Gustav

...you probably know how I feel about this one so I won't write a media spot in response. In short--there are lots of entirely inoffensive pictures posted in genchat, and I don't support punishing the many to solve the issue of a few. tbh if all that changes as a result of the "is moderation going too far" discussion is Discord becoming more moderated and the community having less freedom to do as they wish, I'll be very disappointed.

I actually don't mind your idea of specifying a league-related channel to clear that question up, but I'd suggest going the other way on the naming--leave general as is and keep it open to any topic while introducing #vhl-related-only or something (just to avoid messing with the channel most people already use). I disagree with this (especially since the thunderdome is an 18+ channel and would restrict a lot of conversation from a good chunk of the league if used entirely as you'd like), but I've given my opinion here and I don't have much else to add to it.

I can see where you're coming from and I don't completely disagree with it--I don't expect league policy to change to exactly what I want just because I talk about it a lot. That also applies to situations where a few loud idiots are being loud idiots (which probably does apply to the yam thing, whether or not you or I agree with how it's being handled). The larger point I was trying to make--and I probably could have expressed it more clearly--is that while forum moderation has improved in that it's become more consistent and transparent, Discord moderation has stayed exactly the same and has many of the same issues that much of the community expressed a while ago. You're free to apply the "few loud idiots" label to that as you wish, of course, but I question where the line is drawn between "a few loud idiots" and "the community in general sees an issue they want to change". Votes are currently pretty split, so I'd imagine different people would see this different ways. What constitutes spam, though? I've seen people be told to move out of genchat for bringing up music, movies, NHL news, food, and many other completely harmless topics that aren't hurting anyone. Sure, if someone wants to straight-up spam, as in, say, repeatedly post the yam GIF with no context to the surrounding conversation, then I can understand telling people to take it to the thunderdome. But I've also seen a lot that really isn't spam get classified as such for no good reason. Like, imagine if someone locked this thread because it was posted in the suggestion section rather than the general discussion one. I guess I'm confused as to where the difference lies between "just people hanging out" and "what people feel a general chat should be", because to me those are the same thing. Also, going back to this: Conversation when just hanging out should be spontaneous and flow freely. I'm not going to say "I'm going to respond to something Beav said by making a meme about it but let me go take it to the thunderdome", and neither is anyone else. Unless it's regulated to the extent that nobody wants to be there, people will always mess around in genchat and that will devolve into stupid running jokes/memes/whatever naturally.

I think this is something a lot of "stop complaining about moderation" arguments will twist these discussions around to, and that really isn't the point. Yes, I've complained about moderation. But do I want there to be less moderation so I can feel free to be hateful on Discord? No, because I don't open Discord to be hateful. There are rules and (in general) I don't have a problem with them. But completely inoffensive topics being arbitrarily shut down in the general channel, that's supposed to be for talking about just about anything? And regular members basically being told to shut up and comply if they dare to disagree with that? That crosses a line IMO. I'm not even going to get deep into the whole yam thing because I wasn't a part of it, but keep in mind as a general statement that the mods are supposed to represent the community. If the entire chat, apart from the mods, is against posting a GIF being a punishable offense, then posting said GIF should not be a punishable offense. When we start seeing clear differences between what we want and what the mods want, the mods are no longer representing us. Personally, I find the social situation in the league server weird as hell. I'm on good terms with just about all of the mods and don't have issues with any of them as individuals. But there are times when I feel that the team as a collective has developed a sort of "I was hired to moderate chat, therefore I need to actively moderate this chat" mindset that I don't remember being there before. We don't need to be told to change the topic of our conversation when all members of said conversation are there voluntarily, the conversation is not hateful, and it is proceeding respectfully. That hurts absolutely no one, and not rushing to get involved with something harmless does not translate to not deserving job pay. And aren't we all supposed to treat each other equally? In general, I find that I am able to see virtually all members of the community, mods included, as equals, and this has given me many positive experiences. But I've seen power trips, I've seen personal grudges, and I've seen rude responses to completely fair questions--all of which go completely unaddressed because the mod team is not held in check. The only way to hold overmoderation in check, really, is for the community to talk about it--which isn't the best because there's no enforcement attached to that. I guess I see it as an unfair power dynamic. I think a lot of what I complained about a few months ago largely pertained to some of the more significant punishments, the ones that make it to the ban thread. And to the mod team's credit, some of those issues have been addressed well. We no longer see "so-and-so has been banned because Code of Conduct and that's it". But the smaller, pettier stuff that happens on Discord never changed, and it remains perfectly valid to speak against that. One thing I don't like is that genchat is a bit cliquish and there have been times when new members have joined and been basically ignored because everyone else just keeps talking about whatever else. In that situation, I'm fine with people being told to take their convo somewhere else while the new person is welcomed. But, to use an example of something that happened to me, if I start talking about music, and nobody new joins, and nobody takes exception to it (not that anybody should), I don't need to be told I can't talk about that in genchat or that I'm getting in the way of other people (who aren't attempting to talk about anything else). And if I ask why, I don't need to be told that I should just shut up and do it. That's the kind of thing I don't appreciate. So yeah, I'm sure there will be some agreement/disagreement here, but that's fine. I believe in anyone's right to express an opinion, even if your opinion is that you hate my opinion.

I've been in the VHL since S65, and I haven't won a championship yet. Which I'm totally not going to be weird about. No, why would I ever do that? I won two in the EFL, one with each of my players, and unless Seattle wins it all this season, I will have gone 0 for 2 here. But 0 for 2 doesn't tell the whole story, though. How likely is it that I would have gotten to this point? -The VHLM had 8 teams in S65 and 12 teams in both S73 and S74, the seasons I was a part of it upon recreating. -The VHL had 10 teams from S66-67, 12 teams from S68-72, and its current 16 teams from S73 onward. I played in the VHL every season other than S74, when Taro was in the minors. Just based on sheer dumb luck, I would have a 1 in 10 chance of winning a championship in S66, and a 1 in 12 chance in S68, and so on. What happens if I put all of these together? (7/8) * (9/10) * (11/12)^7 * (15/16)^8 = 0.256 This means that there is only about a 25% chance that I would have gone my entire VHL career up to this point without winning one--and that doesn't factor in things like highly active players like Taro almost always ending up on better VHLM teams, or the two seasons where Garcia played for Malmo while I GMed Davos (which I chose not to double-count because I took over with Davos in the toilet). Of course, a 25% chance that I would end up where I would be today doesn't prove anything numbers-wise, but until proven otherwise by a championship win I shall believe that this is a conspiracy against me.

Then I hope this is true. I said what I did based on the general perceptions I’ve seen about locker rooms in the E—I remember a few months ago, I saw one member saying that they were their team’s only active player, and another saying that their team server had zero messages for over the past month. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Maybe that’s changed, and it’s a great thing if it has! But I can’t be expected to act like I think everything is going great when the vast majority of what I have heard about VHLE Discords has been negative. To clarify, this isn’t an attack on the GMs—I think it’s more a function of the way the league works. If a team is made up of either semi-actives or people who consider it their one-season stepping stone to the VHL, with no constant stream of new players…yeah, it’s going to be less active. That’s how I’d expect it to work. I find this hilarious because saying that I’ve never called out a VHL GM for anything ignores, like…half of what I’ve posted (and a good deal of what’s happened in BoG) for the past few weeks. In fact, I say IN THIS VERY THREAD that VHL GMs could do better in the retention of their own players. As could VHLE GMs, and as could VHLM GMs. A GM at any level should highly value retention, and be dealt with if they don’t (which, again, you would know perfectly well was my opinion if you read through anything I’ve had to say on the topic behind the scenes). I apologize if this sounds harsh, but the VHLE as a system is not immune from criticism and I believe the greater context of my post was misinterpreted as an attack on VHLE GMs. To anyone thinking that’s what I’m trying to say—please re-read it and consider that it is not.

not like that's never been tried before Pay people to do your tasks for you and send them to you as Word documents or something; all you have to do is copy and paste from that point and you keep full access to each multi

Try outsourcing your multis to other members. We have lots of bored people here willing to do you a favor. As a bonus, league administration will have a meltdown figuring out whose multi it really is when 20 different members have access to the same account.

I think this kind of ties into what @thadthrasher said recently about a lack of communication between GMs in different leagues. VHL GMs should be telling you when they plan to call someone up, just the same as you should be asking them if you're uncertain of your players' status. That part is certainly a two-way street, and from what I've heard there's room for improvement both ways. I'm curious what you think about this--if proper communication were established, would you have many remaining issues with the system? I get the impression that most of what you don't like stems from that.

Week 3

I hate the VHLE with a burning passion and agree that it's awful for retention (as well as being a big contributor to recent number inflation...that's not entirely meta) but whenever I say so someone tells me I'm "uninformed" or "just want to complain" or something even though I helped create the damn thing and I like to think I'm pretty informed about it What? Did someone hear something? VHLE complaints aside, I think we spend WAY too much time trying to figure out the millionth different way to get in a new member's face right out of the gate--and then as soon as that new member leaves the VHLM, we forget about them because they no longer matter. We have pretty darn good VHLM retention already--sure, it can be worked on, and there's nothing wrong with coming up with more ideas for it, but when someone says "retention" we all immediately assume we're talking about VHLM retention, when people on all levels should focus on keeping their players interested and involved. Part of the reason why the E sucks so much is that players move up from the VHLM, enter a mostly-inactive team, find no one to talk to, and become inactive themselves. And since, well, forever, VHL locker rooms have generally been less active than VHLM ones (there's nothing that can be done to completely eliminate this because a steady stream of new creates will speak more often and ask more questions than a handful of people who have been on the team forever). But there also aren't retention efforts in the higher leagues. No one ever cared how well I was retaining my players in the VHL, because if someone went inactive it was just seen as my problem. But I also saw so many people being called out in VHLM GM chat in my time there over the most minor things--supposedly not being active enough, running lines in a way another GM didn't like, signing players before another GM got a chance to offer (like you're supposed to just hand the player over?)--that I'd say the VHLM is practically overloaded with the "you must retain players and do literally nothing else" mindset. I think it's a mistake to try to mandate retention. And I believe that to enough of an extent that I've been against some VHLM efforts to do so. The single greatest contributor to retention, on any level, is just having people who care. No, VHLE GMs shouldn't be screamed at for having inactive locker rooms. But it would be nice if a VHLE GM did all they could to check in daily, even if it's only with one or two people, and make an effort to be there for their players (if you're doing this already, thank you). VHL GMs should be doing the same. My VHLM locker room was seen as one of the best servers in the league when I was there, but I'm nothing special. I'm in my fourth year of college and I only have a few people I'm friends with, who I've hung out with only a few times. I'm hardly Mr. Social, and I'd bet most people in this league have a better understanding of how to make conversation than I do. But (though I don't take full credit for it) I tried to be there and I tried to talk to everyone every day, even when I didn't feel like it. I stopped doing this as much in my last few Davos seasons, and the server got less active with me. I don't think I was singlehandedly driving Discord activity for entire teams at any point, but too many people underestimate the impact of a GM who actually cares about the people they're GMing. That will ALWAYS be the primary factor in retention and activity on any team. The hard thing about that is that it's impossible to make an issue of policy. Activity, or a lack thereof, and the extent to which said lack thereof is a GM's fault, is entirely subjective. I think GMs should just take responsibility for and be mindful of their own actions and efforts to keep a team active, attempt to improve, and know when to walk away when things aren't working out. This isn't something that can be enforced, but it can certainly be considered, and I hope it is.

Just a general reminder that member bashing WILL be tolerated in this thread.

Can confirm it’s not allowed in the sim engine. But yeah, teams can name their goalers captains all they want on the forum.

I know it's not awful, but I got to a fairly good point last time I tried graphics consistently and I'm just a bit disappointed to open up Imgur and have to post this one directly after things like (not that these are perfect either, but): I'm only putting this in for 2 because I need 2 more and don't feel like reviewing though.

My first in a long time and it shows...I'm going to keep the Davos one because this is that bad. It's only for 2, though, so I didn't concern myself too much with trying to make it work.

VHL boomers be like

Disagree. The person being harassed has a right to their own privacy. We do have the right as a community to know where the line is/what's cool and what isn't/what happened in general though. I think it's decently well explained in this thread (though the announcement should have been more clear about that part rather than just sneaking it in at the end).

That's true, and thank you for doing that. I just feel like if that was the main reason, the ban thread should say that instead of spending most of the announcement talking about shitposting in genchat.

I will say that the post was written very confusingly if harassment is what started the conversation (and presumably was the main contributor to the punishment). I didn't even really realize that until I asked in this thread because I opened up the initial announcement to read a giant list of minor rule-breaking on Discord. I also get why someone might think everything possible was dug up to pull it off--I've posted memes in genchat before and I never once expected to see it in the ban thread. Whether it was done to smear Hogan or not, and whether or not it was necessary, someone clearly sat down and thought of every single thing he's ever done on Discord for further justification when apparently there was a primary issue and that might not be clear to everyone. I don't know the details of the harassment case(s), won't comment on them, and don't think I can have a fair opinion of this punishment because of it. So I'm not writing this to protest it, but I do take some exception to the way it was reported.

I haven't really been on today--was Hogan banned for something specific recently or just a general accumulation of things?

Damn push notifications screwing things up already smh

Great! Kovalchuk obviously makes sense, as does Torq. I don't think Wilson is our long-term solution in net, but we could use a decent backup and we have a good player for the pick we used. Also, any team that passed on a pick before we got Thode should be ashamed of their scouting. First time I've ever scored 50 goals! I'm somewhat disappointed that I couldn't get myself in the running for any awards after MVP in S80, but there were parts of the season where I was unstoppable and I look forward to it if Seattle can help me produce consistently. Ew. I think you know how much I just LOVE the meta! Fire @Beaviss I hope number inflation isn't as present this season as it was last season. Regardless, I'd like to break 100 points (and if I don't break 90 I'll be disappointed). I'm expecting hits to drop off somewhat because Seattle is a more physical team in general, so my player won't get favored specifically in that regard--which is why I didn't pick myself in fantasy--but it would be cool to at least get on a HoF ballot and this last season might be make-or-break for that. I'm told that if I tell the police about it I'm going to end up at the bottom of Puget Sound.

And that's a wrap! We finished this one speedy fast. @Spartan

Also @CowboyinAmerica nobody else needs a forward so feel free to make your pick at any time!