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Post by sj on Feb 21, 2011 14:27:10 GMT -5
In case you haven't already figured it out, at this point, it's not looking good.
I took the team update type categories offline. They still exist, they're just hidden since they serve no purpose.
Remaining for now at least, is access to discussions, articles, and records.
Is the league dead? Probably.
I haven't seen an acceptable solution since Rich and Paul changed their minds about running things (people always drastically underestimate how long it takes to do this stuff and the impact that the time spent doing it has on their lives).
I'm not completely pulling the plug yet, just in case something unexpected pops up again. I'll give it a few more days. If nothing happens, I'll email the six or seven owners who haven't gotten the word yet, and just leave the records and discussion sections of the board up in read only format for anyone nostalgic enough to want to look at it.
EDIT: Draft section unhooked now too.
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Post by Paul - Jays GM on Feb 21, 2011 18:19:31 GMT -5
you know, this really sucks. This is one of the longest running leagues and to be quite honest, part of the problem is that too few people take on too many responsibilities for a league that really does not have much work involved. Let's be honest, there are no live sims except for the playoffs. There is no live draft. And there are no other features like winterball, a rule 5 draft, international free agents, free agent compensation or anything like that. Basically we've got a league that has to update rosters, process trades and contracts.
I'm sorry if I'm being overly dramatic, but as a league administrator in the largest and one of the oldest leagues in BBM (Outahere) I really can't see how this league is going to die.
I don't know who to blame, or who to even complain to any more. But from my vantage point, it seems like certain people are simply sitting by and letting this happen. Nothing has been said outside of the few e-mails that were sent and I think that the members of the league who have put in time over the past years deserve better than this.
I'm almost willing to float the idea that we allow our current GM's to run 2 teams each (one AL and one NL) as we look for new owners.
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Post by Chi-Town Sox on Feb 21, 2011 19:45:14 GMT -5
I've stated many of times that I am more than willing to do the file things like completling trade, FA contracts, lineups etc. We just need that 1 person to step up and take over rules/complaints/technicalities of the game. which I really dont think would take a whole lot of time unless something major happens. If we can get that 1 person to committ to that, we can concentrate on recruiting, posting on the Mogul boards or bringing in friends.
Paul and Rich had a great idea for the compensation for referring a friend.
Basically we are just missing 1 person to step up and we can save this league.
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Post by Exposgm on Feb 21, 2011 20:01:01 GMT -5
People always underestimate the amount of work involved in this. Always.
Loading lineups and processing trades sounds simple enough. But then, there is everything else. Releases. Signatures. Free agents, and I'm only talking about those that get sign during the season. Then there is the draft tables. Updating the draft. Keeping an eye on it so that it moves, updating the tables, updating the player list. Creating the contest. Updating the prizes. Applying the contest wins. Keeping track of the bonuses. Keeping track of the traded picks. Answer to questions from owners who have been here for longer than you, but who keep misunderstanding the rules, when not simply forgetting about them or confusing them with another league.
Free agency, the period, then gets to be more work still. Even if you don't plan on signing many players yourself, you still have to read every single bid out there, make sure they are correct, which they are, most of the time, but of course, not always. You leave for a few hours, and when you come back, there are so many more bids to read. But you've got to do it, because hey, that's your job.
And then, something major always ends up happening. Someone complains over something. It doesn't always take place in public, but you still have to deal with it, and it's never simple. Then when it comes out in public, it becomes so much bigger, and you have to work your ass trying to keep things under control.
And then, rules, making sure they get respected, writing new rules when necessary, or writing them in a clearer way, explaining them to those that keep asking how it works or to those that keep acting as if rules apply to everyone else but them...
Being commissioner of such a league is no easy task. It cannot be underestimated.
I'm asking the question: is it better to have a bad commissioner than to have none at all? How about one that only does stuff that he wants to, or that does stuff the right way only half the time, or one that skips sims because he felt like it, or runs the entire playoffs in one shot because he has better things to do?
TMBL has indeed been running for quite a while, and it has been impressive, a lot of it goes to the owners that were involved, not only the commissioners. But when things get to a point when each owner would need to run 2 teams or when those remaining keep hoping for someone to fall from the sky to save what's left of the league...
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Post by Chi-Town Sox on Feb 21, 2011 20:13:48 GMT -5
I usually do most of that stuff with the file on my own anyway just to keep updated. I am on the boards probably 30-50 times a day randomly because a lot of the time I am bored after class. I get my homework done early then have nothing much else to do. The only thing I wouldn't be sure about as far as files/website stuff is what earns bonuses and how much it earns because I have never really paid attention to that. Other than that I could certainly take on the responsibility of file stuff and keeping things updated like the draft etc.
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Post by Paul - Jays GM on Feb 21, 2011 21:57:14 GMT -5
Again, the issue is too many responsibilities in too few hands. In Outahere we have delegated many responsibilities to spread out the workload. If someone needs to be the final authority I'm willing, but as many of you know, I've got some very strong opinions about certain things and I would also be looking at making certain changes.
1. Eliminate the playoff contest - it has only favoured the long-term and active owners by giving them financial advantages, and if it is as much work as Terry says it is, if that is a barrier to moving forward, than that becomes a job of one member or it goes.
2. Eliminate the bonuses - again, it only applies to a minority of owners, guys write articles because they enjoy doing it, not because they get paid to.
3. Immediately adjust the talent settings of the league to eliminate the bloated talent in the file.
4. Create a group of 3 trade moderators who would enforce all trade rules to ensure that trades are "fair value" and to also investigate and rule over any tanking concerns.
5. Eliminate the rules for retirements, they don't happen as often in 2k11 and they are one less thing to worry about.
6. Make draft pick tracking a GM's responsibility. In Outahere, when picks are traded it is the GM's responsibility to post the details of a traded pick in a sub-forum of the trade section on the boards. This makes it easier to track the traded picks and allows someone to update the traded picks periodically instead of every time a trade is made. Additionally, the draft editor in 2k11 makes life so much easier as you can re-assign each pick in the game instead of having to manually trade the drafted players after the draft.
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Post by Exposgm on Feb 22, 2011 0:36:56 GMT -5
Again, the issue is too many responsibilities in too few hands. In Outahere we have delegated many responsibilities to spread out the workload. It certainly is ideal, but not guaranteed to work. I've heard of another mogul league which recently tried delegating. People do their things early on, and then less and less, up until they do absolutely nothing. Some of our owners are or were in that league, they'll know what I'm talking about. By experience, I have also seen people offer help to do this, or that, or to update this and that, and sadly enough many of them never did any of it. 1. Eliminate the playoff contest - it has only favoured the long-term and active owners by giving them financial advantages, and if it is as much work as Terry says it is, if that is a barrier to moving forward, than that becomes a job of one member or it goes. The contest has already been modified at least twice if not three times, in terms of reducing the prizes and the number of it. Teams used to win a lot of stuff in the early days of the contest. As for favoring active owners, show me proof of it. I mean, in each contest, almost every owner participated. It happened that some teams didn't claim their prizes, but it usually was the same owners - who are no longer with us anyway. 2. Eliminate the bonuses - again, it only applies to a minority of owners, guys write articles because they enjoy doing it, not because they get paid to. This was one of the first things Scott did, keeping only voting bonuses. This is a particular area. It affects league activity, whether we like it or not. In the early days where bonuses were paid, there were a lot more articles written than today, and by a lot more owners. Same with the voting bonuses: when those were eliminated, I found myself with a handful of owners voting. You don't think they do it because they get paid? Some owners said so openly, and more than once! In BFFL, an owner asked if we got paid to write articles. I know I'd still write if I wasn't paid, but obviously not everyone will. 3. Immediately adjust the talent settings of the league to eliminate the bloated talent in the file. I certainly support this idea 100%. I lost much interest in my team and the league in general because of the talent levels. But keep in mind that we already have (at least) one owner who almost quit the league over the re-settings our players experienced over the switch. It may help bring people to the league, but it could make some leave as well. 4. Create a group of 3 trade moderators who would enforce all trade rules to ensure that trades are "fair value" and to also investigate and rule over any tanking concerns. Again, it's ideal, but does it really work? We've had committees before. The first one was too crowded. I thought the second one (most recent) would work out perfectly, but one owner quit over following the complaints and one committee member quit partially over it. I would say that's two strikes against committees, even though I do think that, in the perfect world, it should work properly. 5. Eliminate the rules for retirements, they don't happen as often in 2k11 and they are one less thing to worry about. Oh, I believe this rule has been abandoned already. I kept mentionning the retirements in emails since I wouldn't like it to try and figure out since when am I missing this player? It happens that players retire from the major league team. The only one we had last season did it directly from the Red Sox bullpen. But keep in mind that the rule about retirements came up to avoid having teams pile up on players and stack them in the minors. It was happening back then, and quite frankly, several rules are indeed created because of the way some owners act and try to take advantage of rules, or lack of it. 6. Make draft pick tracking a GM's responsibility. In Outahere, when picks are traded it is the GM's responsibility to post the details of a traded pick in a sub-forum of the trade section on the boards. This makes it easier to track the traded picks and allows someone to update the traded picks periodically instead of every time a trade is made. Additionally, the draft editor in 2k11 makes life so much easier as you can re-assign each pick in the game instead of having to manually trade the drafted players after the draft. One owner? Or THE owner who traded the pick? It is true that the draft editor is better than the nothing we had before. It would be simpler to forbid draft pick trading, of course. ;D
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Post by Chi-Town Sox on Feb 22, 2011 0:59:47 GMT -5
I really dont understand what the big deal is about the ratings. So what if they are inflated? The actual numbers being produced are still normal? Both pitchers and hitters are both inflated, keeping things even. So what if someone is predicted to be a .350 hitter? You have any idea the chance of them actually coming anywhere near .350?
What would be the difference if most people were rated 90s instead of 70s like BFFL? The actual results and statistics are the same because pitchers and hitters are even?
I could understand if say hitters were more inflated than pitchers and people were hitting .350 like it was nothing....but that doesn't happen. My team had the best record in the league last season and they only hit .281 with the top guy hitting .310. In real life 2010, the best team hit .276...only 5 points different.
Am I missing something?
as for draft pick trading...that is the one thing i absolutely hate about BFFL. Not being able to trade draft picks. It makes it impossible to trade anything. I cannot tell you how many trades I have proposed in bffl and I still havent made a single trade.
Its really not that hard to keep track of, once someone trades one, just go straight to the dp tracking thread and put it in there...takes 30 seconds tops.
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Post by sj on Feb 22, 2011 12:52:19 GMT -5
I've stated many of times that I am more than willing to do the file things like completling trade, FA contracts, lineups etc. There's a reason I haven't taken you up on your offer, Greg. Talk to me in private. Moving on, here I go into rant mode. Again. I should change the last letter of my last name to a T. Terry asks the semi-rhetorical question above of if it's better to have a bad commissioner than to just let it end. No. No, it's not better. When I, and the five owners at the time, rebuilt this league from the shambles left by Max and then Walt, I certainly did not have in mind the idea to fix it and then let another Max/clueless newbie take it back to what it was before I got drafted into the job. Terry and Scott didn't keep it going, after me, for their tenures to see someone careless or impetuous take over either. I see the emails from another league, which I had quit when the old commissioner stepped down, that turned over the duties to an enthusiastic but totally inexperienced and cocksure (very bad combination) newbie. Despite the fact that, as soon as I saw he was going to take it over, I PMed him exact and easy to follow instructions about how to download, check, and import .team files, he actually ran all three of his first sims, covering the last 42 days of that league's regular season, without updating any of the teams. He emailed the league to say he was sorry that he forgot to press the buttons. Can any of you see the owners here tolerating that? If I miss one change from one team for one sim, even early in the season, I get my ass handed to me. It's always been that way here, it always will be. I had an owner get on me because he kept uploading a .team file that didn't work, it kept blowing up his roster. I asked him to cut and paste his roster from sortable stats and email it to me, and I'd go player by player to find the problem and get it fixed. The next day he quit. So TMBL is going to live with a guy who makes no updates at all down the stretch because he refuses to follow simple directions, or for any other reason? Right. I also can't help but chuckle to myself about how, even at this stage of impending TMBL doom, in a thread discussing the league's death (or how to stop it) we get a post about why we shouldn't get the bloated talent under control. Hey, who needs new owners as long as our players don't get re-rated, right? And the draft pick trading? Yes, it's harder to make trades without it. Very hard. That's the point. Owners are more careful about trading real players with real ratings than they are about trading a question mark. Perspective anyone? Hell, with the way owners here are maxed out on BBM leagues (or life), we can't even get caretakers for open teams. For me, it wasn't only about time. The file is an embarrassment to me. I didn't even want to post at the SM forums about openings in this historical league and let the people I know there see what kind of garbage I was in charge of. But hey, it's more important to preserve the status quo than to get new owners who want to play in historical seasons, right? Did anyone even notice that we rarely had trouble filling vacant teams before Scott set amateur talent to plus 100 and flooded us with superstar rated bench warmers? I'm not vilifying him, I'm sure he meant well, but there it is. But this is the burning issue? This is the important thing? The league is a few dozen hours from death, but let's defend the absurd talent levels of the players who are never going to get into another simulated game? Let's make that what this thread is about? That and trading draft picks? And some people can't understand why this league is about to die? Or why it deserves to?
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Post by boobiegibson4three on Feb 22, 2011 17:49:39 GMT -5
to greg, if you were the running the sims, updating the file, i would enforce all the rules and help out with FA and the stuff like that. I dont have the time to be on everday with work, thus i couldnt it even think about running the sims on the systematic system we have.
Terry, Rand, even paul and the past of mosko, scott....a lot of us are appreciative of the work you have done and even through we might cuss you out once in a while we do realize its a hell of a lot of work for a free league.
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