Roles and Responsibilities

There is a private forum for use by the moderators. The moderator's forum is essential for administering the league and reviewing race results and incidents. The assistant moderators do not need to be members of the moderator's forum. It is the moderators responsibility to ensure any tasks delegated to an assistant moderator are acceptable.

Moderator - Tasks

A moderator is assigned to each division in the league. Ideally each moderator will have one or two assistants. The various tasks the moderator carried out are listed below:

Race Announcements The moderator prepares a race announcement two or three days prior to every race so that each driver in the division is aware of the start time, race length, practice times, server to be used and any particular restrictions for the race. These restrictions may be pit stop times or allowable car choice etc, it all depends on the specific division. A spreadsheet which calculates the pit stop times for each division is available here. The race announcements are generally made via a dedicated forum all drivers subscribe to.
Race Password The moderator will decide on a password for the race which will be distributed via private emails to each driver eligible to enter the race. This is normally done on the day of the race.
Starting the Race Server The procedure for starting the server is quite straightforward but the details will not be listed here. There are several things that can go wrong but rarely do. In the unlikely event of a problem occurring there is a server team who can sort out most issues and the worst thing that can happen is that a race has to be postponed or re-run. In order to lessen the chance of a pile-up at the start, the moderator should start the race with loose grids. This is instigated by a parameter in the server set up but it does depend on the loose grids patch being applied to the circuits on the server. A task carried out by the server team. For some divisions the race length is altered using the SERVERMAN application administered by the server team. If necessary the moderator can change the race length before the starting the server. This can be done several days before the race but there is always a risk that it can be changed back by someone else in the interim.
Publishing the Results of a Race (optional) This involves uploading the results file, which should be automatically saved by the server, onto the UKGPL website. This does require some additional skills in using the LEAGUE MANAGER application administered by our webmaster.
Collating Driver's Incident Reports The drivers are obliged to submit a report after each race detailing the incidents they were involved in. The moderator collates these reports, and any client replays the drivers may have provided, ready for reference when the race is moderated.
Moderating a Race This can be the most time consuming aspect of the moderators job. However, the task is an off-line activity so it can be completed at the moderators convenience. Details of how to moderate a race can be found here.
Checking a Moderated Race In order to maintain some consistency throughout the league moderators generally ask for comments on a race report from other moderators via the moderator's forum. A moderator may or may not decide to amend his report but in principle each moderator would be expected to respect the consensus of the group.
Publishing the Moderated Race Report (optional) This involves editing the published results to take into account time penalties etc. It also involves adding incident reports and a race summary to the results page on the website. Again this does require some additional skills in using the LEAGUE MANAGER application administered by our webmaster.
Managing Driver's Appeals Very occasionally a driver may appeal against a moderator's decision. Normally this wouldn't arise because contentious incidents are checked by the other moderators before being released. The procedure for dealing with appeals is defined in the rules section.

Assistant Moderator - Tasks

The moderator is free to perform most of their tasks at a time convenient to themselves. However, starting the race server must obviously be done at a specific time. If the moderator is not available to start the server (due to holidays. work etc), then a deputy has to be found. To date this has generally been another moderator but with the moderating team shrinking in recent years this is proving to be more difficult to arrange. Consequently the primary role of the assistant moderator will be to ensure the races can go ahead as planned. It is expected that the assistant moderator will be a driver in the division they are assistant moderator for, so starting the server should not be an onerous task. The assistant moderator may be called upon to perform the following tasks:

Starting the Race Server In the absence of the moderator the assistant moderator may be required to start the server. The process is as described above and the necessary IP addresses, port numbers and passwords will be provided. However the assistant moderator will not be able to change the race length since they will not have access to SERVERMAN.
Other Tasks From time to time the moderator and the assistant may agree to share the workload. The tasks that could be delegated if both parties agree are:

Race Announcements Would need to ensure only one person published an announcement to avoid any confusion.
Race Password The person starting the server should distribute the password.
Moderating a Race Some aspects of moderating a race, such as checking pit stop times and identifying incidents using GPL Replay Analyser, can be delegated. However, the moderator must retain the responsibility of assessing incidents. This role cannot be delegated.