Well, being a championship organiser i often find it hard to get enough marshalls that are dedicated and strict enough themselves to be good marshalls with an understanding of the rules, LFS RCM's etc.

So i've come to a point where i think it's a good idea to get a group of maybe 40-50 LFS members who are able to be general marshalls for all leagues when/if needed. I say 40-50 so that it's not putting too much stress on a group of say 20 marshalls since most leagues or championships may require upto 5 marshalls at one time depending on how vast the league/championship is.

The commity would be responsible for comming up with a general LFS rule set which could be used by all leagues or just used as a guidline for them to create their own rule sets also the commity would be responsible for obviously marshalling leagues i.e. reviewing race objections when an outside view may be required ro reviewing rule sets and helping organisers to create specific rules.

On a whole it'd make organisers lives easier and would be beneficial to the whole LFS community. I'd be willing to help organise it but i doubt i'd personally have the time to do it ALL on my own. So if anybody is willing to help me we could get this started. Provided other people in the community think it's a good enough idea.

Constructive comments and critisism please...

good idea, i would volunteer as an LFS marshal.

i think the idea of a general rule set would be ok, the leagues should be in charge of their own rules, and the marshals would need to learn them, or have a handy copy with them when needed.

Yes obviously rules would be league specific, but like an inferno set, you adjust it to your own liking. like you would with the general rules set

I agree. A standardised rule set would be a good idea. Not that i would be able to marshall ( i play LFS in between projects, not a set amount of time ) , it would certainly help releive stress and debates in other leagues.

Top notch Idea, It'd get my support

+/- 1

It is not a bad idea, but I think there are far too many people with different views on what is 'right' and 'wrong' when it comes to racing.

There are those that cringe at the sight of someone having a little bit of harmless contact in racing, and those that fully support having good hard racing.

There are also those that take other situations far too critically, even if it didn't affect another driver's position in a race. And some moments where it isn't even the job of a marshal to tell anyone what to do, because it comes down to common sense.

In all, I don't want 'RACING COPS' going around policing the servers and telling you what to do or what you did wrong. You are better off teaching people how to race properly through a lot of informative systems such as demonstration videos, and overall having EVERYONE on the track become aware of their surroundings and actions so that they become better drivers. It sounds a lot like CRC, but you can learn from such clubs like those that this always doesn't get the message across to create better racing. Why? Well, not everyone in LFS are of an amateur level or better. Not everyone are in control of their car, and therefore accidents or mistakes are bound to happen.

If you use this from a league point of view, yes it could be a bit more useful (because league racing is more serious and have drivers that feel they are up to a certain standard of competition), but usually it is the job of the few 'higher heads' in the league to make the call with their own discretion. It would be a good idea ONLY if you have this LFSMC to become a SECONDARY source... where a league might need an extra opinion on a matter that would be very hard to come to a conclusion with. So a few league admins could come to you and get another opinion on the matter.

I wouldn't call them marshals either, because those are more like course workers that stand around to help with controlling the race, accidents, flags, etc.

You'd be more in a position of an arbiter if you were the secondary judges of a decision. A lot like what OLFSL has -- appeals arbiter. Or something like what STCC uses... a steward.

+1

As Tweak put it, Marshals may not be the correct term, however that's splitting hairs. In OLFSL we run races with Hosts, while our jobs are many, during the race there is not alot to do.

Mostly the biggest issue and concern is drivers who have crashed and are trying to make it back to the pits. Asking a driver to give way due to a presistant blue flag or trying to inform other drivers of an accident just doesn't work in a benificial way, LFS already does that and more info just causes drivers to lose focus.

We at OLFSL are very proud of the work our arbiter does, but again his work only begins after the race is finished.

I would be interested in working with a large group of hosts to provide fellow racers with important info needed to express the wishes of the Race Organizers.

Good Idea

AAnt

It is kind of mixed bag of thoughts. Every league goes at different level with rules - some believe that the less rules the better. Some want far more precise set of rules and want to se that there is a rule for every incident what can happen. And there are a lot of leagues in between. If you have enough marshalls you can make the rules more precise because you have the manpower to oversee that the rules are obeyed. With this system, smaller taps and racing incidents are seen and being taken care of and generally a more complex (not necessarily a bad thing) procedure is done. It is however, pointless to have so many rules if there are 20+ racers and one judge.

It isn't just possible to create one set of rules that could suite for all. And even with less rules it is quite possible to have fair, good racing. In any case it is all about having the right people doing the judging part, the rules are not that important. As to the actual racing, the rule of common sense is really the only one, although some basic guidelines should be presented.

What I'd like to see is one set of rules for special situations, like for pacecars and rolling starts. Because these thing are quite rare, it would be the best to have one common way of doing these so that the participants easily undestand and follow the procedure and no additional special rules (that can be hard to memorize) are needed to be learned.

I'm up for that! +1, but these players should be reputable!

The idea isn't to be racing cops that go around on public servers tellign people off. It's for people to be on stand by for league events as marshalls and to create a general purpose set of rules for league events. Obviously the group would consist of reliable members who would know each leagues seperate rules to clear what hyperactive said.

Basically A leagues system, with the rules posted somewhere.

The Marshalls (or stewards as we called them in the STCC), would need somewhere for them to go in which a database of all leagues and rules could be placed.

When called upon by a league (ie the organisers say, we need help this decision has been appealed... or help.. we're a steward short), The marshalls could simply Login. Get a copy of the rules (in a standard format so they can find rules, clauses etc easily), then view the MPR, or Join the Live event server with all they need in front of them.

That's a very very very basic idea of how i would see that working (you may have been thinking in a very different way).

As said, not LFS Cops, purely Stewards on call if requested.

I'm here to help if ya need anything.. As i said.. i can't marshall, i'm crap with rules.. If its not Theoretical or code based.. i'm useless <G>

ta

Mikey

yeah i would love to have this happen, i would be happy to help, you could have one at each corner or watching certain cars commentators also make the race good but the messages distract you, though

I cant speak for all leagues but the way it works/ed in the STCC is that the stewards would be spectating the race, and any thing they noticed during the race they would note down to be reviewed. After the race they will scoot through some quick replays to make a final decision, and also check out any reports made.

Basically, it will all depend on the league organiser i think

I agree.

Being part of the SGPA and running the SGPS, it would be helpful if there was common rules equivilant to the MSA Blue Book and the FIA ISC.

A joint arbitration panel would make league decisions better and more transparent.

Different leagues will need different rules, so I suggest 4 types (with oval and rallycross variants)

Demolition contact (OK, that would be for DBP Get Wrecked and stuff like that. Rarely used).
Partial contact (BTCC style, not out and out wreckfest like DC but some tapping/wing mirror rubbing/nerfing/bump drafting)
No contact - GT style severe penalties.
Strictly no contact - single seaters.

The SGPA will be amongst the first to sign up to this

worked great in the STCC, the SRA wanted to do this, but it's gone now


Anyway, +1

Quote from Jakg :

worked great in the STCC, the SRA wanted to do this, but it's gone now


Anyway, +1

I don't know what Sam is thinking about but from what I gathered he wants to continue the SRA in some shape and form, and what BenjiMC is talking about is exactly what the SRA was in the process of building. Everything was there structurally, it just needed a voice to tell all of the leauges that this system is available for leagues to refer to with difficult race decisions, much like the FIA.

While the SRA was built mainly by Becky, Becky has nothing to do with the decisions that happen with drivers licenses and reviewing reports. While she has the authority and sometimes does, everything on the whole is operated by a small group of admins which Becky usually lets them go at it on their own until a discussion needs to happen about a driver.

what i was suggesting is pretty much exactly what MKServe first said aswell as having a basic rule set like suggested by duke toaster.

I would like to be a racing marshall, but only if I was allowed to accept bribes
or commit extortion.....

Uh I think Tweak hit the nail on the head with his reply. you'd be bogged down for quite some time trying to just standardize any sort of rules

although the amount of work setting down base rules would be reasonably large, i think the long term benifits to the leagues would be quite measurable.

This being said, they would only be a rough guideline anyway, and it would be up to the leagues to decide what works best for them and / or weather to use the base rules, or write thier own rulebook, hence the need for a centralized area of reference for the marshalls.

With this in mind, maybe the guideline rules could be "borrowed" from a number of leagues like the STCC, LXCC etc etc and stripped down a little.

if you needed any help writing the base of the system i'd be happy to help if / when i can (being a PHP / MySQL Dev does have it's uses sometimes )

This wouldnt be the kind of comittee where everything would happen at a fast pace, it's something that would take alot of planning, preparing and consideration

i was thinking that a wiki could be used to store the rule sets for leagues and the general rule sets. it's easy to format the rule sets to look nice, it can organize well, and leagues can post their rule sets themselves, or it can be locked down and only admins, and marshals, can post the rule sets.

here's a very rough idea, just threw it up last night before bed: http://lfsmc.no-ip.info

a different system can also be used, this is just an idea.

I am in, if needed.

I suggest that to ensure all the rules are known by everyone, updates (unless critical ones) are done on a monthly basis.

Points systems and that should not be covered by it, it should only recommend them.

I suggest a common safety car procedure is introduced as well.

I like the idea behind this, but it would not be easy to do right, and doing it badly is probably worse than not doing it at all.

Interesting ideas here, nice to see that there is some positive thoughts about marshalling (server police ) and general racing rules/conduct.

I was just starting to think through drafting up a set of standardized rules and TBH I don't think it would be all that hard...draft a section, start a poll & discussion, after x number of days close the discussion and revise the draft, post it.

Thoughts on the wiki:
1....it should be within the LFS Manual wiki
2....needs a special PW so only a few people may make changes

(I'm available to help out with drafting the document if someone wants help.)

Quote from KSheppard :

Thoughts on the wiki:
1....it should be within the LFS Manual wiki
2....needs a special PW so only a few people may make changes

1. yeah, the wiki should be a part of the LFS domains, but it's there right now as an example.
2. having a few admins would help with formatting in the wiki, but i still think that league organizers should be allowed to post their rule sets to reduce the load on those admins.

Agreed, wiki would be good with seperate rules for each league and the standardised rule set. plus a select few admins.