FSR situation

[Nick Rowland]

• Get rid of ISR Club
• In no offence to RD. But move away from RD and go back independent

Just a couple of ideas.

 

[David Dominguez]

Someone in your position should do everything what could be good for the league and not only the absolute minimum of what your "job-description" says...

If I (and few more) just did "the absolute minimum of what the job description says" probably we wouldn't even have FSR atm. So please, don't be ridiculous.

Anyway, this is the last reply about my person, if you or others want to think that I am the problem, fine, luckily for you I'm gone for next season anyway.

This is what I posted internally some days ago regarding this topic about the future, I hope we can start to debate seriously about what matters from now on:

I think we just need to get rid of TOA, as I said long time ago. This thread (and many others) is a clear example of why this system is actually useless. I understand that some of you paid XXX money for the license and expected some privilegies, but it's clearly not working anymore, the lack of care and participation is flagrant.

So before finding the chosen one, we should better discuss if we want to keep this league/club format first of all. If we want to keep some this structure, I would strongly suggest to also accept Ace and Pro teams as club members, and make a specific public subforum in RD instead of beind hidden like now.

Anyway personally I would change everything, make some sort of very simplified club with all FSR teams (wc, ace, pro), and make them select a lifetime president, giving him absolutelly full power on every area (yes, calendar, race times and that s**t too). Obviously we should include few rules to control corruption and possibility to replace president in case of bad behaviour etc. Only those levels of freedom can make the president position interesting imo.

For those who aren't used to our vocabulary, TOA= Teams Owners Association, aka WC team bosses / representatives.

 

[Adrian Rodriguez]

Press area is a nightmare, you have to be 24/7 telling people to do their job and they mostly quit before half of the season. Not sure who's at fault though.

Read my first post Eduard. If press area is a nightmare, is a nightmare that u (well, not u really) create. U can't expect press area can work correctly while nobody do nothing. As I said, I did articles, and new articles like WC post-analisis, but as much as I do, if you do not give me permissions on the webpage I can not post them myself, I don't do magic, and if people who have permission, not publish it or give me permissions is not the fault of the press area.

like having to find and ask an english speaking person to re-write 90% of the text from your articles because it was that poorly written. And yes, my english isn't good either, but that's the reason I wouldn't apply for that exact role...

Again, xD. Even when my English is readable (not perfect), How long does it take to find that person? 10 min? 20? C'mon, if someone has to complain that I am, in the end I'm the one writing the articles, or Patel, that corrects it. I appreciate you met Patel for this work, but it is absurd to reproach me that, let's be serious.

I will comment on rest later. Regarding press department, read here. A stunning one person was interested in newsarticle writer position (Adrian) plus Carlos who was chosen for other FSR job. All this after being even offered license discounts. It's quite telling that I have been doing the WC race previews for last 5 or so years before Cobb now offered to help.

As I have said many times (and now I know I'm press director, or I think), give me permission to post on twitter and on the website, and I'll find enough team to having an effective press area. Obviously it would be for the next season and I can not guarantee anything, because in the end the decision to join the team are taken by people who I offer it, but I'll try with all the enthusiasm.

Also we should have merchandising area to find sponsors and sell ourselves and technical area (as we currently have, with race directors etc).

I think those 3 distinct areas are the basis for the league takes hold. I know it requires a lot of people, so let's go step by step if you agree with the idea.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

How about this @Adrian Rodriguez . You write a full report on the entire FSR weekend after a race. Add a great looking photo and/or video to it and we publish it here on the RD frontpage and social media.

But then promise to do it every race weekend for a full season.

If so, deal is made

 

[Ron Squire]

I know i am the last person to be talking about FSR's Future but i will say this:

the ISR Club just needs a face-lift in terms of the way it organises Formula SimRacing, the regulations are too strict in areas that even the President doesn't have control of, after all the President of FSR is also the president of the ISR Club and he is supposed to be the main man to make the decisions, not those who push him to make decisions, i know this is ludicrous, but that is the way FSR and the ISR Club should be run.

plus i do like the idea of being independent, but i would suggest of staying in RD, just to attract more members to FSR and its there choice if they want to join us or not, we cant force them to, then again the idea of being independent (and i am sorry i will be going off-topic here) but like with the Scottish Independence Referendum, it just wont work, in terms of profit and more members, so i would suggest staying.

that is all i got to say, if anybody suggest to me i should be president, then you might need to wait for a while.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

• In no offence to RD. But move away from RD and go back independent

Just a couple of ideas.

I remember a successful league that left RD 2 years ago and it didn't look very successful after that in terms of viewers.Especially the last video from last night still has mighty 61 views. And that is including those who were watching it live. Leaving RD will be, let's say not stupid but bad decision.

 

[Adrian Rodriguez]

How about this @Adrian Rodriguez . You write a full report on the entire FSR weekend after a race. Add a great looking photo and/or video to it and we publish it here on the RD frontpage and social media.

But then promise to do it every race weekend for a full season.

If so, deal is made

Okay, that might be a good starting point. When u refer me I assume u mean all press area (long time for a man see and analyze 3 races, write article about them and do photos or videos in a short time).

If u want we can continue this conversation by skype or similar.

EDIT: I can't send u PM =S

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Then lets say we do the most important race which is the World Championship. Simply post a report in the media forum and we can promote it. Easy piecey

We have offered this kind of support many times, but there need to be people that actually stand up and do the nasty work.

Just like this entire series its not going to happen by pressing a magical red button. Hard manual labor needs to be done first

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

To first make one thing clear, FSR's current main issue isn't racing itself, nor broadcasts or grid sizes, it's just the organization. ISR Club is not the problem as such either, the concept is to have something greater than an average league and it worked, once a time. What happened now is there are teams that have been too long in FSR due to the Club licensing system. As was said, a big part of team owners are basically absent but the team is still part of FSR WC because of the lifetime license. And to make matters worse team owners basically decide alone about 50% of FSR, including race calendar and rules. There were symptoms of this issue from many years back, but this year it has concretized. Obviously no new team will buy a license for the sky-high price requested by the old teams, so new teams can only enter with remaining "loan" licenses from Club, which are for one year. This is not a healthy situation for competition, the whole system needs to be renewed which will be one of the most difficult processes FSR has faced. Needless to say, it requires a strong president to drive these changes through and requires co-operation from team owners. It's a difficult situation, but I have some naive hope left still. It all depends on finding the person to do this.

Then lets say we do the most important race which is the World Championship. Simply post a report in the media forum and we can promote it. Easy piecey

It sounds simple but there is no one that bothers doing this over a season in my experience. I have written FSR race previews for 5+ years and some reviews since 2007. I really did not want to do this role except for the first year. It's a comical situation that I still have to do it after all these years, especially when it was same under 3 or 4 different presidents. So the issue is wider, we can't find people that would work through the entire season, most give up after a couple of races. Well, Patel does regular post-race press conferences, which is a start, and obviously it's nice if Adrian can help, even though I saw no activity on FSR press Skype channel since around May. Anyway, where are the rest? The press issue dates so far back that I can't see many new solutions, so I just wish good luck to the next president fixing it.

The guys who do regular work for FSR this year are: Christian (Fantasy league + FSR manager), Patel, Sam (broadcasts) and the directors. Situation in that sense is exactly same as last year. If you are willing to join the awesome club of regular workers, please inform me. I'm not going to remind someone every time to do this and that, I do it quicker myself than having to remind someone constantly. This is what has been happening this year and happened year before with Johannes, that's why I'm the person controlling articles, mod updates, COA, tracks, FSR server, social media, website, payments, support, forum administration, etc etc. Obviously this is not very functional and burns one person out. It also means I cannot focus on every area as well as would be necessary.

Regarding the schedule of internal proceedings, there is one month until president candidate nominations start, but of course anyone is free to mention his interest to me now already. Before that, from idea by Greco, I will attempt to organize a Skype chat with all license owners and discuss the Club future.

 

[Ondrej Kuncman]

Truthful post above. Just the last point completely denies all said in this thread. It was agreed that most of license owners are careless and clueless so by having such meeting it just sends out a signal that there is no need and no willingness to change. Keep discussing everything in private with a couple of clueless cakes. That's gonna fix everything.

 

[Ondrej Kuncman]

Since the above pseudomeeting is gonna happen anyway. Here is something to discuss: pay all license owners 200 - 300 euro for their licenses. From FSR money. Get rid of this license system, get rid of TOA as David said. You can speak about that and see how it could be done and how to work around that. If any license owners think their 1000 euro licenses are worth more than I suggested then good luck to FSR.

 

[Victor Ivanov]

Also would be nice to have some sort of driver's association.

 

[Ron Squire]

Also would be nice to have some sort of driver's association.

you know what that is a really good idea, just need someone to organise the association and the Drivers Association is all set

 

[Mark Aalberts]

They had a drivers association in the past (2008 or something) in a time that there was even more activity (more divisions and interest), that was a huge "succes" not. Drivers care as much as everyone else does in this league,.. nothing at all (except a handfull of members). Because otherwise you would have had more people in the administration to help out but instead the WCDA got as inactive as TOA does during the season.

The situation with the owners is actually that many of them own a license or two but let them run by their team members. Almost every team owner is not directly involved anymore or very less. But the league basically drives on the team members and every now and then someone steps up to help out like "Martin, Mallorqui, Dominguez, Kunkel, JES, Puumie etc etc" However the final years it is getting less and less. Instead of bashing Cobb and other people every time better be happy that someone is willing to do the job.

The TOA has been the savior of this league in my opinion, maybe not an ideal organ but for a group of members a reason to stay involved and eventually make things happen each year.
I would be highly interested to see what happens when you remove TOA.

Truthful post above. Just the last point completely denies all said in this thread. It was agreed that most of license owners are careless and clueless so by having such meeting it just sends out a signal that there is no need and no willingness to change. Keep discussing everything in private with a couple of clueless cakes. That's gonna fix everything

You have been one of those cakes to, it is easy to blame everything on TOA each time but if you had removed TOA years ago there wouldn't have been FSR nowadays. TOA is the only reason for certain people to be here and to keep FSR alive if you ask me. I know you probably will not agree with me but doesn't matter. I find it funny how TOA is every time to be blamed while actually they are representing the WC teams and their drivers behind it. It actually should represent like 30% of the league In the regulation making it even happened that the directors made the changes and teams simply agreed upon,.. but hey blame the TOA in the end when things don't work out as expected. Or when you where involved some things where pushed trough regarding regulations where the lower teams simply just agreed upon to make the season happen.

Now let me be clear, im not a owner anymore since 09/10 or so and im not here to defend them at all. Hence I don't even know why im posting this as I stepped away from FSR half year ago (had enough of the constant bickering on the forum and each decision making) but it is probably for the same reason that you made this post that I never would have expected by you.. Anyway knowing you a bit come with a good solution for the situation. The only thing I see you do is bashing on everything and point out how bad things are and how you would do it. But I never see you come up with a solution for the "so called" problems. And no, telling that TOA should cease is not a solution, what is the alternative and how would you run it then if you remove it?

 

[Chris de Jong]

I like turtles

 

[Ron Squire]

I like turtles

I like turtles too.

 

[David Dominguez]

You have been one of those cakes to, it is easy to blame everything on TOA each time but if you had removed TOA years ago there wouldn't have been FSR nowadays. TOA is the only reason for certain people to be here and to keep FSR alive if you ask me.

Let me know what has TOA done in the last couple of years to be so important, because I seriously can't remember of anything really special coming from TOA since 2011 or so (when I first had access to the internal forums).

Truth is that (most) people comes to FSR due to its competitive nature. I'm pretty sure that very very few drivers out of the "establishment" teams knows what TOA is.

I know you probably will not agree with me but doesn't matter. I find it funny how TOA is every time to be blamed while actually they are representing the WC teams and their drivers behind it. It actually should represent like 30% of the league In the regulation making it even happened that the directors made the changes and teams simply agreed upon,.. but hey blame the TOA in the end when things don't work out as expected. Or when you where involved some things where pushed trough regarding regulations where the lower teams simply just agreed upon to make the season happen.

Or when TOA didn't want to make mod updates because their drivers were already preparing the season extensively instead of really trying to improve the mod. Or when the top 3 teams of last year didn't even vote the current rulebook. And so many more...

And no, telling that TOA should cease is not a solution, what is the alternative and how would you run it then if you remove it?

Giving the total lack of care of current TOA, it could be easily replaced by a more global system, accepting not only WC teams but also Ace-Pro. Actually I see some Pro and Ace guys that seem more interested to improve FSR as some of the so called club owners

Another step is to talk the stuff here in public and let that private forum die. There is a paralel discussion there as well, personally I find this one more interesting and useful for FSR's future. Surely we will find more proposals here than in that other place where half of the club members are just waiting for someone to be elected as president to make the stuff for them.

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

If the team owners aren't any longer participating isn't possible (i don't know the ISR Club rules) to expel their licenses and hand them over to people that do care to be involved?

If you apply this on the real F1 season it would mean that guys like Christian Horner and Eric Boullier wouldn't be involved with the daily operations. The fans wouldn't allow this.

@John-Eric Saxén I know that there is a problem with writing race reports. Thats exactly why I restated the proposal Some people are always commenting from the sideline but when they are asked to step up it remains very silent.

What I don't understand is that there is so much written activity in the forums the moment when things get rough and tough but nobody is willing to put that energy into writing an article. If you are a (almost native) English speaker how hard can it be to write down a few highlights every race weekend. Many will enjoy it and together with the live streams and broadcast its the only publicity the league is going to get. Its a VITAL job in my opinion.

 

[Johannes Kunkel]

What Mark says is absolutely right, many see TOA and ISR Club as the problem, but it is in fact the only reason FSR exists and didn´t dissappear after a few seasons. There is a group of people that made a serious financial commitment to be a part of the ISR Club and to be able to place their Team in the World Championship. These people obviously cannot be ignored from certain decisions. And in recent years the only active Admins have been coming either directly from the group of License Owners or from one of these teams.

I seriously doubt removing TOA or even the ISR Club (or at least it´s influence) will improve anything. Rather the opposite. It has been tried to make serious suggestions internally, but well, the same people that slay around in public towards other ISR Club members without giving actual solutions do the same internally as well, which makes this discussion about what to change quite pointless.

As long as there are people willing to work for FSR it will be alive, if there aren´t it wont be anymore, with or without TOA, ISR Club or whatever else people identify as the problem.

 

[Kris Cobb]

If the team owners aren't any longer participating isn't possible (i don't know the ISR Club rules) to expel their licenses and hand them over to people that do care to be involved?

As far as I know as long as they compete in racing they don't have to participate in voting etc.