I don't have a problem with you Kevin, I've always thought you felt like I do, so if I am portraying that to you it's unintentional. I like pretty much everyone in the WRS that I can think of. Please don't mistake a complaint here or there for dislike, I just speak my mind a lot. (and am sometimes unreasonably grumpy)
OK, that's fair. Honestly, your post felt a bit like it was coming out of left field. You once participated quite regularly, but it lookd to me like your focus just drifted to other areas. Those things happen.
I always appreciated you as a participant. You were among the quickest, while willing to give tips, share your tunes, and you've normally maintained a positive posting style that benefits the community.
Actually that's kind of what it is, really. I only have a few quirks with it.
It really doesn't seem like you guys ever take ideas. Maybe that's changed since I last was a regular, but from what I recall, I have never seen a requested combo in the suggestions box come to life. I believe I remember where a combo was "inspired" by a suggestion, (can't recall which one), but it was a different car and/or track than whomever requested.
I'm not saying it's never happened, but I figure if it's that rare that I can't remember seeing it, it can't be too often. I'm not saying you need to take suggestions, but people sure as hell love it.
It's complicated, as you have to remember that we're trying to achieve some overall objectives while taking suggestions into account, where they make sense.
People sometimes come in with well thought out suggestions. They have tested the combo they are suggesting, and are putting themselves in the shoes of the broader participant base. And they understand we're trying to vary things like track selection, car selection, drivetrains, tire type, types of tracks, tuning vs. not tuning. How expensive is the car and how accessible is it? What will the overall appeal of the combo be, based on what we know from historical data? We keep all of that in mind when planning.
The suggested combos, or shadows of suggested combos, that are implemented are those where people have thought all of that through. I've often tested people's suggestions, and have moved onto something I thought would fit better - Different car on the same track, or vice versa. You are right, it's rare that we take something straight out of the box, as suggested, but those tend to be the reasons for it. People tend to think and suggest through their personal lens, what they enjoy, but they are not necessarily thinking of how it will translate to the D4 driver with a controller. Maybe the car was not a fit for the track, maybe a car we have not used fit better on the same track, maybe we already had an idea in the pipeline that's been thoroughly tested. Or maybe we just used the track last month, and would like to keep things fresh.
Another thing is griping about griping. I can understand not wanting to listen to people complain as much as anyone, but calling people pedantic and infantile over it, is pedantic and infantile itself. If somebody won't shut up, that's a different story. Taking it personally is entirely up to you, there's absolutely no need for you to do it though, and it's self-inflicted. Also, there are probably a handful of people that would love to have your spot, Kevin. Imagine what it sounds like to them when you talk about it as though it is work.
Well, it
IS work, let's not kid ourselves. I probably spend more time against organizing than I do driving of my own, trying to enjoy myself and improve my own skills. I'm sure many people would love to be doing this, and some of them are probably capable. We've continued to recruit staff. Chris is the most recent example, and he'll help a lot with some of the things I'm talking about. If he can take on a specific workload of the Time Trial creation, that will free me up to enjoy things more as a participant. I've been doing this for a fair bit of time, but I've not lost sight of why I'm here, it's to support the community.
Complaining about complaining - My issue is that many people will glance over a race thread and make a judgement or decision on whether or not to participate based on what they read. And my responding to complainers might just fuel that fire, but I have a hard time when people step into the thread 3 posts in, and proceed to launch their counterattack against the combo selection. If you don't like a combo, the best thing you can do to ensure something like it is not run again in the future is to not participate. And I don't only mean that as, "If you don't like it, **** off".
I mean it genuinely, as in, we watch the level of participation, and understand correlations between particular types of combos and levels of participation. We still want variety, broad appeal to many different members. Somebody is going to want an FF road car on Comfort tires. Somebody else is going to want an LMP car. They are probably not the same member.
We want them both to be happy and participate at times. But when something turns out to be an absolute dud, you are probably not going to see us come back to something like it.
The overall goal is maximum participation and enjoyment for our members, and when someone creates a post that is counter to facilitating that, I take exception. And it's mostly because I want them to give the member that has not driven the combo the opportunity to form their own opinion, rather than feeding the need to force their own opinion on the community, and believing that's going to change what we do or how we do it.
The WRS has been a small group that enjoys itself, but I think it could become a large group that enjoys itself even more. Imagine how much fun guys in D5 would have winning races instead of finishing a lap behind guys in D1/2.
So please don't mistake this as a "speed" thing, it's everyone that benefits from a bigger group with online racing.
Our participation counts on GT5 were the highest on average that I've seen over more than 6 years of involvement in WRS as a participant or Admin. We set all time participation records in our first events, with Week 1 eclipsing the GT4 launch by nearly 100 participants. And that on a game that had online features that made user based series easy to organize, and the launch of WRS trailed the game release by nearly 3 months.
I agree with you, that we could have more. As in, more weekly participants, on average, over time. Some of that comes back to what Tim was saying, about popularity of and engagement in the game itself. But as an outset goal, we want to break that GT5 record, and get more than 200 participants in week 1. And we want to have a higher sustained average participant base, both in Time Trials and online races.
That's the overriding goal, and we're here to listen to anyone who has ideas on what we can do collectively to support that broadly. Single combo suggestions are fine, but broader ideas on total approach are better. We're all ears to constructive suggestions along those lines.
Also Viper got promoted to D1! 👍
My bet would be the latter. 
