Hey Txemi, nice to see you around here.

    ~Steve~

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Just wanted to say: I agree with the consensus here.

I suspect we'll need to take this up with the povray.org hosting team to get
anywhere.

Post a reply to this message

I too am in agreement with the consensus here.  I've been a long-time Povray
user now, and the IRTC has always been a great source of enjoyment and
inspiration for me.  I'd hate to see anything happen to this great
competition, and I'm willing to offer my skills in web development and web
administration if they can be of any help.

As Kjetil said in the previous post, it's obvious that we need to get in
contact with someone close to the Povray.org or IRTC.org admin team before
any steps can be taken towards improving the current situation with the
IRTC.

So what do we know about contacting these people so far?

1. The Povray Pipe Mail has been suggested as a means of making contact with
some of the admins:
http://irtc.org/pipermail/irtc-l/

2. The IRTC website contains the following email contact page:
http://www.irtc.org/email.html
(I've already tried using this earlier in the month and I haven't heard back
from anyone yet.)

3. I did some snooping around the povray.org site and I found a page for the
Povray "Technical Assistance Group" or "TAG":
http://tag.povray.org/
(this includes a lot of email addresses near the bottom of the page.  I
don't know if anyone checks them anymore, but Chris Colfax is listed at the
webmaster, and his TAG email address is at the bottom of this page.)

4. Several other povray email addresses are listed at:
http://www.povray.org/webmaster.html


I'll try sending off a couple messages tonight.  If anyone manages to get in
contact with one of the admins, it would be greatly appreciated if you would
post whatever information they might have for us in this newsgroup.
Hopefully we'll be able to get an idea of what's going with the IRTC
administration, and what help they might be willing to accept concerning
the on-going maintenance of the IRTC website.

I'll post more information if I learn anything.
-Isaac K

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Hi all,

Long time no posting for me too, this is just going to be another 
agreement. I've never seen a message from an IRTC admin in the news, so 
don't expect any answer here.

Also they have never shown any interest for help proposals from anyone. 
When I made the IRTC stats site ( http://exether.free.fr/irtc/ ) and 
proposed my help to automate a few things on the official web site, I 
hardly had a short message showing NO interest at all in my work.

Concerning participation, you can see there ( 
http://exether.free.fr/irtc/index.php?sub=graph&lang=fr ) that it has 
been decreasing since a long time.

I think a solution would be to create a functional IRTC site and then 
'force' the admins to hand over. I don't understand why they want to 
remain in history as the creators of a dead competition when there is so 
many people wanting to take the lead.

Have a good day ! :-)

JC


> Hi all.
> It's been years since I posted something in this newsgroup, but the
> situation is a chaos as I see it.
> I don't remember exactly how many years I've been following the IRTC, I
> believe they are 10 or so, sometimes like a participant, always as a 3D
> fan.
> IRTC was to me the better place for learning, working and sharing ideas,
> techniques and friendship.
> The problem you are talking about, delays, seems like no one at charge,
> strange explanations, happened some years ago, but people is always polite,
> and povers more than anyone.
> Sometimes I've tried to push me to do something and to submit it to the
> IRTC, but the way it worked has made me to quit.
> Something like to say the new topic the very first day of the round (as
> Steve says) would be a big step. Is it difficult? No it's a nonsense. Just
> to edit a page and upload it.
> Having to wait more than 20 days always to see the submitted works and to
> began the voting process... something is not working here, but not now,
> some years ago.
> That's one reason why the IRTC is going down, better said it's drowning, and
> if the ones who own it don't do anything about it, the only reason I can
> think of it's because they don't care.
> It's a shame to see what's happening.
> Hoping someone will react.
> Bye.
> 
> Txemi Jendrix
> 
> 
> "Hildur K." <hil### [at] 3dcafemailevery1net> wrote:
>>>> I think, there is some problems. (It is very deep thinking :) ).
>>
>> There are problems, we all know that. The question remains, what is causing
>> these problems? Is is general lack of interest for this competition? I

>> there have always been plenty of submissions, just until recently.
>>
>> All those delays seem to me to be the main reason, why there have been fewer

>> is more due to me being overworked, not having time or energy to
>> partipicate.
>>



>>
>> I understand there have been some problems with uploading submissions as

>> the whole process was supposed to be automatic, no need for human
>> intervention.
>>
>> I expect to have more time now and in the coming months, so I was planning
>> to submit this time. But not being able to guess the topic, time passing


>>
>> I would hate to see the IRTC go. This competition has served me as a strict
>> teacher and companion for some years now, not to mention the very good

>>

>>

>> There must be someone else out there who feels the same.
> 
> 
> 
> 


-- 
http://sibylone.free.fr

Post a reply to this message

Kjetil wrote:
> I suspect we'll need to take this up with the povray.org hosting team to get
> anywhere.

The POV-Team is (and has been for a long time) well aware of the situation.
However, note that hosting the site does not mean Chris Cason (POV-Team
server admin) can just "take away" IRTC from the current IRTC operators, or
take any other "quick" action. Basically, the issue is political, and I
strongly suspect that if you get a very sizable number of past IRTC
submitters (and in particular winners) to support your cause, you are most
likely to succeed.

I should point out that this is just my personal opinion as a POV-Team
member and that I actually never have been in contact with any IRTC admins
myself.

	Thorsten

Post a reply to this message

Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:

> The POV-Team is (and has been for a long time) well aware of the situation.
> However, note that hosting the site does not mean Chris Cason (POV-Team
> server admin) can just "take away" IRTC from the current IRTC operators, or
> take any other "quick" action. Basically, the issue is political, and I
> strongly suspect that if you get a very sizable number of past IRTC
> submitters (and in particular winners) to support your cause, you are most
> likely to succeed.

>  Thorsten


Thanks for your insight Thorsten.

As Thorsten points out, the more people who express their concerns, the more
likely it is for something to be done.

So what could be the next step? Should we try to collect a list of IRTC
submitters (winners or not) who are sharing our concerns and are willing to
support the continuity of the IRTC?

What is the easiest way to create a list? Is it possible to do this here on
the newsgroups, by starting a new thread asking everybody to write a few
comments and their full name/IRTC name?

Or should somebody write one statement for all, then collecting signatures?
Is it somehow possible to make more submitters aware of this?



statement? How can this be implemented, that is, the collection of names?

Or should we encourage people to e-mail their thoughts en masse to the
Pov-team/IRTC admins? I think that would be more annoying than effective. I



Or maybe somebody else has some other suggestions?

Hildur

Post a reply to this message

"Hildur K." <hil### [at] 3dcafemailevery1net> wrote in message 
news:web.45b620d7dc71f6c42e3296b70@news.povray.org...
<snip> ...
>
> Or maybe somebody else has some other suggestions?
>
> Hildur
>
One very simple one - Why don't we start our own competition? It seems 
obvious to me that IRTC is now dead (defunct, gone to join the choir 
invisible, etc) and the powers that be have so little respect for the 
competitors and those who have donated free web space, news space and mirror 
space that they just can't be *rsed to tell us.
IRTC was at one time good. It was fun. It was educational and it sparked not 
a few friendships. It is now dead. Mourn its passing if you wish but don't 
waste time in mourning when you could be planning something new and better.

John

-- 
"That's one of those irregular verbs, isn't it? I give confidential
security briefings. You leak. He has been charged under section 2a of
the Official Secrets Act."  --Jim Hacker.

Post a reply to this message

"Hildur K." <hil### [at] 3dcafemailevery1net> wrote in message 
news:web.45b620d7dc71f6c42e3296b70@news.povray.org...
> Thorsten Froehlich <tho### [at] trfde> wrote:
>
>> The POV-Team is (and has been for a long time) well aware of the 
>> situation.
>> However, note that hosting the site does not mean Chris Cason (POV-Team
>> server admin) can just "take away" IRTC from the current IRTC operators, 
>> or
>> take any other "quick" action. Basically, the issue is political, and I
>> strongly suspect that if you get a very sizable number of past IRTC
>> submitters (and in particular winners) to support your cause, you are 
>> most
>> likely to succeed.
>
>>  Thorsten
>
>
> Thanks for your insight Thorsten.

    (Yes, thank you Thorsten. Although, I wouldn't want to even hazard a 
guess at what 'political' means in the context of the IRTC).

>
> As Thorsten points out, the more people who express their concerns, the 
> more
> likely it is for something to be done.

  Personally, I think *everyone* is well aware of the problems by now, and 
that making a list of participants would be a moot point to follow. It would 
be akin to a petition.

   All we really need is for *someone* official to let us know what's going 
on. If this round isn't happening because coding the new system is going 
slow and it won't be ready until the start of the next topic at the end of 
February, then fine, that's ok with me, and I suspect a whole bunch of 
others too. If the system has really fallen over, and there won't be an IRTC 
comp for some time, then we need to know this too, otherwise people will 
start to look at other competitions out there. I'm really liking the idea of 
bombarding CGSphere to give me something to do with my free time, but then 
again, it's nothing compared to the IRTC where you learn new things all the 
time.

   (No reply from my email as yet).

    ~Steve~

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My own preference would be (but that's just my 2 cents):

- open a new thread in irtc.stills (or irtc.general? that ng doesn't seem to 
be so alive...)
- post a call for answers in povray.general, povray.international, and on 
the news.lightning-generator.org/povray.general (the french-speaking pov-ray 
forum)
- ask people to give comments, voice concern, give suggestions
- ask them to give their relation to IRTC (winners, submitters, browsers), 
although this would not be of prime importance in my view.
- after a suitable period of time, somebody could bundle all this in one 
message and send it petition-like to Chris Cason, with a copy to the IRTC 
admin.

To tell the truth, Hildur, I believe you have voiced very effectively the 
concerns of a lot of people here. You are quite good at it, I think.


Thomas

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I agree with most of your comments. However, I believe we should first 
receive an official death certificate before starting our own - 
off-Broadway - competition. :-)

Thomas

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