Gustav

I'll go out and say that the league has seen far worse/more annoying/meaner members than you. I can see why people have said some of the things they've said but...honestly in my interactions with you I think you're a good dude. No way you're getting this job now, and I don't think the mod team is usually inclined to take my suggestions seriously, but I at least support it as an eventual goal

...not "Berenstein", as you may think you remember it. We'll come back to that in a minute. I wasn't sure what I'd write about this week. I had some stuff to do, some of which involved getting started on some real live lab work (which I'd get into if it weren't for the fact that I have to make these LeAguE-rELaTed, so I guess you'll be missing out on that one). Honestly, I haven't really thought too deeply about the league all that much, which is why I ended up on the Wikipedia page for Catalonia at 1:00 in the morning, trying to understand some current world events and deepen my own geography nerd-ness. We'll get back to that in a minute as well. Remember Charles Puigdemont? VHL vets who can think back to S65 remember arguably the greatest draft bust of all time, a first-gen who shot up the TPE rankings, became GM of the Minnesota Storm (back when we were working with our SUPERIOR TWO-LEAGUE SYSTEM), and showed all the promise in the world before dealing New York a classic dose of New York luck and completely disappearing off the map not at all long after the draft. He's still cited to this day as a major piece of VHL history, for all the wrong reasons--I have my "Hall of Not Bad" series, but he'd be right up with the best of them in the Hall of Bad (despite surviving 7 seasons as an inactive). That's all well and good, and we know the story. Even those of you who weren't there to see it might know the story. Anyway, back to something I said earlier, I learned some details about that time 5 years ago when Catalonia declared independence from Spain--the Spanish government decided to crack down on the region and punish a handful of high-ranking Catalonian politicians, and some of these politicians were able to get out and go to other parts of Europe. This included, of course, the president of Catalonia at the time...Carles Puigdemont. Carles. I have ALWAYS thought it was Charles, and another look at the player page has confirmed that it isn't. And somehow my little North American brain never knew who this guy is. And while I don't think anything of the Mandela Effect and generally consider it some nonsense that 12-year-olds like to obsess over... I'm not the only one The mistake has been made before Perhaps something supernatural is afoot I'm curious if anyone who's still active these days has thought the same thing.

Exactly. It's an entirely different discussion (and one that would get to me a lot less) if this were only ever "please stop". The "threat of punishment" @Beketov mentions comes from other members being deputized to gather evidence--clearly, you can ask someone to stop without launching an investigation. There's also the conflicting logic of this:

That's all well and good, but honestly the fact that it "was never re-outlawed" is way more than enough reason to say that it's not an issue unless specifically re-outlawed publicly. Answer sharing was a thing for years on end--I should know; I'd do trivia myself as soon as it was posted as a VHLM GM and a certain someone would immediately distribute it to every server he was in, all without complaint from anyone. Anyone with any sort of knowledge of the history of answer-sharing in this league (I'll add, by the way, that Ricer was a player of mine while I was doing that) would have absolutely no reason to believe that sharing answers wasn't (and isn't) still OK outside of the league server. Re: point 1: I think the above is a more than fair response. Re: point 2: I don't know and don't need to know what this is referring to, but as long as it has nothing to do with this thread it's really beside the point. I'm talking about the principle of sharing answers itself. I'm not trying to blame anyone in particular and nothing I've said has been intended to be a shot at Dil specifically. I just find it concerning that this is another instance of the mod team doing more or less whatever they want without regard to what the league itself wants. Btw, I do find the comments about me writing novels funny. I get that it's a meme at this point and that's OK--just please understand that there are real thoughts in there and I hope you get where I'm coming from.

...how on Earth did we go from answer sharing being banned, then EXPLICITLY ALLOWED AGAIN, to this again, without notice and without anyone agreeing to it? Yeah, the trivia channel in the league server has always had its own set of rules, but let's not pretend like those rules have always extended outside of it. Moreover, WHY IS IT SUDDENLY A MOD ISSUE? I'd like to see what sort of "punishment" exists for sharing answers. Can't wait to be punished as if I just said something racist on the forum because I told someone what an answer was instead of linking them to something that states the answer just as directly. CONTEXT that led to the ban from 2 years ago being almost immediately revoked--I can't find the original post or the revision for some odd reason... If anyone does find the original post, you'll actually find that I was initially in favor of banning answer sharing, despite being responsible for a very substantial portion of the league's trivia TPE at the time. I like to think I can admit it when someone has changed my mind, and I'll also say that my mind mostly changed later on for a lot of the reasons that @Victor mentioned in that linked post. And honestly, the fact that we've got people in here who have mod powers and are more or less mocking this post says a lot. Disagree with it if you want, but at least do it respectfully and provide reasoning for said disagreement. I don't think the point Sam made about hiding channels from mods or whatever does enough to justify the way this was handled (or even the fact that it's seen as something that needs to be handled in the first place), but at least it's a response and not a cool pickle GIF. I'd find the irony of this combined with the rest of the thread funny if it didn't also concern something I tend to feel more strongly than others about in this league. So yeah. I'm sure this will get laughed at as a "hands off muh freedom"-type post, but I really think it's a fair one to make. We're taking something that we never actually banned, turning it into a CoC issue, going behind someone's back to gather evidence that a rule that was never publicly extended outside the league server is now being broken outside the league server, and not taking what's ultimately a fair response to that seriously.

Gustav worship please

Art Vandelay

Thanks for bearing with us through this thread and good luck in Miami!

I know you have sigs turned off so I'll inform you that it's been your sig forever now Still cool though.

Well this is about to get interesting. Good luck @fonziGG

Unlike @Baby Boomer, I am not AFRAID to SHED LIGHT on the situation that is @Spartan in Moscow. The VHL's biggest elephant in the room continues to exist in his role, and it is ABOUT TIME that we DO SOMETHING about it. Please find below the reasons why: Moscow lost 4 finals in a row. If a certain pattern repeats itself, Moscow is about to be severely underwhelming for the next 25 years straight. I'm not even talking about the NFL, by the way--the last team to do this was (and here I use the phrase "playoff spreadsheet" to make this article forever visible to people searching for trivia answers) New York, and we know how their luck has been for the entire time I've been in this league. You say your locker room is active...yet I am not in it. Pretty curious, isn't it? Funny to consider your little ECHO CHAMBER a benefit to the community when it doesn't include the largest benefit to the community there is. The team name is an alliteration on the WORST LETTER POSSIBLE. I consider this a direct affront to my traditional Ohio values, and if Spartan had any sense of respect, he would do something about it. He has the audacity to stop me from being the supreme dictator of the VHLM. Everyone knows it would be the best possible thing for the league if I were allowed to do whatever the hell I wanted to do with the VHLM. This is SEVERELY COMPLICATED by Spartan's existence as co-commish. He is a fan of the Pittsburgh Steelers. There exists a far superior logo that Moscow is not using. I do not know why the team has never rebranded to this absolute masterpiece. Then again, it could be because management doesn't know what's up. Art Vandelay does not play for Moscow. I can't imagine thinking your team is good when you don't have Art Vandelay (Art Vandelay), destroyer of Chicago's dreams and absorber of pucks. Art Vandelay (Art Vandelay) is all a team could ever want, and any team without Art Vandelay (Art Vandelay) is simply just pretending to be relevant in the absence of Art Vandelay (Art Vandelay).

Spartan IA

You haven't lived until you've experienced Waffle House. Is the food good? No. Is it clean? No. Are the workers treated well? No. Do you get good service? Not really. But do you have to experience it anyway? Hell yeah. It's indescribable.

Yes! First exam of grad school went well last week, second one coming up...making new friends and getting used to life and such. No complaints. When I have time, there's nothing like a good article. I like to think I'm good at going above and beyond and it's nice when that's recognized. This is as far as I've gotten into it. I haven't been completely sure how to integrate the Seinfeld bit, but I also don't write about my own player much. 1. Forget being screwed over--has STHS ever done something that it shouldn't in your favor? 2. Which country's food do you think is the best and why? 3. It's the trade deadline, and the S87 players are on the way! What do you think the league could use from its newest draft class?

Well that was fast. Always appreciated

Art Vandelay

I'm not sure when exactly I went from new guy with an inferiority complex to Society of Elderly Males but it happened at some point. Hopefully I can still relate to the whippersnappers

Ah it's been too long since we had a "sims need to happen at exactly the time I want them to happen" thread. Not taking a shot at you but this is something that pops up every so often and it's usually from someone newer who doesn't (yet) get how tough it can be for a simmer to do things exactly on time, every day without fail. That point has been made, though, so I won't harp on it. Something else to keep in mind is that our simmers do coordinate how sims play out over the course of a season--it doesn't really matter if a set of sims is happening later on in the day; your season will start and end on the same days as the other two leagues, with the same number of games in between, and very rarely will your simmer miss a day altogether. In the case that that does happen, too, it's more than likely you'll see a day made up after the fact (and then you'll get 4 games instead of 2). To be a simmer in this league, you have to show that you're a mature, dedicated individual who can be trusted with a lot--and if that's the case in this league, it's probably the case out of it. And if it's the case outside of the league, chances are you've got a lot of important things to deal with in life as well. Speaking as someone who's getting a lot busier IRL, it's impressive that our simmers are as consistent as they are. So it's really not ridiculous at all. You're not the first to think it is, and won't be the last, but most eventually get that things are fine as is after a while.

Honestly a big part of the reason why I was a good VHLM GM is that I spent way too much of my life on Discord. Doing that on that level today would involve throwing away a lot more important stuff. I honestly don't think you were as bad as you think you were because you're comparing yourself to what's probably an unrealistic standard (given that you actually have a life). Back when I thought Davos was going inactive and I should leave, it had declined for sure but there were (and are) still far less active locker rooms. But it was fun! Part of me misses coming home from work at 9 and shitposting until 2.

Art Vandelay

Hi! I'm back! It's me again. You should remember the last VHLM announcement, which put in motion a set of new restrictions on VHLM teams' holding of draft picks. This consisted of both upper and lower limits on the picks allowed to be held by any given VHLM team, and was largely met with positive feedback. As a whole, @Spartan and I are mostly happy with the rule as originally drawn up. That said, there's one part of it that some have thought to be too restrictive, and as we consider ourselves open to your feedback, we have listened to you and we agree. We stand by the principles of the rule, and believe that most of it is just fine as is. It's become clear, though, that the original proposal of mandating teams to hold 4 picks in the first 4 rounds of the draft makes it very difficult to trade picks in general, and is perhaps an overreach when it comes to avoiding the extreme situations the rule was originally intended to prevent. Because of this, the rule now looks like this (changes in red): No team may hold more than two picks in each of the first two rounds of any VHLM draft. For example, a team may have up to two 1st-round picks and two 2nd-round picks, but no more. Each team must hold a minimum of three picks in the first four rounds of any draft. Each team must hold at least one pick in either the first or second round of any draft. Some reasoning, for anyone curious: As a reminder, this rule goes into effect as of the S87 draft. @VHLM GM

A quick one up next--this one is @Ricer13 (Ash Ketchum) vs. @Ptyrell (James)! James will lead with Aegislash--in the Sword form--using Iron Head against Ash's Arcanine. It takes two hits, but Aegislash moves on and Ash follows with Electabuzz. Using one Thunderbolt, Electabuzz gets a KO in return and James puts in Venusaur, who uses Frenzy Plant and scores the second KO of the match. But wait--Venusaur's Frenzy Plant means that James has to skip the next turn...and the Lugia that Ash has in the match is resistant to Grass! Is it possible that Ash could make things interesting?

This is going to take a while to get used to. Honest question: are the words actually going to change to "king" now or not?