Call for Volunteers

[Gipfelstuermer]

Dear community,

I try my best for this game every day, and I came to the conclusion, that right now the best is to ask you for help.

In the last three years, I have volunteered for many roles here, especially being one of three admins, but also some more roles in addition. There were ups and downs, but overall I am very happy with the progress we made together. The number of players have increased significantly and hopefully can increase further.

Now, I am searching for volunteers in this game. I realized that I do not spend enough time in my admin-role (development & bugfixing), mostly because of a currently too busy private life, but also a little bit because I have these additional roles in the game:

A) Calendar Manager
B) One Day Race Designer
C) FPC Member
D) Marketing Manager
(detailed descriptions below)

I considered dissolving the Gipfelstuermer team to have more time for development, but this seems very risky to me. If I lose the interest in the game, I might lose interest in the admin-role, too... So my preferred solution would be to get some help for these additional roles. That would free up some of my time and help me focus more on development & bugfixing.

Below is a more detailed description for each of the four roles (skills & qualifications not to be taken too seriously).

If you are interested to volunteer for one of them, please write here or via PM

Gip


A) Calendar Manager

The Role
- Create & publish the Preview & Final Calendar for the 15th/25th of each month
- Discuss races, editions and times with users and find solutions together
- Organize the profiles & races in the in-game editor
- Communicate with race designers in the public forum, via PM and via in-game chat
- Back-up for last minute race designs (or last minute calendar changes)

Skills & Qualifications
- Know the UCI calendar by heart
- Diplomatic communication with users
- Clear and timely decision-making, with or without compromises

Reward
- A fantastic race calendar each month (thanks to you)
- Better in-game race editor (thanks to me having more time for admin-work)

Start Date: Whenever you want. You can select the month you like to start with (earliest August because July is already ongoing).


B) One Day Race Designer

The Role
- Design at least 3 one day races per month
- Keep up and improve the high C4F Standard for race design
- Emergency / last minute action to complete the calendar each month

Skills & Qualifications
- Know every cobblestone, hill and Grashalm in the whole of Europe by first and last name
- Master of ridewithgps and Google Street View (can be learned)
- Have a PhD in mathematics (e.g. to calculate elevation gain in a reverse circuit)
- High frustration tolerance when using the in-game profile editor

Reward
- Exciting, realistic one day races (thanks to you)
- Better in-game profile editor (thanks to me having more time for admin-work)

Start Date: Whenever you want. You can start any time now with the races scheduled for July.


C) FPC Member

The Role
- Open, discuss, vote and execute Fairplay Cases
- Discover fairplay breaches and investigate suspicious users
- Conduct fairplay hearings with accused players

Skills & Qualifications
- Photographic memory of each race km, the race chat and the race log
- Always keep calm and stay fair (even when insulted repeatedly)
- A degree in law and cybersecurity

Reward
- Fair and friendly community (thanks to you)
- Better in-game FPC tools (thanks to me having more time for admin-work)

Start Date: Whenever you want. No urgent FPC cases ongoing right now.


D) Marketing Manager

The Role
- Be an advocate for new players
- Create and distribute marketing e-mails
- Develop new, fresh ideas for marketing campaigns
- Collaborate with the admins for clever timing of marketing content

Skills & Qualifications
- Ability to think like a Newbie
- Be diligent for the 'boring' marketing (e.g. Manual, Forum Q&A, Mentoring, E-Mails)
- Be creative for the 'exciting' marketing (e.g. Social Media, SEO, Guerilla Marketing)

Reward
- Larger community with more new players and more interesting races (thanks to you)
- Better tools for newbies, like tutorials etc. (thanks to me having more time for admin-work)

Start Date: You can still participate in the Tour de France campaign or start afterwards.

[schappy]

First of all, great to see the ongoing developments in this Game. Thank YOU for this.


I hope you (all of you) will get some help. I am unfortunately a DAU (dümmster anzunehmender Nutzer) and i dont have good plans for IT and things about this. So the only think i really can to is to design some Races. Ridewithgps is a site i can use. More ist not possible. Sorry.


But i have interestes in the social media department. The game have something like this? Never saw this game there.

[Elaska]

Hi,

Can't the calendar be managed by 3 or 4 guys? It allows discussion and back up in case of non availability

[Gipfelstuermer]

Here is a little update following this Call for Volunteers. We now have new volunteers:

FPC
CircleCycle

NC
RC Hachen
ATB - Racing

Marketing
schappy

You can also see all official roles under Manual > Administration.

Thank You to everyone who volunteers for the game. We can only keep it alive (and grow) thanks to you.

PS: We will have one more position available in the FPC in the future and if somebody wants to take those calendar tasks from me, we can also talk But for the moment, I'm happy I have at least one task less, so a little more time to focus on development.

[flockmastoR]

Call for Volunteers

C) FPC Member

The Role
- Open, discuss, vote and execute Fairplay Cases
- Discover fairplay breaches and investigate suspicious users
- Conduct fairplay hearings with accused players

Skills & Qualifications
- Photographic memory of each race km, the race chat and the race log
- Always keep calm and stay fair (even when insulted repeatedly)
- A degree in law and cybersecurity

Reward
- Fair and friendly community (thanks to you)
- Better in-game FPC tools (thanks to me having more time for admin-work)

Start Date: Whenever you want. No urgent FPC cases ongoing right now.

The FPC is looking for another member. The pool of FPC members is to be expanded so that short-term inactivity of individual members does not lead to long decision-making phases. In the long term, it should be a replacement for my spot, as I would also like to dissolve the dual role as admin/FPC member. In any case, I would support the FPC by providing more detailed information if necessary.

Please feel free to contact me via PM if you are interested.

[flockmastoR]

Call for Volunteers

Dear Community,

I guess you all know that this game is run by volunteers sacrificing their free time to keep this game alive.
We are still looking for a new member of the FPC.

Additionally, I will quit the job as adjundant of the calendar manager Gip (Fantasy Calendar). So we need a reliable person for helping Gip with the calendar starting with March. The calendar functionalities are quite easy to use and I can support with the self-made tools for visualization of available races.

Please write in here or contact GIP directly via PM

[Hansa]

Dear Community, we are still looking for a Member for the FPC, if anyone has interest in this position answer here or contact one of the Members via PN.

Greetings.

Call for Volunteers

Dear Community,

I guess you all know that this game is run by volunteers sacrificing their free time to keep this game alive.
We are still looking for a new member of the FPC.

[cataracs]

I suggest Medical,he's better as FPC instead of NC lol.

Hansa is also very bad for FPC, would be better to switch places with Chemnitz and Schnugg imo.

[Falcor CC]

I would understand if my lack of experience prevents me from being eligible, but if not I would love to be a part of the FPC!

[Alkworld]

I would understand if my lack of experience prevents me from being eligible, but if not I would love to be a part of the FPC!

Falcor CC added now as newest member of the FPC.
@Falcor CC: You'll see a new entry "Fairplay" in the "More" menu. There's an internal chat of the FPC members you can use to get in touch with the other members.

[TDM_Luxembourg]

Hello,

I would really love helping with the one-day-race-design. Had much fun the last weeks with ridewithgps and the profile editor here, so I know, how to do it and I am having fun, doing it.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Hello,

I would really love helping with the one-day-race-design. Had much fun the last weeks with ridewithgps and the profile editor here, so I know, how to do it and I am having fun, doing it.

Cool.

You can check out this thread: June 2025 and/or the In-Game Calendar for June 2025.

For each one day race, you can roughly follow the steps:
1) Check if this year's profile is available already (highest chances to find it on official race website / la-flamme-rouge / Google News).
2) Check if it was ridden in C4F previously
3a) If no, completely new design necessary
3b) If yes, compare previous profile with this year's profile for potential changes
4) Do all the design magic (exact percentages on the climbs, circuits, cobbles, last5km, all the important stuff)
5) Post your result in the monthly thread
6) To get a 1a with a star * from me, add the profile under Editor > Race Editor to the correct race.

[NBeullens]

I see that it takes quite some time for the FPC-cases to get handled. So I would like to volunteer for the FPC if that would speed some things up? So hereby 'I volunteer as FPC-memmber!'.

[Alkworld]

I see that it takes quite some time for the FPC-cases to get handled. So I would like to volunteer for the FPC if that would speed some things up? So hereby 'I volunteer as FPC-memmber!'.

Thanks for your initiative.
@FPC members: If you agree, I can add him (needs to be done directly on the database)

[Falcor CC]

More than welcome!

[TDM_Luxembourg]

Helllo, dear admins and fpc members

I guess you already got information about a nomination for fpc from me. So, here it is.

As you saw in june, I am a competent designer. (I were in vacation for july designing, it didnt perfectly work on my phone, so that will change again for august.)

And so ill try to be a competent fpc member too and help solving, finding and reviewing problems/cases faster.

Greetings

TDM

[Gipfelstuermer]

Given the recent sharp increase in the number of fairplay cases (plus appeals, plus re-openings etc.) I publish the following draft for an Aufwandsentschädigung = Allowance.

FPC Members: 10,000 for each solved FPC case
(A case counts as "solved" once the majority of FPC members "voted" and it has been "executed". To receive the allowance, the respective FPC member must have voted "Agree" or "Disagree", i.e. "Abstain" or "Open" don't count for the allowance.)

Comparing how much work is needed to solve a case and how much work is needed to win an intermediate sprint, 10,000 seems low, but it's not so much about the amount of money. It's there to provide some recognition / appreciation of the work done.

Now given the recent fairplay activity, this is the most urgent and relevant allowance for me to be implemented, but actually, to be fair, if FPC members receive allowances, other volunteers should probably also be eligible. So here is a draft for the other types of volunteers:

NC members: 1,000 for each confirmed NC case
(A case counts as "confirmed" once one NC member "handled" and a second NC member "confirmed" a decision. To receive the allowance, the respective NC member must have been the "Handler" or the "Reviewer".)

Designers: 10,000 for each published profile design
(A profile counts as "published" once it has been designed, reviewed, approved & made it into the official calendar with inscriptions open. To receive the allowance, the respective designer must be listed as the "designer" of the profile, i.e. he must have created the profile from scratch or must have cloned & amended an existing profile. This means that cloning alone is not enough, because then the "archived" profile should be ridden instead and the original designer should receive the credit.)

Calendar Planner: 2,500 for each published profile
(Same definition as for the designers, but it goes to the one who reviews, approves & publishes the race. To receive the allowance, the calendar planner must be the one who pushed the "Publish" button.)

Admins: 10,000 for each race day missed
(Difficult to reward per line of code or per commit, but if an admin misses a race day, it is likely related to the admin spending a lot of free time on coding. This way it is also ensured that the admin does not get an unfair & unrealistic advantage, because most people probably on average earn way more than 10,000 per race day.)

These allowances are designed to be held up irrespective of who fulfills the roles in the future but of course for transparency it is worth mentioning that I might be biased when I thought about the indivudual allowances (I am no FPC & NC member anymore, but I am still a designer, calendar planner & admin, so perhaps I drafted too little for FPC/NC and too much for designer/calendar planner/admin).

[Falcor CC]

Nice initiative, it is somewhat flawed however. I do think admins and calendar planners should somehow be rewarded, but for FPC and NC members I kinda disagree.

First of all, I don't think all volunteers should receive a fee for what they do. As an FPC member, I volunteered to join that team, for free (as is the case for other volunteer groups too). Adding a 'bonus' there would feel unfair, as I feel it gives people like myself who have the time to do the job they volunteered for out of love for the game, an unfair advantage over people who don't have the time to spend their (maybe limited) free time to do extra stuff on the game. If FPC really had a member problem, maybe it is the extra incentive people need, but for now adding a bonus for my/our work there, feels unnecessary.

In addition, adding a bonus might encourage pressure from non-volunteers, where we create a culture where it is expected to act fast and good, as we get 'paid' for what we do.

Then there is also the potential to misuse the bonus system, whether it's voluntary or not. For example, FPC starting cases of their own without forum thread. From recent memory, several cases were opened to investigate potential multi accounts. Since all these cases, who were not asked for by the community, were closed, should we be receiving 50-100k for it? If it gets misused, people in their respective positions could potentially start spamming cases/races/non-race days on days that don't fit their team.

As for Admins and/or calendar planners, I am maybe for a bonus of around 100k per month for their teams? To me, giving them the 'advantage' of getting 1.2m/year for doing what they feels fair towards the rest of the community, and it would be a nice start for them.

[Hansa]

Not really sure about that, i actually like this for profile designs as thats really a lot of work and this is limited by the number of days we have.for the other roles i dont really like that.

For Admins some kind of money is ok for me too

And at least we need to monitor it closely to not give to much money out on this.

[Gipfelstuermer]

Nice initiative, it is somewhat flawed however. I do think admins and calendar planners should somehow be rewarded, but for FPC and NC members I kinda disagree.

First of all, I don't think all volunteers should receive a fee for what they do.

Just to avoid any doubt. It is not meant as a fee. It is an allowance. (Best translation I could find for German Word Aufwandsentschädigung, which literally translated means something like "compensation for effort".) That means:

1.) Noone has to 'pay' a fee. For example, opening FPC cases will remain for free.
2.) It is just a small compensation for the effort. And it is not a salary.

Lots of organizations run by volunteers (sports clubs, charities, etc.) have this sort of allowance. For example, in my football club, there used to be a payment for the coaches of the youth teams (Übungsleiterpauschale, another beautiful German word). It was just a small symbolic payment. There is even a law in Germany that defines the legal status of these payments and makes them tax-free because it basically helps the whole country to be run (at least somewhat) efficiently.

Quick explanation why I prefer such allowance over a salary: It rewards those volunteers who actually take responsibility.

Regarding FPC: If even during times with a high number of cases we'd like these cases to be opened quickly and solved quickly, it is nice to reward those very active FPC members who take care of it (at least those who participate in the Voting, which is the crucial thing and which can be tracked easily as it's in the database already).

Btw, it is normal that not all FPC members have time for FPC all the time. It's always been like that. It is also normal that after a while FPC members might get tired of their job because it's a lot of mental work to conduct Hearings, to find a consensus for a penalty, etc. Btw, that's also why I'm pretty sure that no FPC member will ever open bullshit/spam-cases. That would be way too much work for too little gain. By contrast, with a small allowance, FPC members might feel a bit more appreciated for their work, perhaps participate a bit more/faster and/or simply stay a bit longer in FPC, i.e. quit less often or later, which also helps FPC because some stability in the composition of FPC helps for the consistency of decisions.

[team fl]

I am against direct ingame advantages for volunteers that affect the gameplay directly. When the license was still a thing, volunteers got free license. That's totally fine. But ingame money to strengthen your team? I don't like that at all. It might be far fetched, but it could lead to a conflict of interest doing your job as a volunteer and give the wrong incentives.

I am totally for giving them rewards, but not rewards that affect the gameplay.

[Gipfelstuermer]

I am against direct ingame advantages for volunteers that affect the gameplay directly. When the license was still a thing, volunteers got free license. That's totally fine. But ingame money to strengthen your team? I don't like that at all. It might be far fetched, but it could lead to a conflict of interest doing your job as a volunteer and give the wrong incentives.

I am totally for giving them rewards, but not rewards that affect the gameplay.

I understand the point of avoiding to give wrong incentives. Though as you say, it seems far fetched. For example I doubt FPC members would create spam/bullshit cases for that purpose. At least if the allowance is as small as mentioned.

Regarding the free license, I dont understand why giving "real money" would be less of a wrong incentive than giving "ingame money". And I dont want to go back to a license system. I think the game is much better if it's for free for everyone. But hey, I'm not against paying real money instead of ingame money to the volunteers. The only problem is someone needs to provide it But anyway, open for suggestions for other rewards.

[Tukhtahuaev]

Profile designers could for example get to decide the time and date for one of their races once in a while. But really difficult to think of rewards that don't give an ingame advantage

[Robyklebt]

The Donkey and the Ape are still debating if they want to call the idea "utter bullshit" or "complete stupidity".
Robyklebt the diplomat of course just says it's a bad idea...

When I was calendar assistant I would have earned 75k per month by putting all 1 day races online. Another 10k for stage races? And then in the worst months probably 200'000 for designs. Hm, maybe even more, there was a time where fantasy races were running out and I ended up designing those too. Let's say 100-300k per month... for what? Something that I was ready to do for free. Had I been payed, what do I use that extra money for? Insults, good plan, earns extra money for my buddies in the FPC! And the "allowance" is just a guarantee to create problems: "TAka is programming his own races but not mine! He wants to fund his wars through races!" etc etc. We always had and will always have a few special people that claim the calendar assistant is boycotting races by some managers, add money, allowance and it gets worse. More vote fraud in december competition (more I said, we already had some)For some managers/designers having their races there becomes more important... no, bad idea. As calendar assistant I never felt I needed to get an allowance. Only an allowance to insult. Ok maybe when the saboteur was active and I ended up uploading lots of stuff repeatedly...

Now, I don't know, maybe the new editor is so bothersome and bad and annoying to use, that we really need to give the uploaders an allowance. Or make the uploading easier (AAD and Taka though seem happy enough with it, my glimpse at it found some annoying bothersome parts, but ok, never used it finally). If designing is such a pain nowadays (hm, it actually is, designers don't need allowances but a new mouse every 3 months with all that clicking that now is necessary) same, improve that! Couldn't resist....

FPC? See Falcor, he said he's happy volunteering. The rest too I guess? The moment you give allowances volunteering changes. So far it's been people that like the game, want to help, don't want to do it for an allowance, but for free. Knowing that Buhmann and Luques and Alk/Gipf/AAD (the ownership situation btw is rather unclear, is it 1? 2? 3? Do we still have an "impressum" somewhere?) don't earn any money with it but spend lots of time and money (server costs, now by donations) and help. Help to help, seeing the result is thanks enough, the game continuing is thanks enough) Personnally I can say that I'm much more likely to volunteer for something again (ok, maybe not the ideal candidate for FPC) if there is NO allowance, thanks whatever than if there is.

NC? Yes, make it a competition, clickety click boy or girl gets 1000! Fast! If you're slow 2 others guys got the money already!

By giving allowance it ends up like the dog we had when I was a cute little clever boy! The neighbour, HG, was afraid of dogs. Our dog N. sometimes hung around in the garden, enjoying the sun, and HG sometimes worked in the garden. And thought "such a nice dog, we spend time together (not the same garden, but there was no fence between the gardens), let's buy N. some dog biscuits!" Did it, put them into the cellar. After the next time together, went to the cellar, brought the dog biscuits. Next time N. of course wasn't relaxing in our garden anymore, but followed HG everywhere, until at the end he saw that the biscuits were coming out of that cellar door. And from then on whenever HG comes to the garden, N. goes straight to the cellar door and waits there. Patiently sits there waiting for HG to finish and give him those few dog biscuits. Good intentions, the result wasn't what good old HG expected.

Admins? I don't care, if you feel you miss a race because of coding, debugging whatever, give yourself whatever you feel you deserve, whatever you feel you would have earned that race. Better though to prioritize the race over coding, if things move a bit slower in transition, development, not the end of the world. Admins, game runners, owners are more than "just" volunteers, they are game creators, game savers, so if that clashes with races, no problem to compensate them for lost ingame income due to work for the game.

Anyway, all around bad idea. Big Donkey and Petit Singe btw came to a compromise, utter stupidity is what they think it is. Diplo-Klebt of course stays more polite and politely advices against such allowance-schemes.

[Gipfelstuermer]

the ownership situation btw is rather unclear, is it 1? 2? 3?

Ideally you/we/everyone realizes that it is not a company and what that means. It is a non-profit game, run by volunteers.

Who owns my local football club? Legally it actually owns itself (even if there are "founders" and "members" of the club).

Especially now that the code is a mix written by 6+ different people (each might have some limited intellectual property rights) and server costs are borne by donations, it will be difficult for anyone to claim ownership of the whole game. Even if admins might have the power to switch it off temporarily, if one admin does that alone, the other could likely recover the game with some delay.

So, the game started many years ago with one owner, and there was the time period with a license, so it was kind of for-profit, but those days are gone. Now it's run by volunteers. That's why improvements for those volunteers would be good to secure the long-term survival (or even better: growth) of the game.