Dil

yeah probably, i'm INCREDIBLY toxic

Bana Blabs #56
 
It's Saturday and it's time to finish off this weeks tasks. I feel like this is going to be the first week in a long ass time that I have earned 12/12 and it's a good week to do it too. I bought the full doubles week this week   I spent a whole media spot basically talking about myself and catching the league up. Excited to spend a short while talking about the VHL side of things.
 
Bears start 6-3-0. Fuck you, VSN. Anything can happen. Totally. We're only 9 games into the season, but you love to see it, hey? #CancelVSN "His build sucks" and yet @der meister is a point per game with 1 G, 9 A and 10 PTS. The rest of Seattle is doing decent but there's a few people I'd like to get going. VAN 7-0-1 and LA 7-1-0. IDK if this surprises me. I dont care as long as were doing good.  @Dil has Kovalchuk started good with 0G, 11 A in 8 GP. You love to see it.

Good Evening from the east coast @BOG,
 
I wanted to resurface a discussion I’ve had and a few others had for some possible action. Shindigs had also brought it up in here in the past, As we know, this off-season we’ve had quite a few issues we’ve been working through. We have a few threads to help this. I wanted this one to have its own. Last season we lowered the soft cap of the VHLE from 400 to 300. I think that should stay as is. But what I am proposing something myself and others have brought up. Why not up the hard cap from 400 to 450? Players who would have been called up anyway can still with the soft cap being 350, and a majority of the players without homes in the VHL this season would have without. A doubt been signed in the E. These VHLE GM’s fight over inactives so we are thrilled when we can get someone active in FA. 
 
My question is would someone with 430-450 TPA playing with players in the 200-300 bracket make much more of a difference than people with 380-400 TPA? If not this is a good plan. The argument may be that it would take them longer to get to the VHL, but that’s not true if the soft cap remains the same. That way some borderline players can opt for the E if they wish and get guaranteed playing time. I’d love to hear everyone’s opinion specifically on this matter, and get perspective from our E Commissioners @Enoramaand @thadthrasherand former longtime E Commish @Acydburn .

Oh, I don't. I most certainly do not feel like a bad GM. Hell, I consider myself a pretty good GM. I wouldn't mind going around the league and getting honest feedback from every player I've encountered during my time as a GM and AGM.
 
But, to your point, this is a very direct post with a very direct message. And at the end of the message, at the moment, it's me. I'll stand in for all of Budnik's GMs, because I was the last.
 
I'm very happy that Budnik made it to the VHL after so much time in the "VHL." I'm very happy, because of the impact we had on him in Cologne which has led him to this opportunity. Because the VHL, which now stands on the high-horse shouting down, quit on Budnik two seasons ago.

jury still out on that one.

You were born.

500 words. 
 
For 6 TPE.
 
Is it worth it? Some would say no and that’s why so many people either create a graphic or just don’t submit a media spot. And it’s why I’m struggling to get one out during one of the busiest weeks of work this month. I don’t know what to talk about outside of “woo Jesse is 2-0-0 to start the season!”. But how many times do I dip into my player record for forum content?
 
Like a lot. A whole lot. I’m sure the majority of my content mentions win/loss records and the usual stats to join it. 
 
Not only have I been so busy with work that it’s Wednesday night and I’m sitting here trying to force out a media spot while my fiance attempts to find us plates and serve wear to put on our wedding registry, I have also been so busy that I feel like I’m out of the loop with a lot that has been going on in the VHL both in the forum and on discord. Only today have I really had some down time to sit and chat with people or check in on the recent content feed.
 
But back to the matter at hand: how hard it is to write 500 words for 6 TPE when you either have nothing to talk about or you’re just drawing blanks on ideas. All week I’ve been trying to figure out what I could bang out before the end of the week and I still have nothing. Nothing, I tell you. Zero. Zip. Nada. Zilch. Nunca. Efes. 
 
I can start to see why some people stop creating content. Not necessarily from burn out but more of a drain on a creative mind. Except a few times here or there, I’ve always found it easy to pick something to write about and then stretch it out to 500 words or more. But for those times when I have nothing, it worries me that I’ll never have anything come up again. I don’t want to stop creating and I don’t want to stop writing. But I don’t address drama and I don’t have as active a player as some who can write about their exploits within the world of the VHL or interactions with team mates. Which is a little sad sometimes. I do wish I was more personally social so that I could form these relationships with other members. The only exception seems to be @kirbithan. And while we don’t chat all that much, I think it’s fun that we’ve naturally created this ‘rivalry’ between our players simply based on how we both worked our first gen butts off during our first season in the VHLM as goalies.
 
And would you look at that, coming around to 500 words because I decided to ramble a bit. I do wish there had been more cohesion to it and this is probably one of my worst media spots to date but I think it’s okay to have a few bad ones once in a while when the juices aren’t flowing and the level of exhaustion is just too high.
 
Also thanks to @jacobcarson877 for the idea.
 
535 words for week ending 1/29/2023

The new season starts tonight and Jesse Teno is in the United’s locker room getting ready for their first start as a starter goalie for the VHL. 
 
“How are you feeling right now?”
 
“Nervous, to be honest. I know I’ve been a starter before and I did play a few games last season but this is a whole new level that I never thought would come. Hopefully I don’t completely crumble under the pressure tonight. I just need to get passed the first game and I think it’ll be okay.”
 
Jesse only had time for a quick interview before they had to continue getting ready. As a reminder, Jesse had their rookie season last year and played only 11 games, going 7-3-1. Not terrible numbers for a rookie but certainly not top tier. We only hope that Jesse can shake off the nerves and be an amazing goalie for London.
 
150 words for week ending 1/29/2023

 

Well, I've come across a thing in Discord that ended up being a "fuck it, we'll do it live" moment. I'm taking this public because I don't think it deserves to stay hidden, and I think it's about time that someone tried to be direct about it. Maybe I shouldn't be doing this tired, but whatever. It's in the thunderdome for a reason.
 
[screenshots and story posted with permission, of course]
 

 

 
 
Yesterday, @Spartan  and I opened a (civil!) dialogue with the VHLM GM crew after gaining the general sense that our league was running short on highly active first-gens and running high on what, to the uninitiated, our league refers to as clickers--players who spend their days clicking buttons on the portal, never completing a forum-based task, and being a drag on their respective teams as (generally speaking) they don't contribute much to the community or to their locker room. I want to make it clear off the bat that I think this discussion has gone well, I got my general point of "you guys should be earning your pay, thank you to those who are, those who aren't should step it up" out there peacefully, and that we found some of the GMs' feedback in that thread helpful. To any one of our GMs reading this--please don't feel the need to defend yourself, because we just went over something like this and I like to think some of what I'm going to talk about has been partially resolved behind the scenes (or, at least, that we got the word out well enough that you get what we want).
 
However, that doesn't excuse any VHLM GM from reading the rest of this thread, because this concerns GMs of all different shapes and colors and I think everyone should be aware of it. Here, we're talking about a player who was, in order:
 
Signed in the VHLM, multiple seasons before portal waivers (making some recent concerns about our current system invalid in this case) Traded in the VHLM Drafted to the VHLE Drafted to the VHL Drafted to the VHLM Traded in the VHLE Re-signed in the VHLE Let go when their VHL contract expired and spent 2 full seasons as a VHL free agent Signed with a VHL team  
...and apparently NOT EVEN ONCE ALONG THE WAY had earning explained properly despite playing for SIX different teams on all three levels of the league. London is team #7, and this player literally just learned how to earn tonight. Some more facts:
 
Said player's last forum-based claim was in December of 2021, which didn't involve a point task of any sort but was rather a free holiday TPE giveaway Player asked in said holiday giveaway thread, about a full month after joining the league, what a PT was (to their credit, a couple people, including one GM, briefly explained) Player's only forum-based earning through their own post was one press conference, once, in their very first week. Aside from that, the holiday claim, and one single TPE claimed through predictions, once, this player has earned nothing but welfare, practice facility, and training camp for over a year straight. It's a miracle they're still in the league, especially given that they apparently have never had any real idea how to earn more. I am personally not sure why some of this didn't catch on more at the start, but it apparently didn't because the player was surprised to learn that even press conferences exist today. Yes, the part about the player having a good build is completely true. It's clear that they have been given some instruction in this regard, and that GMs have been in contact. This isn't someone who's just never left the portal.  
 
Call it what you want, and play the "first-gens are weird" card all you'd like. What I call it is a complete failure of GMs at every level to provide the single most vital service to a new player, that being their time and respect.
 
 
This kind of thing makes my stomach turn. I could never win anything at any level as a GM, but something that no one can ever take away from me is that I put my heart and soul into making my teams all they could be for my players. Some people can even do that and win, which is incredible. Part of the reason why I stopped GMing is that I felt I wasn't up to my own standard of what I felt a GM should be anymore, but even near the end, when I knew I was lacking in some respects, I'd be pinging my lower earners once in a while and checking in, and I'd try to ping all my players and prospects at the start of the season with a reminder about where to find earning opportunities and an open invitation to come to our press conference at any time. I even automated part of this by having MEE6 ping anyone who accepted a special role every week. Since my tenure as a whole isn't going to go down in the history books as much of anything, though, I'll get off my high horse in this paragraph and move on to what I think this proves about our league.
 
One does not simply play for six teams without learning how to earn. Let's say I count this player's first couple weeks as a "half-learning" experience where things may have been explained, but just didn't stick well--what does that leave us? 0.5 out of 6? We'll throw that into a data set of 6 points--one "half" and five zeros--and take a few numbers out of it:
 
Mean: 0.083
Standard deviation: 0.204
90% confidence interval: 0 --> 0.494
 
I don't think the numbers are realistically this low leaguewide, but until tonight, this player's perspective can be summed up as follows:
 
"On average, 8% of teams I'll play for will help me earn" "I can be 90% sure that at most, only half of the teams in the league will ever help me, and I can be just as confident, if not more, that none of them will"  
And that isn't a pair of general statements--that's statistics at work. I do feel that this is someone who's come across a series of unfortunate events to a greater extent than many others, but if this is the experience of a clicker, then it's no wonder why we have so many clickers (and it's also no wonder why so many go inactive). I do know that more than zero to 49 percent of our GMs put in the work that they need to, but that's as someone who's formed friendships with most GMs. For someone who isn't, and someone who isn't as established, is it that easy? I already know it's not, but I didn't think it was to the extent that anyone could ever go to six different places and never even once get the right explanation of even the bare minimum of what's happening in the league. It's been OVER A YEAR!
 
I know that most members of the league have disagreements with many of the posts made by Tate before he left--and while I actually am in that group, as anti-mod as I am sometimes, one nail he absolutely managed to hit on the head was that retention efforts should never stop past the VHLM. Do we just feel that we don't need to help our players when they graduate? If we draft a clicker, do we consider that all they'll ever be and hope we can ship them to a tanking team in their graduation year (in the VHL) or hope their earning never speeds up and that they stay down to help me win games as long as I can possibly keep them (in the E)? Does anyone recognize that on the other side of the screen is a real person, with goals and dreams and hobbies and needs of their own, someone who might have joined our community on a bad day, who might want (or even need) to make a few friends to talk to and to have something fun to do to take their mind off of whatever's getting them down--or do we just see a liability that we'd just as soon get rid of as take 3 minutes to talk to? We talk all about how we're into helping the new members, but never recognize that a lot of the time, we're just referring to those new members that it's actually cool to help--those who show their own drive and initiative in reaching out to you to solve their confusion and making your job easy.
 
The VHLM has failed this player. The VHL has failed this player. And the VHLE has clearly failed this player. Every team this player was a part of could have done better, and this doesn't happen by accident to one person, once. It's an indicator that we've got a certain unspoken culture in league management, whether or not any GM in particular is part of it, that very much exists in general and needs to be talked about.
 
And please don't try to tell me that this only pertains to one case. The fact that we had a list of unsigned players not long ago says quite a bit. 
 
I still have no personal issues with any GMs and have cooled off quite a bit since I started writing here (it's good stress relief!). If you feel I've talked about you unfairly here, feel free to reach out so we can hug it out.
 
 
To end on a less holier-than-thou note--what do you think the league could do to do better? I'm going to start by challenging GMs (and welcoming anyone else who would like to join in) to do one simple thing--reach out to a clicker today. Check in, ask what's up, make sure they're aware of opportunities to earn in our league (especially the easy ones!), and make it clear that you're there to help if needed. If you do that, I grant you permission to tell me to fuck off in this thread, in as many insulting words as you'd like.
 
Not claiming, but I should. Good night!

Astro Singh has been released by the London United.

My God, inflation has even made it to the VHL!

Gustav Smells
 Captain: Molly the Cat @JCarson 
 Assistant: Ivan Retoslav @eagle_3450 
 Assistant: Rex Wolffe Gregor @oilmandan 
 
LETS GO UNITED!

Artice Review:
@aimkin creates a fun amusing story for Jesse Teno, of his quick rise to fame in London and it is well deserved.  If we know one thing about @Dilit is that he is a fan of his players.  For those that think that this article is just some fun humor you are dead wrong.  The Aimkin Fan club is an elite organization and you can join for $1739 per year.  If you act now we will waive the sales tax. Just make your payment to the league Donation thread, the kind people at VHL have made arrangements to transfer the funds to the Aimkin fan club. 
Great article, 10/10 because I choose to.

In the deep dark depths of a metal workshop sits an artist in leather with stained black hands, a charcoal pencil between his fingertips sliding against off-white paper. The outline of a statue comes into view in the glow of the forge and incandescent lighting. He grunts as the last strokes are made for a new statue in the works for the London United’s arena. One to be erected next to the already existing statue of Molly the Cat. Funded by the generous fans of Jesse Teno and their agent aimkin. Though this one of aimkin themselves, not of the goaltender. 

The fund was started by Chakravartin Dil of India @Dil, GM of the London United who is the acting president and founder of the aimkin fan club. The fan club was founded roughly five months ago, though there seemed to be little interest from the community and not much activity from the few existing members. All went quiet until early yesterday morning when Dil walked into the United’s locker room and announced that the fan club was looking for new members. Quite a surprise and not at the same time. Given the lack of interest, and Dil’s plans, he would need money from unsuspecting willing and happy fans and members. With a fee of only $1,739.00 a year, the membership would go towards paying for a giant aimkin statue outside of the arena. Why Dil chose the agent and not the player no one will ever know, as few seem brave enough to ever figure out why the pickle man says what he says half the time.

Jesse Teno was also surprised to find out that the statue was going up seeing as they have only had one year in the league and has yet to make any significant impact. “I mean I guess? Not sure why my agent is getting a statue but if Dil says it’s happening, then I guess it’s happening.” Teno walked off with a shrug and headed to the ice after Dil's address to the team.

After finding out about the announcement, aimkin commented on the generous gesture stating, “No promises that some of that won't go to line my pockets and eventually become a scandal that the VHL will cover up but then emails will come out and still nothing will happen despite public outrage.” We are sure that this quote is merely a joke and will not come up in a later report at all for any reason. 

Whatever Dil’s reasoning for the statue, we are sure that he has the best of intentions not only with the gesture of the statue but the money as well. Though it’s been rumored that the bank account for the fan club is a joint one with aimkin. Either way, we are hopeful that the membership numbers for the fan club will rise over the next season and that the statue will be unveiled sometime in the near future. We look forward to seeing what the artist has in store and just how giant Dil had in mind.
 
512 words for week ending 1/22/2023
 

I'm in favor of the idea but only via FA. I think trades are too easy to manipulate and even rights trades are a bit of a cop out as well. If the idea is to get FA's a home, the solution should only benefit FA's and not players on other teams.
 
 

Which one is it

Imagining

haha get fucked @KaleebtheMighty

Malmo receives:
S87 LDN 5th

London receives:
S87 MAL 5th


This trade has been accepted by all parties and is pending league approval.

Molly the Cat, thank you for joining us. As you know we asked your fans to send in their non-hockey-related questions. We have spent the last two weeks gathering and sorting those questions. Thank you for agreeing to answer them. 
 
The first question comes to us from Anderson Jackson, a 7-year-old from London: Molly the Cat, my favorite food is Pizza, what is your favorite food? 
Thank you for starting off with an easier question, Anderson, my favorite food is Roast Beef. 
 
Our second question comes from Tyson Williamson, a 10-year-old from Boston: Molly the Cat, if you didn’t become a hockey player what would you have done for a career? 
 
Tyson, I always worked hard in school and so had several options that I could have pursued. I always wanted to invent something and go into business selling it. At this point, I don’t have any idea of exactly what that would be, but I think it would be fun to invent something. 
 
Third question comes from Sandra O’Mally, a 22-year-old from Inverness: Molly the Cat, I am a recent graduate and am working at my first job. I enjoy the work but know that it isn’t my dream job. Can you offer some advice on pursuing your dream job? 
 
Now we are getting into some tough questions. Playing in the VHL was my dream job, and it was not a painless process to secure the position. The competition was fierce. If I could offer any advice, it would be to create a plan and take steps to achieve that plan every day. For me that meant learning new skills, blocking off time in your schedule to practice, learning how to eat healthily, exercising and marketing myself. For you it will mean different things but if you are making regular continued progress towards your goal, you will achieve it. 
 
We only have a couple questions left, Molly the Cat, this next question comes from Pable Ortega in Sao Paulo. Pablo is 17 years old and describes himself as a VHL superfan. His question: Molly the Cat, I believe that hockey and the VHL are loved the world over, do you think it would be possible for the VHL to expand outside of North America and Europe and create divisions in places like Asia and South America? 
 
Pablo, you pose an interesting question. I agree that hockey is loved across the world and as more people get introduced to the sport the level of talent being produced in areas across the world is increasing. I do expect that one day we will see an international expansion in the VHL. How that would work I don’t know, but I do expect it will happen someday. What I don’t know is when that will occur.  
 
Last question, it comes from 5-year-old Susie Smith in St John. I like watching hockey with my family, but I don’t like it when the players fight cause sometimes, they bleed and that is gross. So, I have a dog named Rex, he is big and cuddly. Do you like dogs? 
 
Well, I have to say I was expecting an extremely difficult question the way that started. Susie, it may not surprise you that I am much more of a Cat person but if I had a dog, I would want it to be cuddly also, sounds like you may have gotten one of the good dogs. 
 
That is our interview tonight, thank you Molly the Cat for joining us. 

Popular Contributor, maybe one day. 
Near the bottom of the forum there is a section called Popular Contributors, which posts the change in a member’s reputation. I look at this frequently and never see myself there. I wonder what it takes to make that list. So, I dived a little bit into it.  
 
Reputation, from what I can deduce, on the forum is nothing more than the summation of reactions given to other people’s postings or reactions received by others. It is something that can be manipulated if one wants to. All it would take is for someone to open several random postings and react Fire, Like, Hmmm.  
 
Right now, the all-time leader in reputation is Victor at 9853. That is impressive. To have taken the opportunity to react to that many articles, media spots, and other postings, or to have produced enough postings that others reacted to is very impressive.  
 
So you heard it here, the best way to become popular is to react to everyone else’s posts, click those emoji’s share the love, like, or whatever other emoji you prefer and get recorded in VHL forum history as having the highest reputation. 

Helsinki receives:
Don Aven
S87 LDN 1st
S87 SEA 1st

Seattle receives:
S87 HSK 1st


This trade has been accepted by all parties and is pending league approval.

Smart to get the NTC, can't trust @Dil.

Groundbreaking.

If this could be implemented through the player store, this would allow us to make items for the store actually worth buying.