Hey Akuma,
Thanks for bringing this to the forums - we do like to race as much as possible, so answering questions in the server isn't our first choice, better to do it here.
Firstly, we don't recruit based on your racing skill. Your times on Sidewinder show you are working hard to improve, so that's a good sign. But we are more interested in the person - are they a good sport, do they seem like someone we'd like to spend time with on vent, will they be patient and tolerant and treat guests with respect. Those sorts of things. That takes time to judge. After you get vent, it usually takes another month to get tags. Again we want to get to know the person better, and let them get used to the way things work. Then we go through a month of training, which is fairly intense.
After the training, the recruit (small bfm tags) gets their big tags. That leaves room for someone on vent to get small tags and be trained. And that leaves room for a PR like yourself to get vent. So it's like an assembly line.
Yes we could speed things up, and we'd like to if we could, but we're after quality, not quantity. So many people apply (we probably have 30 PRs at the moment) and we can only evaluate and race with so many at a time, it just takes time.
As for your second question, yes our forums have additional boards for members, and each of the ranks - corporals, sergeants and so on have their own boards to discuss things. You can ask your corporal for a summary of your feedback.
There is no "vote" per se. All BFM members post feedback when they race with you, and we reach a sort of consensus. Your corporal is there to answer questions, but it's not up to one person. GAV and Speedy will review PR's feedback and consult with some other officers and come to a decision. If you are respectful and patient, you shouldn't have anything to worry about.
As for adminning servers, when you go through the training, we go in depth on all the rules and policies. We discuss different situations and how to handle them. Until you've gone through that training we don't want you to try to admin the server in any way. I'll clarify that though.
* if there is a BFM admin in the server, then let them take care of things. There is no need for you to try to help explain a rule or policy. You may not fully understand the rules as well as the admin, and also some guests will take exception to another guest "adminning" like that
* if there is an admin, you may also point out things to the admin: hey Kiwi, there is a sniper at blue base. Don't warn the guest directly, we can do that. There are a lot of reasons for that. Again, Masterchief may not be happy with you telling him what to do. If an admin warns him, it's more "official" and he knows the admins have noticed it and if he continues he may be headed for a kick from the server. It also means you haven't stopped to type out stuff and you and your teammates can race and set a good example. If all the guests stop to type and warn and try to explain stuff, no one is racing!
* if there is no admin, you can helpfully point out rules - hey Masterchief, pls don't snipe, it's not allowed. Stuff like that. I wouldn't worry about things like guest's names, unless they are offensive. So don't worry about this new names policy. Don't argue. If they insist on sniping, try to xfire or go to another server to find an admin. It's fine to helpfully point out something once, but after that drop it and just race. And especially don't say things like they will get kicked or banned for it if they don't stop.
In short, until you've got the tags and done the training, you are a guest. You'd signalled your intention to want to join the clan, but you have a status the same as any other guest. So we want you to race and have fun. Once you have tags you will be adminning and no longer racing and having fun, so enjoy your time as a guest.
Ha, just kidding, we do have fun. But guests do have it good. They can race and not have to worry about all this stuff. So just relax and have fun, and we'll see you on vent in the near future.
If you have any other questions, you can ask your corporal (if you have one - if not, you'll be assigned one soon). Or any corporal. GAV and Speedy are in charge of recruiting, so you can ask them. Slim, JANE, Exodus and myself oversee recruiting and training, so you can ask any of us. Or you can make another post here if you think it's of general interest to other people
P.S. I missed answering your question on Death Island. I love that map on all navs. But we have considered changing it and decided against it. There are "contact" maps like Danger Canyon, Blood Gulch and Infinity (all navs), and then there are the circular maps like Death Island and Timberland. I think we decided to keep Death Island and Timberland regular navs to provide some variety. You can have a long map with lots of kills and deaths, and it can be a nice break to have an "easy" map where you get some laps and have some fun. I think it's too short to be boring. Infinity regular navs can be boring because it's a much bigger map.
