[Dario Bucalo]

Every system system has its problems and it is not really possible to solve everything fair automatically, you would need race control to check every incident and do it all manually to be somehow fair which is not really possible.
to the second point: try imagine this, you are one the best drivers around you have very low incident rating and you are winning races, now there comes monza weekend with 3 races in italy, you win the Quali, but after start someone hits you from behind, sends you to the wall, you bounce back on track going backwards and get collected by half the field, second race same thing happens, you get massive incident average for last ten races because of that. You did not do any mistake nor could you do anything about it, does it mean you should not be allowed to start on server 1 because you incident average for last races is high ? This is just to ilustrate that every automatic system will have its issues and wont be completely fair.

I completely agree with you. At this point, from the responses of the intervening users, I feel I can summarize some general thoughts (correct me if I'm wrong or add more if you find it useful):

1.  The current system of incidents counts the contacts and not actually the incidents, ending up assigning penalties (-3pts) in an arbitrary way beyond the dynamics of the events, risking to penalize those who are actually victims of the situation.
   
2. Race contacts lead to penalties in most cases, ending up penalizing whoever is having a good fight.
   
3. Whoever participates in a championship with the ambition of obtaining the victory or in any case finishing in the first positions risks losing important points due to contacts (I repeat, not incidents) for which he is not at fault or which in any case fall within the race incidents.
   
4. Those who participate only to have fun or in any case do not have any ambition for the classification, often and willingly, are more inclined to engage in a hard fight or attempt a risky overtaking. This means that it would bring a penalty of 3 points to him and the opponent, only those who run for pure fun do not care, so they will not have suffered any important penalties.
   
5. The only criterion for evaluating incidents and penalties, considered suitable and balanced by most users, is the "Protest", which evaluates only the dangerous and punishable competition actions, however leaving the evaluation to an impartial Administrator.
   
6. SRS is a platform that makes its simplicity and usability its strong point. So adding additional requirements or programs (Real Penalty, Sol, etc ...) would go against what makes SRS special.
   
7. The counting system of AC acidents is that, like it or not, so needless to continue to discuss how the incidents are counted.
   
8. Inserting a selection system based on the incident rating, which however is based on an incident counting system like that of AC which is not well balanced and is not "fair", would continue to create injustices and I do not think it would significantly improve the situation in track.
   

Given the above, I would like to suggest my personal solution(which in reality is not, but would partially fix the problem highlighted by Maurice): eliminate the 3 penalty points for incident, thus avoiding penalizing those who really care about points in the championship and postpone the evaluation of incidents and consequent penalties (if necessary) to the "Protest" tool.

What do you think?

[Don Debienne]

In my opinion, there must be a deterrent to being involved in incidents. In real life racing, getting involved in incidents slows you down and causes the need for repairs. In sim racing, if you remove the linkage between incidents and the loss of 3 championship points, then the only deterrent to being involved in incidents is the Protest and that will only apply to a very small percentage of incidents. I suspect what would happen would be a move to more aggressive driving because who cares if you have an incident rate of 5 if there is no incentive to have a lower rate. When you look at the drivers who are rated in the 800's and 700's, the incident rate is predominantly below 2. That tells a lot about the kind of driving they have done (and prefer) during their SRS career.

I maintain that there must be some form of deterrent to incident rates that average higher than a standard. In the past, in the public servers, there was a system know as Minorating which assessed contacts and ability to race close etc and graded drivers with letter grades. Then servers were restricted to A drivers or AB and so on. That worked well for race quality BUT, the numbers dropped. It's quite a conundrum to find a system that works to control driving quality while keeping the numbers up and not being overly complex. Personally, I control the quality of my experience by being selective about what races I do and who I race with. Fortunately, SRS provides enough variety in race quantity, timing and combos, one can always find good, clean racing.

[Michal Ringes]

well its complicated but my advice is for everyone is this. Practice, work on your own speed and good car control and ignore that what you cant really control, it will result in way lower incident count in the future because you will be faster and you will manage to outrun a lot of incidents, you will be situated more to the front of the grid where there mostly are faster and better drivers who cause less incidents, also you being faster will allow you to overtake others faster more effectivelly and safely further reducing chance for incident. And when you get destroyed sometimes without having chance to do anything, well thats racing, it happens even to the best

[Andrea Piovanelli]

Crazy idea: what if there was a way to share the replays of every race (a very easy way) in order to manually sort the innocent racing contacts from the real incidents? That would require time / work from the community, perhaps only for replays pointed out by more than x racers (the number of the races would be huge if the work's needed for each of them...). We may be the race control we need, even if posthumous race control.

[Simone Saviolo]

I have several comments: some are crazy, some are sensible. Let me tell you.

Very sensible idea: stop rating old races (or weigh them less)

The suggestion about the last 20 races is similar to an old proposal of mine: older results should count less, or even be completely disregarded.

I guess any serious driver's incident points average is becoming generally lower: it still happens to have that 8-IP race, but usually you've gone from 3-4 IP/race to 2-3 IP/race and now you're usually lower than 1. But after 100 races this means that a perfect, clean race brings your average down by 0.02 or 0.03. Personally, it will take me another 30 perfectly clean races to get below 3.00, and before then I'll have an incident that sends me spinning into the packed midfield (which means four IP at least in less than two seconds).

I propose that older races get weighed out after a while. However, this requires recomputing all the user ratings every now and then (possibly daily, or even weekly), which may or may not be feasible. I'm a programmer and I'd like to lend a hand with this if some help is needed.

Impractical idea: human race stewards

Let's face it: automation is cool and close to free, but it can't compete with the analysis capacity of a human steward. However, of course, you can't expect people to give up their free time to marshal online races without any compensation. Paying them would mean putting an entry fee to races, something which SRS is adamant to avoid.

Maybe possible idea: let's help with more Protest stewards

Removing the IP-penalty can only work if human-inquired protests become the common way to punish bad behaviour. However, generating more protests is not sustainable if protests have to be processed by a single person. Maybe Henrique could accept some help, and invite people to judge on the protests he receives. This would give a quicker turnover and enable SRS to process a larger volume of protests.

Hard to implement idea: easier submission of protests

Since I got a fiber internet connection, I can have my video document up on Youtube within five minutes from the end of the race (start the replay, watch the incident, record it, upload the video). However, with the ADSL connection I had before it would take me half an hour just to upload the video, and a slower connection means I might decide not to file a protest because I can't be bothered to upload a video for hours. Simracing requires a stable and fast internet connection, it's true, but not one that has a large throughput, and it may not be enough to upload videos at a decent quality.

Of course, having a replay is crucial for resolving a protest, but maybe providing it can be made easier. Maybe the server could automatically store the replays, and the player would only need to give coordinates (who's involved, at which lap, what happened). Maybe an app could record the cars' positions, and a data log could be sent to SRS instead, with the steward(s) "rendering" it to analyze it.

Opinable idea: reducing the IP penalty points

Currently, it's better (you get more points) to give up a position rather than fighting for it: you may end up winning and gaining two points, but you could make a contact and lose three. Or touch twice, and get less points than the driver twenty seconds behind you. But:
- competitive racers want to fight in the standings; they may end up choosing to have dull races for the sake of points - and don't forget they're pretty much Internet Pointz™, and there's usually no real prize involved;
- casual players don't care if they get less points; they have no deterrent to try and see if they can unlap whatever it takes.

Then why not punish incidents by subtracting one point, instead of three?

Want to have a good fight for the podium? Be respectful and show sportsmanship, but don't get sweaty about "maybe possibly getting too close and maybe he brakes ten meters earlier and we touch and it's a ruined race for the standings".

Want to just watch the world burn and see if you can navigate your way through the pack by lunging into a fast-ish corner and going three-wide into Eau Rouge? Well, maybe you won't get negative points, but you might get banned for causing too many incidents.

Over-our-heads-but-maybe-not idea: AI-powered race analysis

A full log of the car positions and rotations may be enough for an AI to analyze. Of course, training would require quite some data, with relevant events (incidents, cuts, close racing, a driver gaining an unfair advantage, a driver giving back an unfair advantage he had gained...) labelled as such. Eventually, a well-trained AI might correctly identify most racing situations, and it could possibly forward a dubious incident to a human steward. Does someone know about any project like this?

[Maurice Klerken]

Every system system has its problems and it is not really possible to solve everything fair automatically, you would need race control to check every incident and do it all manually to be somehow fair which is not really possible.
to the second point: try imagine this, you are one the best drivers around you have very low incident rating and you are winning races, now there comes monza weekend with 3 races in italy, you win the Quali, but after start someone hits you from behind, sends you to the wall, you bounce back on track going backwards and get collected by half the field, second race same thing happens, you get massive incident average for last ten races because of that. You did not do any mistake nor could you do anything about it, does it mean you should not be allowed to start on server 1 because you incident average for last races is high ? This is just to ilustrate that every automatic system will have its issues and wont be completely fair.

I completely agree with you. At this point, from the responses of the intervening users, I feel I can summarize some general thoughts (correct me if I'm wrong or add more if you find it useful):

1.  The current system of incidents counts the contacts and not actually the incidents, ending up assigning penalties (-3pts) in an arbitrary way beyond the dynamics of the events, risking to penalize those who are actually victims of the situation.
   
2. Race contacts lead to penalties in most cases, ending up penalizing whoever is having a good fight.
   
3. Whoever participates in a championship with the ambition of obtaining the victory or in any case finishing in the first positions risks losing important points due to contacts (I repeat, not incidents) for which he is not at fault or which in any case fall within the race incidents.
   
4. Those who participate only to have fun or in any case do not have any ambition for the classification, often and willingly, are more inclined to engage in a hard fight or attempt a risky overtaking. This means that it would bring a penalty of 3 points to him and the opponent, only those who run for pure fun do not care, so they will not have suffered any important penalties.
   
5. The only criterion for evaluating incidents and penalties, considered suitable and balanced by most users, is the "Protest", which evaluates only the dangerous and punishable competition actions, however leaving the evaluation to an impartial Administrator.
   
6. SRS is a platform that makes its simplicity and usability its strong point. So adding additional requirements or programs (Real Penalty, Sol, etc ...) would go against what makes SRS special.
   
7. The counting system of AC acidents is that, like it or not, so needless to continue to discuss how the incidents are counted.
   
8. Inserting a selection system based on the incident rating, which however is based on an incident counting system like that of AC which is not well balanced and is not "fair", would continue to create injustices and I do not think it would significantly improve the situation in track.
   

Given the above, I would like to suggest my personal solution(which in reality is not, but would partially fix the problem highlighted by Maurice): eliminate the 3 penalty points for incident, thus avoiding penalizing those who really care about points in the championship and postpone the evaluation of incidents and consequent penalties (if necessary) to the "Protest" tool.

What do you think?

I agree with your last statement. The biggest subject is the 3 points getting subtracted from your score. If this could go, it would make the racing better and more fair for the people going for the championship. Then a good battle for the podium will be rewarded with the points you deserve. And if one of the drivers is misbehaving, protest him. Simple and effective and not much different from now. I also would prefer, that if someone is found guilty for a race incident, and he has scored points, he should have points reduced from the championship. But that would be complicated to implement I guess.

I remember having a race and a hard and fair battle for position for 15 minutes. It was so rewarding, but we did touch a few times. No noteworthy collisions, but still lost points for these incidents. Not really rewarding I would say.

Another thing about the incident points. Your as good as your last race they say. When I started racing, I had more incidents then I have now. Because I gained more experience and racecraft, the incidents are getting less and less. But my old incidents still cuont for a significant amount. So having the incident rating of your last 20, 30, 50 or whatever amount of races, will be a better average of how often your involved in incidents. See it as the penalty system of Formula 1. These points get dropped after a year. Which is a nice and fair solution.

What do you think about this whole discussion, @simracingsystem

[Dario Bucalo]

I agree with your last statement. The biggest subject is the 3 points getting subtracted from your score. If this could go, it would make the racing better and more fair for the people going for the championship. Then a good battle for the podium will be rewarded with the points you deserve. And if one of the drivers is misbehaving, protest him. Simple and effective and not much different from now. I also would prefer, that if someone is found guilty for a race incident, and he has scored points, he should have points reduced from the championship. But that would be complicated to implement I guess.

I remember having a race and a hard and fair battle for position for 15 minutes. It was so rewarding, but we did touch a few times. No noteworthy collisions, but still lost points for these incidents. Not really rewarding I would say.

Another thing about the incident points. Your as good as your last race they say. When I started racing, I had more incidents then I have now. Because I gained more experience and racecraft, the incidents are getting less and less. But my old incidents still cuont for a significant amount. So having the incident rating of your last 20, 30, 50 or whatever amount of races, will be a better average of how often your involved in incidents. See it as the penalty system of Formula 1. These points get dropped after a year. Which is a nice and fair solution.

What do you think about this whole discussion, @simracingsystem

I think this discussion has proved very constructive and we can say that considering the pros and cons we have come to a good conclusion. I totally agree with your 2 proposals. I hope they will be seriously considered as in my opinion they would improve the overall experience on SRS.

[Colin Chilibeck]

I agree with your last statement. The biggest subject is the 3 points getting subtracted from your score. If this could go, it would make the racing better and more fair for the people going for the championship. Then a good battle for the podium will be rewarded with the points you deserve. And if one of the drivers is misbehaving, protest him. Simple and effective and not much different from now. I also would prefer, that if someone is found guilty for a race incident, and he has scored points, he should have points reduced from the championship. But that would be complicated to implement I guess.

I remember having a race and a hard and fair battle for position for 15 minutes. It was so rewarding, but we did touch a few times. No noteworthy collisions, but still lost points for these incidents. Not really rewarding I would say.

Another thing about the incident points. Your as good as your last race they say. When I started racing, I had more incidents then I have now. Because I gained more experience and racecraft, the incidents are getting less and less. But my old incidents still cuont for a significant amount. So having the incident rating of your last 20, 30, 50 or whatever amount of races, will be a better average of how often your involved in incidents. See it as the penalty system of Formula 1. These points get dropped after a year. Which is a nice and fair solution.

What do you think about this whole discussion, @simracingsystem

I think all of that makes sense. I have to say that it is Extremely frustrating when you are doing everything you can to lower your IP and then get punted from behind on Multiple occasions causing a bunch of IP.
During the race I spend too much time watching my mirrors trying Not to get hit by others. It also makes me brake earlier then usual to avoid those in front of me which I am sure causes people behind me to get their braking points wrong etc.

I also really like the below idea that was said.

Maybe possible idea: let's help with more Protest stewards

Removing the IP-penalty can only work if human-inquired protests become the common way to punish bad behaviour. However, generating more protests is not sustainable if protests have to be processed by a single person. Maybe Henrique could accept some help, and invite people to judge on the protests he receives. This would give a quicker turnover and enable SRS to process a larger volume of protests.

[Russell Sobie]

I don't care about the Internet Points at all, really, but I do think that having a "latest races only" for considering incident average is simply a good idea if only because it would be more of an accurate representation of experience. When I first started here I was a mid-pack driver at best, and that's where the widest skill levels reside... so that's where most of the impacts happen. After 900+ races, I'm probably in the top 10 just about every race, so my incidents have gone down considerably. It'd be nice for old races to fall off the cliff and get recalculated. Hell... it doesn't have to be a tiny number either. Make it average the last 250 races or something nuts. I bet my ~2.1 would probably drop to something like 1.0 or even less at this point.

People do tend to get better as time goes on, and recent results of any kind having little to no effect on any of your rating numbers due to you just adding more races to the top of the pile seems sub-optimal.

Everything else? *shrug*

[Andrea Piovanelli]

On incident average, I think there's some bug/mistake. I'm keeping track of my races (I did 15 valid races for now) and the incident average on my profile is ~1.5. On my spreadsheet, though, it's ~1.8 (28 incidents in 15 races).

Anyway, considering the last x races only (or the last x days) would indeed be more accurate.