Gustav

Art Vandelay

Art Vandelay

Ah, theme week... You'd think I'd have a lot of ideas on my mind for RIVALRY WEEK after it's been my idea for years on end at this point. Seriously, if I had a nickel for every time I brought it up in response to "we're out of ideas" and then watched us go with some concept like "VHL vacation" instead...well, you know the deal. But I'm not the constantly-online free time monster I used to be, and the sigma grandest can lead to some writers' block every now and then (especially when that free time is what I get to spend not working on things). Since I'm used to assignments, though... You may remember, at some point in your academic career (as I do distinctly from second grade and probably every single year thereafter until we'd all gotten the point), learning about the types of conflict in literature. Person vs. Person, Person vs. Nature, and all that. Person vs. Society is an awesome one that could describe my adventures with THIS LEAGUE'S DRACONIAN MODERATION STANDARDS, while Person vs. Destiny (which I learned as Person vs. God, but I wouldn't be surprised to see that that's changed these days) is another awesome one that describes every VHLer's adventures with a certain simulation engine. What I'm here to talk to you about, however, is Person vs. Self. Allow me to explain. A Person vs. Society conflict at work. Art Vandelay was drafted #1 overall in S84, and as yet, hasn't quite lived up to his VHLM-earned reputation as a shutdown goaler. Sure, his rookie season was promising, but aside from some unexplainable good looks against a select few teams, not much has warranted consideration for anything special (as if I, as a bad dumb evil BoG member, haven't been trying to shoehorn that in anyway). We are--for once--not here to talk about Art Vandelay (Art Vandelay), though. We're here to talk about his GM, @InstantRockstar, whose player seems determined to thwart his team's success. Augustus Kennedy was drafted 10th overall, one season before Vandelay in S83. He's spent his entire career up to this point as the starter in New York, waiting one season before being called up and sharing a rookie season with Art in S84. Much like Vandelay, he's taken some solid performances and a hot reputation early on (winning Top Rookie and boasting the league's lowest GAA one season later) and made not much out of them, riding the Americans to their usual consistent bunch of nothing. Neither team has accomplished anything of note during my entire time in this league (for LA, that meaning their entire existence), and there's a whole lot of interference to IR's GM work coming from his building work. Now, it's at this point in the article that I realize an index doesn't show a player's stats against every team, but rather a team's stats. I'd hoped to compare Kennedy's stats against everyone, but we'll have to settle for New York's in general. Yes, there will probably be some backup starts in there...but with New York's backup posting losing records, I think we're still good to go with the general point. S84: 4-0-1 vs. LA | 28-39-5 overall S85: 1-3-1 vs. LA | 33-31-8 overall S86: 4-1-0 vs. LA | 33-35-4 overall S87 (so far): 3-0-1 vs. LA | 18-23-2 overall Total: 12-4-3 vs. LA | 112-128-19 overall Aside from S85, the Americans have played wonderfully against the Stars. I personally remember many of these games being instances of New York being outshot and still managing to pull out a win thanks to some stupid STHS goaler heroics, and this kind of thing has continued to happen this season. It's especially annoying because our friendly neighborhood GM doesn't even WANT to be beating LA...yet it happens and he effectively gets handed a loss when his player decides to actually show up. LA shouldn't be conceding a point in nearly 80% of their games against none other than New York, who's barely getting a point in 50% in general (a mark that's below 50% if we remove those LA games). So yeah--perhaps it's time for LA and New York to be rivals on a larger scale (at which point I ask @thadthrasher for a second opinion). We're the two biggest cities in the US, we're both underachieving NA conference teams, and you're holding our GM hostage. Let's take this thing Person vs. Person.

I remember a LOT of "SHL bad" talk when I first joined. I've never been a member there, so I can't really offer a two-sided perspective, but things have certainly cooled off. If anything it's just another place to play, and it's possible we even help each other out quite a bit with member crossover. I feel like that's cooled off somewhat as well, though.

You'd be surprised--you just put down a few thoughts here (which I'm assuming didn't take forever) and you're already halfway to a media spot! It's easier to earn than most people think at the start; I'm notorious for cranking out giant articles every now and then and I claimed welfare my first two weeks because I thought that would be too much. Also, perhaps you see yourself as a podcaster, and most people who do graphics regularly started doing them knowing absolutely nothing about it. Overall, though, find what you're happy with and earn that. It's true that earning as much as possible will get your player farther, faster, but it's by no means necessary to enjoy the league. If you'd like to get better, earn more, if you think you're pushing yourself too much, don't be afraid to earn less. I'm excited to see where you're able to take yourself and your player in the VHL, and feel free to reach out if you have any questions!

Week 2

Art Vandelay

Awesome stuff and overall I always appreciate it when someone puts out a little piece of human nature into our community. We're all real people going through very real things, and I hope you know that we can be here to support in any way we can. As someone who's never been through any of what you're describing, good or bad, I can't imagine the range of emotion and humanity that's poured into your life as of late. Wishing all the best for you and those around you now + always.

Art Vandelay

FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY was FISTED ANALLY BY A CIRCUS MONKEY

Art Vandelay

Art Vandelay

@Spartan yeet

I have the first part in there because, having just talked to my GMs the day before, it would be really weird from their perspective if I'd talked some very much related issues out with them one day and then flipped the next. You'd also have to realize that the VHLM tenure in question was in the early part of the S80s--many of our GMs weren't even GMs, and I wasn't even commish. That part of it might not even apply to today's VHLM (and I truly hope it doesn't). I don't think that invalidates the situation as I understood it then being something to talk about, though, and I hope that's another difference between situations that's clear enough to sort out. I mean, we have at least one reply in this thread from a very reliable user stating that they had to look outside their team to be taught much of anything, so that in itself brings up questions of how many people found themselves in the same situations and just never said anything about it because they went inactive instead. I also think there's some validity in Jacob's writing this week, where he said that there are teams out there that he'd rather not see his players go to for activity reasons. Granted, we've gotten much better than we used to be back when I first joined and we'd have GMs completely offline for months on end, but I think it's still valuable to care about where teams lie under the standards we have today. If we want to talk about a commissioner's role in this, we can talk about our own recent changes involving draft pick limits and portal waivers to make player distribution more equitable, already-existing enforcement of rules surrounding IA players, and especially the fact that we literally just talked to the GMs about player activity and what both we and they can do to help. I can say that Spartan is amazing at tracking rosters and seeing what's happening where, and it's something we talk about a lot. Frankly, I'd be more concerned about what's being done beyond the VHLM to encourage retention--we've always, long before I was ever commish and long before I was ever in the league, had issues with people disappearing once they leave the minors. We can do all we can on our end, but all the VHLM optimization in the world (which we are trying to achieve!) isn't going to solve issues past a player's first few seasons.

I do get that apparently I've given off the "clicker = bad" vibe here, because that's been the main reaction of a lot of replies, but that was never the intention. I don't think players should be pressured to be any more active than they are, and in fact I've seen some styles of management that I'd consider "going too far"--I was in a supposedly casual league very briefly and partly left because I was getting pinged/messaged by random people multiple times a week and I just wasn't into that. If you read my last reply in this thread, you'll notice that I draw a big distinction between someone who clicks because they choose to and someone who clicks because they've never gotten help--which I initially fully believed was the case (and I'd write this thread again in a heartbeat if I find out it actually has been for someone else). I also feel like you've seen me make multiple points along the same lines as your second paragraph, because I've written up arguably too many posts/replies saying those same things for close to a couple years now, ever since I decided I didn't care to live my entire life in genchat. I'd collect them all here to prove a point, but I have to be up early tomorrow and I'm tired. TL;DR: I DO NOT HATE YOU IF YOU DON'T MAX EARN and I've spent years of my life arguing exactly the opposite on this forum. I think the replies going in that direction might just mean my message wasn't communicated as clearly as it could have been.

Art Vandelay

Actually... There aren't any people between Kaleeb and myself who need a goaler, so I'll pick. G - Dusty Wilson By that same logic: -@Ahma can pick a goaler at any time -@Phil can pick a D at any time -Kaleeb is still on the clock for a forward If you have a pick left to make, consider yourself good to make it!

I'm going to take this opportunity to half-apologize as I've gotten multiple messages both in and out of this thread over the past couple days that do indicate that in this particular case, things have been explained to enough of an extent that the player should have been reasonably expected to have some idea of what was going on. That said, I definitely do not apologize for being pissed off when I saw someone saying that they had spent the last year-plus without any explanation of anything being given. It's my job to stick up for new members in need of development, and having what seemed like an complete bullshit situation floated right to me behind the scenes would require absolutely zero walking back on my part if entirely true. So yes, perhaps the situation may be slightly different, but I fully stand by every word of what I said if it weren't. This is entirely true--but it's not about good management when what you're being told is "I'm not earning more because no one ever told me how to" vs. "I'm not earning more because that's how I choose to enjoy the league." One of those is ENTIRELY OK and honestly probably more along the lines of this specific situation, while the other--what I'd heard it was initially--is absolutely not OK and absolutely is a reason to go nuclear on the forum. I absolutely love your comment, but it's easy for someone skimming this thread to read it and take away "Gustav hates lower earners", so I'd rather clear up the distinction. Here's why the underlying point still stands: You said it yourself yesterday when you wrote about how you're frustrated with watching players leave your team and go inactive elsewhere--and even mentioned that there are teams that you don't want your players going to due to poor histories of development. And we talked about the same exact thing in the M this week when we GMs that we asked about it largely agreed that we're having some issues keeping our first-gens as active as we used to. I'm hoping that, at the very least, this thread serves as a wake-up call to people who may need one. The next time we see teams slacking off and players being ignored, I hope it gets a similarly strong response even if this one may have been only kinda half that way. And I do think that we deal with situations similar to this more than most people think. No one is going to notice a lower earner not being talked to or GMs not reaching out behind the scenes, but it's been common knowledge for quite a while that in general, we'll occasionally have problems with those who don't max out being stigmatized or not being helped. Why do you think you don't want your players ending up in some places? It's probably for those reasons, and you're certainly against those reasons being what they are. So if someone reads my post and thinks, "wow, the league could use a good kick in the pants"--good, because it could. I acknowledge that I missed the specific mark, but I still think I hit the general one.

D - Brian Kowalski @Phil

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!

D - Hammar Voss @Ahma