Apologize

[Ripley]

Remember I love you all as you read this,


Alright so I've had a tough week and I'm just about done. Seriously, guys it is a game. We play here because we love it and it helps us get through our lives. I have about reached my limit and I have tried very much to be a good admin. For the last several months everyone has been moaning about this game and judging. Hellooo people, my wonderful posters and judgers, we all have our own opinion. I think I've acclimated the best all things considered. If anyone should be moaning it's me. Top stable for the last three years and I can barely get a foothold in racing right now beyond Sun King and my three year old colts and Notorious. A horse I've been campaigning to win the Kentucky Derby for the last three years of SIM life flunked in the race miserably and I have kept my opinion to myself. Guess what that's what happens when we get new members and competition increases.

I am not ashamed to say that I pondered quitting the game this morning because I'm done with the drama. We're supposed to be here for one another, not complaining and crying about losing. We either need to have rational conversations or I'm going to suggest going back to randomization. I've about had it. I love each of you dearly and know that in real life we would all be extremely close, but the bickering about judging has got to stop.

How about instead of all of you relying on Cavvy, Kenren, Frosty and I to make changes you come up with a comprehensive judging guideline. You all have been here long enough to know what works and what doesn't.

All of you, including Cav, are right. Judging is extremely subjective and nitpicky right now, but that's the way it has to be in order for racing to be run.

Isa: No one is attacking you or downgrading your horses simply because of her nice personality. When I judge prospects I mostly base it on pedigree, and maybe a little personality, and if I see them as a true runner of the distance/surface or not. However, in Justa Little Cutie's case, her pedigree is not as top of the line as my filly Kismet's or Frosty's Amaris. She also hasn't run in a prospect field that large this year. Meg judged that race quite fairly and I would have placed all horses similarly. Justa Little Cutie's pedigree is no fault of your own. At the time you were a new member struggling to get horses. You have to prove her pedigree when she hit's her juvenile season like Kenren is doing with Santana's Legend.

Everyone: Prospects don't matter in my head and from what I've gathered most of everyone elses'. If a horse does poorly in prospects, quit racing them there. You just make it worse on yourself and how you feel about your horses. I learned my lesson a long time ago and I barely ever race a prospect EVER. Small rant, forgive me.


Now the problem is, everyone wants a grade one racehorse to retire to their shed. Everyone wants to win the big races with every single one of their horses. Well everyone is going to have to adjust, even myself. And we either do it diplomatically or we're going to end the website with everyone's bickering. It's uncalled for. We are all decent human beings.

Now my rant is over. Can we please get back to this being a productive thread and not everyone complaining about how their racing string is doing less better than everyone else's string?

Make lists of what you want to see going forward in judging and post them here.

[Deleted]

Why don't people just calm down?
It's a game! You are all amazing people, is there ANY reason why these arguments keep occurring? :-/

PLEASE....
STOP

[Kenren]

I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY CHANGES. But if you quit I'll cry so we'll be church mice. Church mice all around.

Meg: Ripley literally just said it, so the discussion's done xD

[S u N f r O s T ~]

Can't believe I missed all this, but I want to put in some input regardless.

I agree with Ripleykins. I do think we need to take a step back. I understand what it's like to have that horse you've spent years in RL planning go down the tubes and never be a true superstar. I understand what it's like to have your "turf", so to speak, invaded and your horses taken down a notch. But what I see now is a chance for us to be constructive about judging, and forget all of our frustrations for a bit.

A while back, I volunteered to write a new judging guidelines thread. I am still up for writing one. If people would like to post suggestions for what to include in the thread, please do reply here. I'd love to make it an inclusive project among all members, with everybody's input. So do reply and let's see what we can come up with!

[Deleted]

Cavvy - Everyone has bad days, sometimes the smallest thing can be the final straw, I am sure everyone involved can understand this and relate. -hugs-

Ripley - PLEASE don't quit, we love you!

Now... Onto the business of judging - perhaps we should start a new thread, without the previous undertones from this thread, to discuss? I don't think there is much to change, personally, but maybe some things could be clarified... I would need to read through again for exact wording and such.

[S u N f r O s T ~]

I will create a new thread now. Good idea.

[Isabelle]

Wait wait wait I was NOT complaining in my post that I made, I was stating a few examples of how I was sitting at my computer looking at things and I went "hmm, that seems a little odd" or "gosh wasn't expecting that one". I realize Cutie doesn't have the best pedigree in town, and with Lucky's three year old year I was still just starting the game and didn't understand how HOTY races worked or what I was doing. At that point I still didn't understand planning race cards, I just tossed him in a bunch of places. Of course he was overmatched, but unfortunately I feel he is now penalized this year because of my misunderstandings last year, as he has so many low placings. I'm doing my best to undercard him now but I almost feel like since he placed so low in high HOTY races he is seen as a lower placing horse. I think that goes to show how new members can feel overwhelmed trying to enter and judge and how older members might get upset over what they think was unfair or an odd placement. I think it's a fabulous idea to do new judging guidelines. I for one would greatly benefit from it and I'm sure I would have a better understanding of how to judge and why my horses place where they do.

Prospect races: If they aren't important, why do we give awards for them? There are yearly best prospect awards and the GHF next top racehorse awards, and as you said Ripley it's mostly based on pedigree. If they aren't worth anything why are we giving out awards and doing weighted HOTY events for them? From what I understand, a yearling that does well in prospect races generally means they have a decent to excellent pedigree and show perhaps more potential than yearlings that do poorly. Perhaps we should change the way prospect races are judged, to allow all horses more even footing rather than based so much on pedigree, or perhaps change them so they are not HOTY weighted and much more just for fun. It's confusing how you say they aren't worth anything but yet we give all these awards and considerations for those who do well.

Again I'm NOT complaining I don't believe this thread was meant to be for complaining, rather a discussion of where things potentially got of track with judging. I personally do get confused a lot with the judging of this game I think simply because each person is unique, as we stated before. One person might tell me oh my gosh your colt will do just great on 9 furlongs, I think he'll shine there the best. Then another person a few weeks later will say oh he relished the 12 furlongs today he'll be a wonderful long distance runner for you. So it leaves me to think . . . so if member a sees him as 9f and member b says 12f . . . where do I put my horse? Does that make sense? Comments like that get confusing when they aren't steady.

[S u N f r O s T ~]

Prospect awards and racing and stuff are generally just not meaningful. I mean sure you get awards for them, but they're not an indicator of exactly how well a horse will do on the track. They might indicate early popularity among members or how their pedigree compares to others', but prospect racing is literally just something to do with yearlings so they don't just sit around lol ;)

And I do agree, those comments can be confusing and perhaps we should do something about it. I could put a note about that in the guide?

[LK]

Cavvy, I didn't mean to blow up on you. In fact, it was very rude on my part the way I reacted. But it goes to show just how frustrating judging can be. I've been backing off on judging now for a while because I feel like I always get hounded afterword and it makes me think that I suck at judging and just should avoid it at all costs. Recently I've worked up enough energy to judge a few and then it gets turned around and I feel like people are mad at me because I didn't judge the race well enough. It is very very disheartening to feel like that and it's been building up over time. I agree that the rules need to be clarified so that members, such as myself, can have an easier time seeing how the horses run and who gets put where. Even then, I still don't feel comfortable enough to judge after the past few races I've tried. With all that said, I truly am sorry for blowing up on you. But you also have to understand where I'm coming from and my reasoning for stepping out of judging for now.