First of all, sorry for the long absence. I've had a lengthy spell where everything I've wanted to write has been either live-commenting or small enough to fit in a tweet or two. Neither fits my blogging style. I'll try not to let 10-week absences happen again.

Fury ignited this entry. It's the ongoing situation in Bahrain. Up until now, it's been a matter of ethics and safety whether F1 goes or not. Thanks to the Bahrain organiser's actions, it's become a matter of regulations.

I speak of the "UniF1ed" campaign - something which apparently has been happening for a while but only came to my attention last night.  The organisers of the race may or may not have originated the campaign, but they are enthusiastically participating in it. Little do they appear to realise that they have endangered their race by doing so.

I draw your attention to the tagline "One Nation in Celebration". The pedants among you will deem this false - F1 is a worldwide event so, barring disaster, "Many Nations In Celebration" would be more accurate. The font used for it on the poster is difficult to read, but that's even more nit-picky. The big problem, however, is that it expresses a link between F1 and national unity. 

Linking F1 and national unity probably doesn't seem that big a problem. It may even seem close enough to pro-social and "sport is good" themes to be helpful. I can only assume that was what the organisers thought when they decided to go down that path. Unfortunately for them, Article 1 of the FIA Statutes (PDF), in wording combined with its application and the reason for its existence, indicates otherwise.

Article 1 of the FIA Statutes says, among other things:

"The FIA shall refrain from manifesting racial, political or religious discrimination in the course of its activities and from taking any action in this respect."

Many thanks to the Midweek Motorsports Listener Collective on Facebook, particularly with regard to finding an ad in the campaign that further demonstrates the link the organisers are making between F1 and politics.

You may be wondering why I am using "linking F1 and politics" as synonymous with the "racial, political and religious discrimination" actually mentioned in Article 1 of the FIA Statutes. This is down to two things: the way Article 1 has been implemented and the reason Article 1 is required to exist.

The most recent use of Article 1  was to convict the Turkish GP organisers (TOSFED) of using the 2006 podium ceremony for political gain. Mehmet Ali Talat presented one of the trophies. This in and of itself wasn't a breach of Article 1. Had he been described as the regional governor of Turkish Cyprus, everything would have been fine (except for possible grumblings within Cyprus and Turkey). However, he was described as the head of state of the Republic of Cyprus, a state not recognised by the UN but is recognised by Turkey. That was deemed a breach of Article 1 of the FIA Statutes and of Article 151c of the International Sporting Code. This was for a one-off incident that was relatively subtle in its political aims and, importantly, did not connote political discrimination, only express a controversial political point. 

Yes, part of the fine was for Article 151c, but a more significant breach of Article 1 would be sufficient for any penalty the FIA has to be levied. The "UniF1ed" campaign is clearly not a casual breach, nor is it a question of tick-boxing. Article 35 b) specifically mentions that any club not acting according to the expectations of the FIA (including by breaking any of the Statutes) can be struck off the roll. That is to say, the entire club and all associated activities can be dissolved. Obviously, this would include the very Grand Prix Bahrain was attempting to protect.

There is nothing in the Statute that requires a political statement to be true or demonstrable in order for it to be usable. Technically speaking, even explicit FIA approval wouldn't work, unless the message was specifically against racial, political or religious discrimination. "UniF1ed" isn't. Instead it is a message suggesting political unity already exists, which doesn't meet the exemption requirement. 

As for why Article 1 of the FIA Statutes exists, it's mandatory for non-political organisations registered in France. This is because anti-discrimination and apolitical approaches are considered key elements in the sorts of groups France allows to be registered with them. If the FIA overlooks a breach of Article 1, it is under serious risk of being sent to the French civil courts and penalised. Dissolution is entirely possible, as is a large fine and (at least partial) loss of its autonomy over judging its own motorsports events.

That would open the door to everything from pitlane speeders to technical flouters to use the civil courts to challenge every single decision the FIA makes. Motorsport would grind to a halt. That assumes a lack of dissolution - that scenario would obviously have a serious deletrious effect on every branch of motorsport, including ones that never in a million years considered going to Bahrain.

Clearly none of this is in any motorsport fan's interest. It certainly doesn't help Bahrain organisers any! 

There is no longer any need to reference political strife or anyone's safety to justify not going to Bahrain. Regulations now demand refusal to race - and refusal to support the race. Many have suggested this be done in the form of a boycott.

Thanks to the combined efforts of Sky (inaccessible, unaffordable and unethical) and BBC Radio (unintelligible in the races), I won't have a choice about watching the race. The most I'd have been able to do was follow it on Twitter. Having already had the difficult bit taken out of my hands, I am quite happy to boycott the 2012 Bahrain Grand Prix completely. The powers-that-be have already demonstrated they don't care about viewer figures due to sending the UK live rights to Sky, so I doubt the boycott will achieve anything. 

For that matter, I'm not convinced the situation is safe enough to enable a viable attempt to hold the 2012 Bahrain GP. If inviability makes for a race cancellation on force majuere (which incidentally has to be done by the FIA if there is to be a Bahrain 2013), that would be helpful in the short term.

The breach of Statute would make the validity of copyright use of "F1" within "UniF1ed" questionable too. The licence the organisers have to include F1 in their marketing would surely not include uses in materials breaching the regulations, particularly ones underpinned by law. Some of the cases Bernie has lost on the topic mean there is not sufficient evidence for certainty in either direction. Even so, that wouldn't be Bahrain's biggest likely problem.

Its biggest problem in that scenario is that Bahrain would likely lose the race... ...on account of there being no viable authority to contract the race from in the first place. 

For these reasons, it is wrong to support a race that's being used to support political strife in contravention of Article 1 of the FIA Statutes. As in, it's such a big contravention that, at minimum, the FIA will lose its ability to be the first and final place of judgment for matters involving its own series (everything would have to be made subject to the French civil courts). The French courts are rather sensitive about the whole "no politics" thing for non-political organisations. The moment Bahrain's organisers issued the "UniF1ed" ad campaign, it was in contravention of the regulations. That the FIA has (so far) let that campaign go ahead without comment is contemptible and puts the FIA - and every single series it runs, including those who'd never have gone to Bahrain in a million years - in a very vulnerable position.

It's in F1's and the FIA's interest not to wait for force majuere to come into effect, but to protect themselves by cancelling on the grounds of FIA Statute Article 1 breaches.

Until then... ...I don't see why I should have to applaud or condone the FIA's attempted self-destruction.

Warning! Long entry alert!

This blog entry started as a comment in Sidepodcast's discussion about trustworthy websites. During the discussion, there had been a fair bit of stick thrown at GMM (Global Motorsport Media) for stories being sent through their network without proper checking. What nobody had expected was for GMM itself to reply - at length.

I started typing a response, then came to the conclusion that nobody was going to stand reading the length of that reply in someone else's blog. It is worth saying that I'm only replying to the part of GMM's comment that requires a long response - quite a bit of it made perfect sense and merits little more than an "I agree". (If a GMM representative goes so far as to read this blog entry, then I thank them for their effort in doing so :) ).

The Whipped Cream Model of The Effects of Information Accuracy Expectation

Part of the GMM representative's comment queried how GMM could get so much flak when it was ultimately one of their sources that made the error. It is an interesting question. There definitely is a tendency to send blame for errors throughout the part of the system preceding the one which caught the error. This is because information is not like a water main system, where fixing the leak makes the system run correctly again (usually). Information typically goes through several minds before reaching the end of its influence, which means there are many checking points. It is part of human nature to check information. Therefore, the expectation is that information spread is as accurate as the provider of that information knows it can be. That is why information reliability has a reflection on everyone who carries that item of information.

The quality of an information provider is affected (among other things, most of which are not even touched upon by this discussion) by how closely the items of information provided link to reality. Accurate information increases the quality and the reverse is true. In fact, given how the human mind works, negative experiences stand out more than positive ones (and, in general, have more influence). One erroneous item of information, if in the wrong place, can throw askew a lifetime of understanding.

One could call it the "whipped cream" principle - in the same way as whipped cream transported from a cartridge to a bowl of pudding leaves cream stuck to the edges of dispenser and pudding as well as the cartridge, so the effects of information stick to the conduits and recipients of that information as well as the source. If the cream is in-date, then nice cream will stick to everything. If the cream has gone off before it's piped through, then everything will stink and, unless washed down properly, all the cream that comes out will taste funny even if the source was subsequently good.

This is why scientific journals have a process of peer review and reputable news journalists have checking systems. I have no idea what checking systems the German Focus magazine might have, because the only Focus magazine I'd heard of before yesterday was the UK science title. Focus should have checked the information before publication, but by the same token everyone down the chain should have checked the information as best as they were able as well.

As to why the messenger is getting shot, that is because blame is considered to attach to every part of the system that delivered the false information (the reverse is also true). So when the vote story was found to be inaccurate, Focus got some of the blame, GMM got some of the blame, the sites that spread the story thereafter got some of the blame and (in some cases) the individuals who went on to tell their friends about it got some of the blame.

However, previous track records are taken into account when the total effect of an information error is calculated:

- Focus is not the source of many stories we know about. While the readers of the vote story probably wouldn't trust it again, they are also unlikely to be in a position where that is an issue.

- GMM has had quite a few erroneous or misleading stories in the past. The effect of the vote story was quite small in terms of perception, it just so happens that it was the story that caused things like this discussion to take place (owing to a number of things over which GMM has limited/no control, such as the lack of substantial news that interested Sidepodders at that moment, the discussion of media quality issues in previous weeks prompted by the crossing of cut-off points (discussed in the "Information Accuracy, Freedom and Authority" section) and the tendency of Sidepodders to make lists - "Websites You Can Trust" being a very easy activity to turn into a list).

- The sites spreading the story often do what Keith does and moderate their feed. This reduces their informational error rate. While the individual erroneous story will have had more impact on them than GMM (and the more accurate the site usually is, the bigger the impact), the higher starting point of trust means that the net trust level is still higher than GMM's.

- The effect on individuals is varied and difficult for me to comment on personally, since I only told other people about it after the story was revealed to be false. Everything from zero effect to a complete loss of trust is possible, depending on the history of the relationship, the track record of the individual information provider and the receptivity of the recipient.

Granted, not everyone has the phone number to the right person in Mercedes to establish whether a vote on the F1 programme happened or not. I suspect that the nature of GMM may preclude it from having the right contacts to absolutely prove or disprove every story that crosses its desk (sometimes even the specialist press struggle). But a web monitor role implies that there is a certain amount of checking for accuracy.

Asking the source of each news item "What is the background for this item?" where it is not immediately obvious would be a good way of reducing the error rate while remaining within the powers GMM has. I suspect the answer received for the vote story would probably have allowed GMM to stop the story in its tracks, and maybe even issue a cautious denial itself. In the latter case, it would even have a (valid) scoop, which would increase the quality of the information conduit. In turn, this would increase the trust people had in GMM and increase GMM's ability to monetise that trust (which ultimately helps keep GMM going and growing).

Information Accuracy, Freedom and Authority

Next, the GMM representative wondered how the denial of the story invalidated the GMM story.

The explanation of this is summarised in yesterday's blog entry. What happened was that James Allen, a journalist most noted for his ITV commentary but who also writes books, mentioned in his blog that he had phoned Mercedes and they had denied the story. The key here is "he had phoned Mercedes". This immediately gave his take on the matter a more solid basis than the previous existing information, including that from GMM. Also, whatever gripes people may have had over James' commentary, he was not known for giving inaccurate information out (and when he did he usually got corrected before any damage got done, usually because the error had been committed in the high-pressure arena of the commentary box - one of several reasons why many high-speed sport broadcasters have two commentators). Taken together, this meant the information was most likely reliable.  This is known as information authority.

Information with authority tends to be believed over information lacking in authority. In an environment where pre-censoring is not practised (as in a place with a free press), this becomes important. The more censoring of information is delegated to individual intelligences, the more important information authority is. Note that information authority does not come from it having been approved by some (psuedo)political institution (otherwise we'd take everything the FIA said at face value), but through the likelihood of the story's proximity to the truth, the clarity and detail of the information, the track record of the information provider and how well the information fits in with other items of information the recipient possesses (or believes he/she possesses).

A free media tries to meet whatever is considered the most important value in the society in which it is placed. In the capitalist West, this often means being as profitable as possible. However, whatever other value(s) the press may chase have to be balanced by at least a modicum of what the people want, otherwise who will read their material? It so happens that when it comes to information, what most people want is authority. Many are satisfied by a low level of authority, but many others want the highest level of authority possible. Yes, it is possible for a news source to be wrong with authority, but if it is frequently wrong it will not retain its authority for long. The less authority an information source has, the less likely it is to be believed. "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" demonstrates this principle simply but brilliantly.

As for the analogy entailing our reaction to getting fifteen good strawberries and one bad one, there will be a variety of behaviours in that situation. Again, these vary according to the expectations of the buyer, the quality of the previous strawberries from that vendor and the quality of strawberries from other vendors. If fifteen out of sixteen is relatively good in the strawberry market, then people will be happy to continue with the vendor and will easily forgive the bad one. If other vendors routinely get sixteen good strawberries out of sixteen (and, to improve the analogy, charge more - with the strawberries, the price is currency, the other outlets' price is time waiting for the items), then responses get more mixed. Some will want the cheap strawberries regardless of quality, some want the consistently reliable strawberries regardless of the cost. The majority will consider both types. The more frequently bad strawberries appear, the more likely the high-quality ones will be chosen instead of the cheap ones, but everyone has different cut-off points. The vote story may well have crossed a few key people's cut-off points.

Speculation

The GMM representative made an interesting point about speculative stories. He/she says that 6 out of 10 "highly speculative" stories are completely false, 3 out of ten are partially true and 1 out of 10 is completely true. GMM's position is pro-speculation. A lot of the response is anti-speculation. I would be somewhere in between.

I don't mind speculation if it is clearly marked as such. If someone providing information has reason to doubt its accuracy, then that tag helps put the information in its proper context. This is especially true if a) the provider has specific grounds for that doubt and b) those grounds are provided along with the information. While it would be awkward for GMM to say it doubts an item because its source has previously provided dodgy information (for one thing, the source might refuse to provide further information to it!), other causes of doubt could be provided.

This is especially important given the failure rate of speculative stories. If we take the "6 out of 10" figure as true (while I have no proof, it's the most accurate working figure I've seen and the GMM representative is more likely to know the figure than I am), then that means the majority of such stories are false. That is a serious failure rate for information of this type, even if speculative stories form a small proportion of the total output. If an investment had a 6 out of 10 chance of losing money, the government would demand some sort of warning. While it would be wrong for a free press to have such a thing imposed on it from the government, the general public would benefit from wanting/expecting/requesting it of their information sources. GMM should be capable of it - the statistic provided by the GMM representatives proves that it is capable of recognising a speculative story, at least to an extent where it is confident of knowing the boundaries for the purposes of providing that statistic. If degrees of uncertainty can be indicated, so much the better, but one can't have everything.

Speculative stories presented as fact have no place in my diet of information. There's enough bias and disinformation-at-source to filter out without knowingly getting more from the intermediaries separating me from the source. Granted, GMM is not my brand of vodka (I don't drink vodka, but that's another story entirely...), but quite why anyone would want speculation to look like fact is a mystery. Of course I want to know as much as possible about F1. But taking in inaccurate information that has to be unlearned and replaced in short order gets in the way of that goal, especially since I only have twenty-four hours in a day*.

As for "wondering ahead of time"... ...humans are good at that when left to their own devices. All the likes of GMM can do is direct the path of such wondering. Asking for the direction to be as valid as possible seems reasonable.

De-bookmarking is a problem because of the ubiquity of GMM content across the internet (and, at various times, other erroneous stories). The interconnectedness of the internet can be wonderful at times, but a simple de-bookmark wouldn't remove the content in its entirety. What needs to happen is a better appreciation of how to spot a good story from a bad one, improved story moderation from everyone and a preference for accurate information over inaccurate stuff.

* - Could be worse. In the Triassic period, there were only twenty-three hours per day...

AKA the FIA's Selective Updating

AKA the FIA's Selective Updating

Date: October 27 2007

 

[ Mood: Slap ]

[ Currently: Reading The Krytos Trap by Michael A. Stackpole ]

After three days of waiting, details of the technical updates (or some of them) the FIA promised for 2009-spec Formula 1 are beginning to emerge. Allegedly. It is said that the changes for 2009 are:

40cm wider and shorter wings. This would help aero control at the front, since the air the front wings pass through to the rest of the car will be less disturbed by subsequent aero. As a pro-aero rule, this is not necessarily a good thing. What is needed is a better balancing between aero grip (which is relatively transient, and apt to reduce at the least disturbance) and mechanical grip (relatively permanent and thus more useful for overtakers).

The "spoons" in the middle of the front wings will be considerably less pronounced, when this is taken in combination with the ride height rules.

The middle part of the car will become standard. Now this was a rule mooted to be coming in for 2011. Perhaps it was predictable that the FIA would be impatient to impose such a problematic rule. Come on, this is Formula 1, not a vintage racing series...

There will be adjustable front wing flaps. They may be adjusted twice a lap, by six degrees or less each time. This is the sort of rule that makes me wonder how many hours of daydreaming must have gone into such a daft regulation. Quite apart from the amount of alteration being really quite small (I'm sure the flaps could be adjusted a lot more if that was a desirable trait), there is the small matter of what the point of allowing this sort of behaviour would be.

And the FIA intends to enforce the restrictions how?!?

The rear wing will now be shorter and taller. This is meant to have the opposite effect of the front wing and clean up the airflow for the oncoming car a little. This rule isn't too bad. Unfortunately it is more than counterbalanced by the other rumoured rules.

I say rumoured... ...because the FIA still hasn't updated its own regulations. The 2008 regulations were last updated (at the time of writing) on March 28th 2007. The 2009 regulations were last updated even earlier, on December 22nd 2007. I said yesterday that the FIA needed to improve its internet presence, but this is ridiculous! With three days between the decision and now (and still no update), I am beginning to suspect that the rule updates are being withheld from the public is deliberate.

While I am not familiar with f1.automoto365.com, I suspect that the fact that it does not have much of a reputation (good or bad) among Formula 1 addicts is important here. Either it's made up these rules (in which case they are scarily plausible - but then so was Luc Domenjoz's "quote" about Hamilton's gearbox) or the FIA has deliberately tipped them off and not other sources (in which case the FIA is playing a very dangerous game).

The internet, contrary to popular belief, does have a successful, if informal, authority system. This is the "if I've heard of the source, preferably off-line as well as on-line, it's valid" for the more casual internet users, and "if it's a site known for having an accurate view on the subject, it's good but not necessarily valid" for more experienced internet users. By picking only sites that have low authority ratings in both criteria, the FIA will be suspected of dodgy behaviour. Especially as it's not told its own site about the changes yet...

Apologies to f1.automoto.com's admins. While I am sure their site is respectable (I can't get it to load on my computer, admittedly), but a site has to be reasonably well-known among a niche crowd to do well on the "accurate-view" score. Until then it's neutral - a source that can be interesting, but not believed over and above better-rated sources until it's proved itself. Sites climb up and down the informal authority ratings as individual users see how well the site's viewpoints correspond with that user's perception of reality.

The perception now is that the FIA are, at best, hiding something. The FIA and f1.automoto.com update contradict each other, so at least one of them is wrong. On the face of it, we'd go for the latter. The trouble is that the FIA itself said that it was changing the rules three days ago, yet it hasn't changed them on its own site. So the FIA's on-line authority has gone down. In fact, given the FIA's off-line specialism (politicking) we cannot rule out the possibility that it has simply taken its politicking into the digital realm for the benefit of... ...well, who?

The moral of the story? Be honest on the internet - it really does help your credibility, whether it's in F1 or any other field.