Server managment suggestion

Hello all   
I would like to share some things I noticed and give some suggestions about "updating" ways of how MRc handles its servers in this rather long text.

P.S. - Altough I feel I something like this should be obvious, but in this wild age of political correctnes id like to write DISCLAIMER - stuff listed below is my personal view on some things I noticed and my personal comments and suggestions about it, which you dont have to agree with. Also, I am talking MOSTLY about FBM servers since those are the ones I am most frequently on.

There is a lot less people playing LFS than say 2-3 years back. And some new servers and hosts started to appear and they seem quite popular ex. *server which shall not be named* (but is written in red and says demo FBM BL Historic) on average has 6-9 people at any given time between 15:00-02:00, while MRc server (Demo FBM at least) has about 3-5 or less at the same time. 

Team that started way back in 2009 and should be way more experienced and should have advantage in every way, is slowly slipping away to a bunch of newely formed hosts.
I dont want to dismantle other people's efforts, I want to point out that MRc should and could be doing better than them. Whats the point of paying and keeping team and servers alive if no one is around to use them?

Il write some observations, and what could be changed or improved:

1.- SPECTATED FOR BAD LAP TIME 
- This one is obvious. Altough logic behind not allowing inexperienced players to enter is okay for the most part, but there are a lot of old, good LFS players who forgot their password or just made new account who cant access our servers. Maybe there would be a way for "measuring" new players experience. Ex.- I made a new account and start with safety rating at 50.00%. If in XY number of races my safety declines more than XY, I will be spectated until I gain sufficient experience. And if I drive good, all is fine and I get to continue using MRc servers as a newbie. There is also a problem in statement itself, "SPECTATED FOR BAD LAP TIME" is quite confusing. When I made a new account and got spect, I kept checking options and trying to join, only to then realise that I just dont have enough experience, and a lot of people cant figure out why they cant play, and more importantly, when they figure out why, then they cant figure out how they can get good lap time? In single player? On other MRc servers? On other servers? What to do to play? So that could be bit more easier on the eyes also.

2.- FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILTERS  
- There is a lot of people who just suck at english, and all they want is to enjoy the game (that in its options holds all or most of languages spoken around the world). Encouraging people to speak or try to speak english on MRc server via some "welcome" or "rules" screen would be okay, but to outright ban speaking other languages is just unnessesarily harsh. I saw people getting straight out kicked for not speaking english. Also swearing, we all understand "fu*k", "sh*t", "pus*y", "cu*t" and such, and english being universal language, its okay to have filter for those. But does anyone really give a flying f*ck if one Spanish guy tells another Spanish guy that he's a "puta"? Or if I call someone from Balkan "kurcoglavi"? Do people really care? Most of people dont even care about chat, some of those who do dont know what that means, and those less that 10% who read it and understand it usualy find it funny. So foreign language policy could also get an update.


3.- BAD GRAMMAR IN PLACES
- There is some rules and phrases (ex. BLUE FLAG - LET'S PASS CAR BEHIND) that are either off, or downright confusing. With the said example, what does the blue flag mean? I need to pass a car thats BEHIND me? What? So some grammar checks could be welcome. 


4.- 2 TYPES OR RACES ONLY 
- For years MRc offered very limited playstyle for (demo) players. There is 1 server with BL Historic 4 laps, 1 BL GP 4 laps and thats about it. There were plenty of situations where people were cheering when someone set 10 lap race with a pitstop. And that was great, it was different, and everyone loved it. So why not keep that up? Maybe not 10 lap, pitstop race all the time, but something like every other day for that amount of hours on that server. Or something different that steers away from the usual.

5.- OVERLY AGRESSIVE ADMINS
- Lets just remind ourselves what a role server admin/team member should have. Admin should be the one who helps and guides new players, one who gives advice if asked or figures advice is needed, and one who will spend one of his races spectating someone so he could see and react to mistakes and help. Also the one who should not ignore if one player starts harrasing, insulting or/and crashing another player. This is a rooting ground for a lot of complaints on this forum. I believe admin selecting process is not detailed enough, and some people who do end up as admins are really bad at this "job" they themselves had chosen. If someone wanted to be a part of any team, that person should be a helping hand to others and scales of justice when needed. I saw people getting kicks and bans for most bizzare reasons, from usual accidents, spins and such, to "i kicked him because he was too slow and was spoiling my 48.528th race" or "hes a noob and he should practice offline".  LFS is a sim, new players need to get a feel for the physics behind it. If someone spins out even 10 times, but is obviously trying to keep a lap together, do a man a favour and help him out a bit instead of kicking him because he is spoiling your 48.528th race. Main reason, however, is that at least 50% of those who are trying to become or become admins, do so for the sole reason of feeling superior to others and to show how priviliged they are in LFS, and this is something that needs to change if any of us has any intention of keeping people on MRc servers and LFS in general.

And all of this is happening while pro or "famous" players get forgiven multiple times for downright ramming a slow driver off the road because "hes a neusance" and telling people to fu*k off. I agree we all know someone on LFS for a while, but if for instance I mock someone all the time and have no problem ramming him off because I need clear path for my hotlap, I need to get my a$$ kicked out until I either cool off and return or I get a ban. It shouldnt play any role if I play LFS for 3, 5, or 9 years. 



6.- OUTDATED FB PAGE AND FORUM DESIGN
-Speaks for itself. Some freshness could be thrown into this page and the one on Facebook. 

This was my list of things that I believe need some polishing if anyone has any interest left in keeping MRc alive. I do, hence this post. 

If I managed to offend someone, accept my apologie. 
Race'ya

Your colleague; Matija a.k.a. MRc CHEESE/ Fox 

I could fill the MRc servers within hours just remove all the !locks and remove the bans.

The Fox I can send you the current ! rules and server messages if you want to try and update them.

Im all for keeping MRc going but even I have lost interest in last few months.

The dervs keep posting pictures of new updates that asfar as I can tell are years from being released if ever.

We seem to have lost all the fbm drivers to ALM but I have raced there no admin anything goes its full most of the time but will you get a clean race.

Simon, id like to try. I dont want to do something that majority does not agree with or go off experimenting on my own with other people's servers.

If we could do something for some of the things I mentioned, or something else I forgot, that would be great. I am all good and willing to try and correct some minor mistakes, and if you and the rest of the squad are fine with me doing that, tell me how I change something and il get to it soon.

Give me a few days to get some files together for you I will post a drop box link here.

The Fox, really thx for your initiative, I agree you !


I use your topic to add my personal view and obviously too : stuff listed below is my personal view on some things I noticed and my personal comments and suggestions about it, which you dont have to agree with



Yes "SPECTATED FOR BAD LAP TIME" can be confusing, idk if there is additional personal message to the driver in question. I have changed locks after a long calculation to set 1 server at 1:20 and the "PRO" server at 1:30 because there is already a lock on ex on this server and I though that experimented drivers are more careful. A lock about RT would be very nice while it is understandable for a guy with a bad english and sometime, who cant read chat during he drives.
AA and ALM servers have no lock to join and tbh, sometime it is more a sadly circus than racing servers. MRc marks his difference with those locks, there is drivers (tigerz1995 for example) who come on MRc server because there is a lock.



This language filter is obsolete and confusing ! A rule about insulting is enough to kick someone swearing too much. Here an example found in log file :

Jul 09 23:53:04 AA^v Ayrton Senna : ^LAA|KatherineLegge - our reputation is good HAHA YES !!!
Jul 09 23:53:04 AA^v Ayrton Senna : KICKED FOR BAD LANGUAGE (puta)



About ALM, I had a long dialog with Juanjo who said me I had a permanent ban on his server "by mistake" as he explained - more about MRc admins behaviour I think. On this last point, I support MRc admins, as humans, they can have a bad behaviour, be angry or a bit zealous, it can be sad or makes rancour, unfortunately that's life ! Furthermore, admins must be a bit responsible, I've never contest an admin decision on any server, and I wont. But sometime, drivers asked me why they have got a long ban for no reason apparently (in their version obviously) then, even if there is a forum for that, it could be kind that admins indicate the reason of bans longer than 1 week or 1 month, also every admins could read it in !lb list. For my part I already indicate this reason very often. All the more so as generally, the long bans concern known drivers, else how a long ban can be useful ?



Dido will contest that but I vote for admins managing new drivers, even if they spoiled a race sometime and even if many new drivers begun by a kick to understand they are not alone and they have to read the chat.
Even if MRc admins are numerous, I think more numerous than for other demo servers, there isnt an admin connected on each server permanently and anyway, we cant be just behind each driver. But true, always we can be more welcoming and I'm sure we all try to.

Interesting thread and some good points. Let me stir up the soup a little if I may? 

Like School Bus already stated, one factor to more quiet servers is MRc's strong desire to provide clean servers, without malicious drivers. Sometimes when i join, i need to ban several drivers within 15minutes. I think they go to a prison aka ALM server afterwards. But this doesn't explain all of it. LFS needs more public light it deserves.

Here's my opinion in the points you brought up in the first post:

1. Lap time requirement.

True what you are saying: it can be confusing especially when there are no admins present to explain the procedure. Apart from the School Bus's point, one simple solution could be this: leave another FBM server open, and lock only the FBM PRO server.

2. Foreign language.

Two points that endorse the current policy.

- As within kicking/banning hackers and crashers, straight insults to somebody will also have consequences. Keep the atmospheric clean like we keep the track clean.  I'm not talking cases where someone just spins, then swears and gets kicked automatically. That is his penalty. No further measurements if they are just mad at themselves.

- English only rule allows the above system. All writings are understood, and admins don't have to use Google translate to ensure equal rights to everyone. So using only English enables similar treatment to everybody.

3. In favor of proper grammar also

4. Good idea to implement different races periodically. Someone with the access to Airio files knows if this is possible / do we know how to do it?

5. Aggressive Admins.

We sure have rules that are on the strictest end. New clean players should feel welcomed still, or we are doing something wrong.

As for the admin selection process, we have fixed requirements (lap time, age, safety), plus we gather multiple member opinions before making the final decision. These personal insights play a significant role in the application process which is very crucial. An opinion that has formed during long time period coming from a trusted member tells more of the applicant than his speed. I think this is optimal application process with the staff we have and amount of new applicants.

We will remove rights from admins who don't go by the rules. Due the good amount of admins in MRc servers, it won't hurt a bit to fire an unprofessional admin like here: EXAMPLE

You brought up some injustices you have seen from other admins. Have you made a thread about those, so we could take a look? Admin is not untouchable within the system: we have a complaints&compliments section dedicated to critic. Challenging other admin's decisions is welcome, like I have done here: EXAMPLE

AA seems disable the language filter too.

And I don't know how modify the event messages like this one

Hi mate,

Thats in the main .srv file just make a backup before you edit it. I did not and thats why we lost Airio forva few hours till I found a recent ish 1

Gemini changed it very well, already WR he doesn't hesitate to put his hands in the sludge to take care of our server, thank to him !

Hey all. 
I am quite busy lately with my job, second job, and orginising charity stuff over here, so im sorry I cant jump in on the news. 

What should I do? How can I participate? 

I can handle the server files for now, but the facebook page could use some tuning. I dont personally use facebook, buy maybe Simon can give you login details?

I'm the same I don't do Facebook Bish has all the details I kept away from that.

I could handle Facebook page, ads and some other things. I did that few times already.

Sorry no idea on facebook login in details.

First, nice job on forum design, who ever did it! 

Second, is there any other admin on Facebook page? Does not have to be owner of the page, just a moderator to enter me in as a moderator too. That is the level of authority I can change few things with. Or is Paul only one to run the page?