Gustav

I don't know if I posted in here yet, but we'll see.

Gustav

$22 for a nice helping of ketchup, ranch, orange slices, and toothpaste.

Yeet

You'll see at some point in the future why this is a bad thing

Yes. I don't personally care about my VHLM stats. I couldn't tell you how I did in the VHLM with my player. It's important to add to that that I feel exactly the same way about the VHLE--playing there wouldn't make me any more interested. But that's beside the point. I'm against it for the reason stated above, as well as because that doesn't necessarily solve any issues. The main issue with ice time would be largely solved in my portal idea (imo), and in many cases, it doesn't actually do anything. Especially if the portal thing were adapted, rosters would be more spread out, and on a lot of teams, there wouldn't even be a third or fourth line to throw a recreate on. Again, the problem is not recreates existing--the problem is the system. There is a way to do it that doesn't involve anyone's ice time being stepped on and doesn't isolate newer people from the rest of the league...so let's do that! Also: Don't you think separating newer people more just makes this problem worse? You're not the only one with this experience, by the way. S65's Houston team was very well-known for a very new, very active roster, and I loved it, but I was the only one to make it even a couple seasons after S65 ended because we were all so used to only seeing each other. My GM was the ONLY experienced member I knew for most of the season, and I was super active. Many were hyped to get drafted but had no idea what to do after that point. I saw this as a GM, too--players I had who loved Mississauga disappeared after moving out, because we'd given them a very good TEAM experience, but they hadn't necessarily given themselves a very good LEAGUE one. Removing a good portion of the potential mentorship and higher-up connection from the VHLM will do nothing but make us see this more. I agree with your point that big-league GMs and other members not necessarily affiliated with the teams should be more present in general, but what reason is there to believe that they would be if the VHLE became the recreate league? If anything, that would give these people less of a reason to be around. One big thing I think isn't done well on the part of many VHLM GMs--and I recognize that this is all personal preference--is some sort of perceived need to keep everything in a team-only channel. I HATE TEAM-ONLY CHANNELS (especially in the VHLM). Davos only has one that I'd rather not have, but I know some enjoy, and I didn't even have one in Mississauga (the only private channel was an alumni-specific one that nobody used). Because of that, in my time in the minors, chat popped off every day. It brought in active people from other places, not because they felt they had to be there, but because they wanted to have fun with us and be a part of our fun little community. If I decided to stick the team in a bubble, and speak to them and only them directly a majority of the time, I can guarantee that never would have happened to as much of an extent. And even still, some dropped off, because there's not much that can be done at a certain point. I understand what you're saying, but I'm mostly just against this from an ideological standpoint. The fact that the E league was created as a necessary evil to get rid of roster space issues and we're already coming up with ways to double its size (at the expense of the M) and make it permanent is worrying. It's as if everyone is happy to pretend the negatives don't exist just because the change was presented publicly in a positive light. I'm strongly in favor of the 300 TPE soft cap, though. Teams can keep players down if absolutely needed for roster space, but there's no reason why a high-earning 1st-round pick needs to be told they have to stay down another season. That's not who the change was ever meant to address--that and it makes the "it's way harder for the average member to make it up" truth less evident.

I missed the recreate part, admittedly. I thought you were saying that ALL recreates immediately go into the VHLE. So I can't disagree as strongly as I did, but I still disagree with it for many of the same reasons. From the start of the season up to the deadline, the VHLM would be almost entirely new people, correct? I'd say that I can apply my earlier opinion up to that point. By the time recreates make it into the minors, most of the season has passed. And for most people, things have either gone very well or very poorly. Again, I know Philly is constantly brought up as an example of a place where this has gone well (and I'd guess that from your own experience and opinion that Miami was that for you too). Yes, the GM should be immensely helpful to the players--but the GM is only one connection with the rest of the league, when many exist and there are many positive experiences with more established people, and a much greater sense of belonging, that can be had with a little bit of integration. I know you're saying that this happens eventually, but the truth is that it isn't eventual belonging that keeps people around. It's immediate belonging. I was a VHLM GM myself (and generally recognized as a pretty solid one) for a bit, and I can tell you that there are a lot of impatient new people. If you don't get them in the community, feeling like they have a valuable place in it, right away, they're never going anywhere. Expecting someone to feel accepted based on one or two connections with people who have been around any longer simply isn't realistic, even if more can be made after a month or so. And yes, these things can happen with solid forum activity or joining the league server (which isn't for everyone), but that makes the mistake of assuming new people will just find a place in the community on their own. As an experienced member, you have to bring the community to them. It isn't a "build it and they will come" situation. To address concerns about ice time, which I understand I haven't yet...remember last season when some teams were packed and others barely had any players? There's plenty of ice time to be had; it just isn't being used correctly. This means that recreates aren't even the problem--the system is! To fix that, take a look at the last section of this article if you've never read it or you've forgotten about it since I wrote it. Give players the chance to decide what they want from every team, right away! With no waiver signing in a situation they didn't want to be in, everyone is happy. I'm almost convinced that the league is trained to hyperfixate on non-issues like "new members versus experienced members" so we don't try to do anything actually meaningful. We're all people!

First off, I want to say that I think it's cool that you're bringing up an opinion that hasn't really been heard much--don't ever be afraid to do that! Second, I dislike everything about this, and here's why (no offense). I've written up (and plan to write) walls of text elsewhere on how much I hate the VHLE in general, and how it's already being treated completely differently from what it was intended to be, but I'll keep that opinion out of this as much as possible because it's not super relevant. We strive to be an inclusive community, right? In most senses of the word, in that context, you'd agree with me when I say that what that generally means is that we stand against racism, sexism, homophobia, all that bullshit that targets people who don't deserve it. Let's extend the definition a bit farther. No, I'm not saying that your idea is racist, sexist, homophobic, or even discriminatory--that would be ridiculous. It's not. But what happens to someone completely new who joins the community and gets herded off into a place that's entirely made up of other completely new people? You can argue that the new people band together, figure things out on their own, and help each other grow. That's happened many times before in the VHLM, some very recently. Keep in mind, though, that that's the ideal situation, and that the argument for it depends on the assumption that every situation will be an ideal one. Often, things fall apart--with everyone being new, everyone is also clueless (and believe me, I've been in enough classes where I, and everyone I knew, was clueless to know that that isn't fun). You can imagine how things go at that point. Completely separate from that, and going back to the point I made about inclusivity: why is it ever a good idea to divide the member base over experience, especially when the people most affected by that division are new? We say we want to include everyone in our community, so why would we stick new people in a place where they're cut off from the rest of the community until they can prove they're good enough? That's some frat-house-ritual-type stuff right there. It's a valid point that the new people would see more ice time, but at some point someone is going to ask themselves, "why can't I play in the VHLE and learn from people who know what they're doing? I'm active (and probably have more TPE than many recreates if I'm active enough)!" There's no real answer to that, no real way to say that the VHLM is working to this type of person's benefit--and, even worse, it's a major turnoff for the most active first-gens in particular, who are really into the league and want to make it up as fast as they can. Of course, you as a first-gen yourself don't make this suggestion to say that you want first-gens to feel isolated from the rest of the community--but that's going to happen here, and I'm sure we'll see many new solid earners just like you suggesting that we just mix everyone together because they feel isolated. Point being: we cannot in good conscience claim to be inclusive if our system does not include in the community as a whole those who need it most. I hope that makes sense, and I still appreciate that you brought this up! Just my own opinion on the topic.

Last week, I asked something in the Davos press conference--namely, something along the lines of "I have a test this coming week. Guess what I'll get and the closest gets an article about them." Update: So, closest to the correct answer was @Darth Kaprizov! Which is pretty cool, because here we've got us a cool player and a cool member who may not be super well-known on a leaguewide scale. Originally drafted 34th overall by Calgary, Kaprizov came to Davos in this trade later on in the same season, when we got rid of one of the last "older" pieces of the team and the last mainstay in my first competitive cycle in Tyler Walker. Though I was flamed a bit for the deal in the thread, I was happy with it--the most I could hope to get from Walker was a 1st and a 3rd or so, especially given some slight earning inconsistencies on his part and a terrible trade market. It's possible that some of the negativity came from Kaprizov not being super well-known, too, but a good look at the old earning history now and at the time of the deal shows some 6-point tasks (and, if I remember correctly, an earn rate of around 10 capped per week at the time). Right away, I knew that I had made the right decision--the member attached to the player turned out to be civilized, respectful, and approachable, something not always present. We could speak casually or more businesslike; it made no difference. Choosing to stay down last season may have put Kaprizov's name in the history books, albeit unnoticeably, as the pride of the S78 deal ended up being the first player ever drafted into the VHLE. After a 117-point minor-league effort in S79, the 89 points recorded last season may have been perceived as somewhat underwhelming, but certainly a fine showing nonetheless for Davos' best prospect. And finally, this season, the deal finally began to pay off in full with Kaprizov's ascension into the big league. With 26 points in 31 games (including a hat trick in the last sim), things are starting to shape up, and it appears that we've got a solid contributor who was worth the price! I'd love to see what's to come in the future.

P R E A C H This might be an unpopular opinion to some, but I fully agree. You'll see why getting rid of it isn't realistic at the moment soon enough (spoiler alert!) but you'll also see the issue I have with that.

I don't really remember what my specific problem is, but something I'm well aware I do wrong in general is just read over a thing once, assume I get it, and move on. I just remember having a good chunk of the book read and being like "what the hell is going on" every time a new name or word was introduced.

I read the first one maybe 4-5 years ago and found it a bit hard to understand--did you have that experience or was I just not paying attention to it? It's something I want to like because a lot of people I know really love and respect it but the one time I looked at it I didn't really get it.

For sure--but it was part of the discussion in the thread so I'd call it relevant. I have no issue with the stated purpose of it, just that as someone who's run my own server with no issues that I'm aware of for...two and a half years, and always given mod perms to commissioners, it kind of feels like a slap in the face (even though I'm well aware that it's not intended to be). I guess I've already said that though so I think I've said what I needed to say about it.

I just picked 1-10 because that's just what made sense--the "no median" thing didn't even occur to me. I agree that the 1-9 one was a bit needlessly confusing, and ironically in that case I wanted a response that was "just right" as for the others, presumably, a higher score meant doing better and there was no real single "middle ground" option. I did end up rejecting both 1s for that question--one of them because I'm 99% sure someone just read it wrong, and the other because it was part of the one anonymous response I got that was just 1 for everything with no explanation (I rejected the whole thing, including this question, but that's probably also a case of reading it wrong).

Yeah, but I know how to zoom in and out with the keys and one way was too big and the other was too small. Maybe I managed to scroll a bit, I don't know. This is why I don't do computers.

Zoomer

THIS WORKED! Thank you, that was easier than I thought. No idea what I did to change it but we are back in business.

One? lmao We're past this, but there was a brief period of time where it would be completely wiped every month or so for no reason.

Hi! I have a boomer question. At some point today, everyone's profile pictures on the forum started appearing smaller to me. So did the like button, and so did the edit bar at the top of my text box (the bold/italic/underline buttons and such). Sigs are smaller too! Nobody else saw this happen with their accounts, so I'm assuming it's a me thing. I have a very vague idea as to how this might have happened, but I don't actually know and I'd like to get things back the way they were if possible. First: I'm on Mac and I apologize for that. Second: I did a lot of pasting as plain text (command-option-shift-v on Mac) for my article today. Along the way, I know I hit a few wrong buttons. At one point, I mashed command-option-shift-n because I'm an idiot, and that didn't seem to do anything. I also hit command-option-shift-+ at one point, which made all my text bigger (I figured out that command-option-shift-minus reverses this). It was about this time that things went small. I don't know if it was exactly at this time, but it may have been. Could the zooming thing have messed something up? Is there some command-option-shift shortcut I don't know about that I pressed by accident? Or is the forum just messing with me? This is probably a stupid question, but the weird sizes are messing with me and I'd rather not have them keep messing with me.

I put up the article connected to last week's mod survey today! If you haven't read it yet, go check it out. Here are a few of my general thoughts about it: -I think I've cooled off a bit from when I originally posted the survey. At first, I thought I was going to end up disagreeing with a ton of people in the comments and spend all day writing up walls of text in response to super minor points (yes, I know I'm guilty of this). But instead of writing the article and preparing for a debate, I was mostly just happy with getting opinions out there objectively and letting them be interpreted. -I learned a lot about what a lot of people think, and I appreciated hearing and considering things I don't necessarily agree with. I hope everyone who read it, regardless of what they think, was able to do the same. -I appreciated connecting a bit with @Vice today, someone I've generally seen as a decently nice person but who I've rarely (if even ever) spoken with directly. I got some tips for survey-making I'll try to put into use if I ever do something similar in the future. -Most of my recent issues with moderation have to do with the enforcement of the Code of Conduct rather than the Code of Conduct itself. Maybe we have people who are complaining that there's a Code of Conduct? I don't know, I didn't notice that in the responses at all. The sense that there are was present in a few responses, so I do worry that my point wasn't communicated clearly--I'm for a Code of Conduct and I think ours is good. I just don't think simply stating "Code of Conduct" is a valid substitute for an explanation, nor do I think anyone (mod or non-mod) should be trying to figure out ways anything and everything could be against the rules because of it. -The discussion that followed about staff ownership of locker rooms still kind of gets to me. Whether or not the implication is that I can't be trusted to not let my team spout off offensive shit (I'm fully aware that it isn't), I still find it very hard not to feel like that happening would be a punishment I don't deserve. -There's also a bit of a loophole to the above--we're free to make unaffiliated servers. We're also not required to have a Discord locker room (many might not remember this, but 10-ish seasons ago Toronto briefly killed theirs and went to the forum). I could hypothetically just make a Discord server, invite everyone on my team, and call it "Gustav's server" or something. There's nothing anyone can do to stop me from doing that--it's not an affiliated server and I will never claim that it is. If, hypothetically, someone tried to force me to hand over Davos...my response might be "well, there's no Davos Discord, but if you'd like to play for us I'd be happy to invite you to Gustav's server." -The time has been served, but #FreeHogan. Most responses--even most of those that didn't have many issues otherwise--agreed that that one was stupid.

And I get that. Let's say the mayor of your town knocks on your door one day and tells you that your car is now owned by the town. You still get to drive it, you still get to keep the keys, you still get to park it in front of your house and keep it on your property. They're just there to make sure your insurance is up to date and that you stay under the speed limit. These were rules you always had to follow in the past (at your own risk), but others like you weren't following them enough so they've taken ownership to monitor the problem more efficiently. You've never had problems with these things in the past, and don't intend to start having them in the future. You have nothing to worry about if you don't. It's just that other people are breaking those rules. ...that's weird, isn't it?

I suppose I shouldn't have made the implication that it isn't a problem in other places. It just annoys me that problems elsewhere might cause some mandatory policy change in my own server when my own server isn't part of the issue. Feels like a punishment for something I didn't do.

From my own perspective--I'm not mad that we have a Code of Conduct at all. In fact, I think it's a good thing. The issues I've brought up lately (and which some responses seem to echo) have to do with my own perception of how it's been enforced. For example: punishing someone and just giving "Code of Conduct" as a reason is (in my own opinion) not very professional/transparent/whatever. Sometimes this gets misconstrued as "oh, well people are just mad that we have a Code of Conduct". I'm not! I just don't see "because rules" as a valid explanation, nor do I enjoy it when people start analyzing everything everyone says and judging whether it conforms with the rules. Also, re: staff ownership of locker rooms: I agree that locker rooms are an extension of the league and are subject to the rules. But, let me ask you this--you (and the other commissioners) have mod powers in my server. You always have. Any commish can see whatever they want at any time. Why should I be forced to invite the entire mod team, or even worse, transfer ownership of the server, when no violations happen there and there are staff members with the ability to moderate? Hell, let's not act like I don't know the rules and I'm not capable of rational thought--I've told some people not to say some things before. In my case, the only reason why that would ever happen is that the league wants to assert its power over me and my team unnecessarily. We aren't a problem--so why treat us like we are? I'd imagine most (if not all) team servers are the same way.

While I don't personally agree with much of what you said, I appreciated your perspective! I hope what you said makes sense to other people and vice versa.