the *racing* rules are the same as they were at the
start of the season (but are now more clearly defined).

Is this true or not?

David G Fisher

Quit.

RASCAR will be fine without you.

David G Fisher

So are you saying you're quitting Dave?

Well, in all actuallity, me and eldred both "own" the league (if you
can actually own an online league).

You're working on discovering that your assumption is invalid.

See Dave, you're talking through your gigantic watermelon-sized
bunghole.  Eldred runs the race server. He therefore controls who is
and is not in the invite list. I control the practice server,
therefore, I control who is and is not in that invite list.  As far
as I know, the two invite lists match. If you're on the roster page,
you're in BOTH invite lists.

I want them back too, but Tony can't make it, and Ian has better
things to do that run around under caution all ***in day.

Rascar never had straw polls, and the rules haven't change regarding
racing.

You are so very wrong, Dave.

I have not been participating much of late. You can go ahead and remove my
name from the invite list to make room for someone else.

--
Don Burnette

remove clothes when replying via email