CSR 112: A Railroader's Shooting Star

What happened man?

I guess that means CSR 113 will be hosted by the next runner up of CSR 111 then. If none of the other runners up are able, or don’t step up by the end of the week, I’d be happy to take the reigns. I do have something thought up if that helps at all.

Oh dear. This is the first time in the history of CSR that an entire round has been abandoned without a winner being declared (although some earlier rounds which took too long did have a winner, which had to be decided by popular vote). This means that none of the entrants in this round will ever know how well their vehicles would have stacked up against the requirements. :disappointed_relieved:

Anyway, fingers crossed that CSR 113 turns out much better - and is successfully completed, regardless of what it’s about. But I feel relieved knowing that the next CSR is likely to be in safe hands.

I feel for you Kei, even though i didn’t compete in this CSR i just wanted to let you know that everyone struggles with things, and thats ok. I hope you get back on your feet soon. :slight_smile:

So it looks like we’re going to need @strop’s input now. We just had a pretty big discussion in the Discord about the future of CSR and if perhaps major changes are needed to keep this challenge going.

First, I’m sorry that RL stuffs got in the way.

But…

…unsure what you expected hosting a stats based competition.


Back to the matter in hand…

I say we roll back to CSR111 and continue down the list.

Yeah gimme a bit. I would like to clarify 1) what to do now 2) might as well discuss what to do with CSR but I’m at work so maybe I’ll write something in about 3 hours

7 Likes

Well, the little van I built is fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=845uuMww1K0

ok so work finished a lot later than I anticipated.


What do we do with this round?

  • Hold a poll based on the ads from this round
  • Go back to the previous round winner list and work our way down until someone agrees to host

0 voters

That one’s probably pretty straight forward, I think one of these is going to be much faster than the others.


What should happen to the CSR in general?

I ask this because after 112 rounds the format of the hosting is clearly quite gruelling. We’ve discussed this every time somebody bails or something doesn’t work out, which is normal. Until this point everybody kind of ends up agreeing to let it keep going as it does but the amount of work required to host to some kind of unspoken standard is now often inaccessible to anybody except the kind of person who works insanely fast because they don’t have any free time, and most of those people know better than to volunteer to host a round.

There have been a number of suggestions, so I figured I’d put them also in a poll but then have it up for discussion. The poll winner may not be the eventual decision we go with, but at least it’s a way to kick things off.

  • Kill the CSR. The format’s run its course. At least until the next person comes along and decides to run CSR2: Electric Boogaloo, which you know will definitely happen
  • Split the CSR into two streams, with no restrictions on who enters which except if you get banned from hosting because you bailed on a round without explanation. Except some people may end up entering both streams and then each host still has to process 50 entries…
  • Split the CSR into two streams, and any one user can only enter one of them at a time, except policing that is going to be a pain in the ass and probably generate ridiculous amounts of salt
  • Keep the CSR as is but allow the host to impose a limit on the number of entries commented upon regardless of number of entries
  • Keep the CSR as is but allow the host a flexible deadline proportional to the number of entries
  • Keep the CSR as is entirely, and it’ll all come out in the wash
  • Other ideas?

0 voters

ok people have at it

Honestly I like the CSR as it is, it’s just the high number of detailed review people expect from a host (because else they get salty) that is the issue.

I see no issue that a host simply lists the following:

  • entries binned because not meeting requirements
  • entries sub-par in styling
  • entries sub-par in technical design
  • entries just not good enough

And then follows with the 10 or so best designs and reviews those.

9 Likes

can agree:

i’d say that the number of entries is unlimited, but the host saying

X car doesn’t look good enough.

should suffice for reason of binning.

not a whole friggin’ novel detailing what does not look good.

2 Likes

inb4 ocean of salt due to Tier 3 aesthetically challenged designers :joy:

But yeah sometimes that’s unavoidable. Obviously it’s up to the host to be clear about what they are emphasising from the outset and sticking to it, which most hosts have done an okay job of doing.

10 Likes

That’s racist!

only coz you chose to be born an ugly ethnicity, duh

14 Likes

the plot thicken

Agree, but also… If you get binned because your design isn’t good enough, there’s nothing stopping you from asking nicely for some constructive feedback outside of the CSR formal process.

Maybe that’s a solution? Have a separate ‘official’ CSR wash up thread where people who have been binned can post for feedback from the community, but only after CSR round has finished? It would effectively shift a lot of the burden off the CSR host and share it around all the other board members (most likely the regular/core CSR entrants).

16 Likes

Good idea, like an after show forum kind of deal. “CSR: a community review” Help members improve. Would the host start the review panel, or would it be the winner? What would be the time frame for follow up and feedback?

2 Likes

That sounds like a really good idea to limit salt while still reducing host workload.

2 Likes

This should be streamlined as an in-game multiplayer event. Submitting a .car file would upload to a central server, where some kind of market demographics similar to single player can be applied to the entries. Maybe multiplayer would allow for multiple judging and even more interesting outcomes? The other games I play host community participated events on a calendar deadline, this should be no different.

Something that has been discussed before and is worth reiterating now was the idea that once a host gets more than 30 entries they get a fourth day to write up the results, a fifth once they go over 40, and so on for every ten extra entries. That way the expectations people have from a host with 25 entries could be met by one with 45 entries.

(Still worth noting that it’s expected to get started on the reviews before the round closes. If waiting until after to even look at the cars you’ll have a bad time no matter how many extra days you get.)

5 Likes