Dean
The penalty system is built into SRou and applies to all Sims (GTR, GTL etc) hosted on SRou. There is an explanation of how it applies to UKGPL is under the Yellow card paragraph on
this page and a worked example is
here.
Just to be clear, the Yellow Card system automated and is built into SRou, the UKGPL moderators don't have a choice in how it is applied. We just declare an incident as worthy of a caution, warning or penalty and the system does the rest.
As for the incidents themselves, I don't want to comment or compare the incidents, as all incidents are judged separately and on their own merits. So if we accept that both incidents have attracted the same penalty, i.e. 2 places then there is nothing wrong with the results table, it is just the way the algorithm works.
Ronnie should have been dropped 2 places but because he was the next to last classified finisher he can only drop 1 place. If the calculation of 2 places is done on the finishers before the < 50% finishers are discounted, all that would do is demote Ronnie twice and then promote him once when the < 50% finishers were removed. The net result is the same.
The only way to avoid this specific issue is to drop the 50% rule. Even then, being last or second to last of all finishers means a 2 place penalty either has no effect or a reduced (i.e. 1 place) effect.
Trying to complicate the algorithm to award Ronnie 13 points for 12th place but show him as 11th in the table would be too cumbersome in my view. I'm not sure I could persuade Dave Gymer (SRou web master and site owner) that this "feature" is sufficient to warrant a rewrite of the algorithm.
I hope this rather long winded reply goes some way to explain that we, the moderating team, are simply trying to apply the rules as fairly and as consistently as possible. After all the rules are the same for everybody, next time it might be you that benefits from this "feature". So overall I for one am satisfied that the rules are perfectly fair.
*** Update ***. Dean, I've re-read your post and noticed I missed something. I've updated the mod report to correctly classify the incident at 0h42m01s as a penalty. The system has now applied the right number of Yellow Card points for a penalty (i.e. 2). Now Ronnie has 3 Yellow Card points in the championship table but the race result and allocated points remains the same. The system is fair if we use it properly!
