Spartan

For full clarity, my jobs are VHL GM, VHLM Commissioner, Updater and Financier. I used to have VHFL and WC Commissioner until I got M Commish and decided to get some things off my plate so that I wasn't overwhelmed with things. Realistically though, I only feel like I have two jobs as a GM and Commish. Those are really the only two positions where I log in to the league and feel that there are some responsibilities I need to take care of. Updater is fairly more lowkey since I can just do it for an hour a week and clear quite a few, and financier is really just adjusting salaries after depreciation and then approving trades every so often. In terms of your points about holding jobs, I think people should just recognize their own time commitment to the VHL and decide if they'd like a specific job or not. There's a weird aura around jobs, that people feel they need to have them. I enjoy being a GM to scratch my sports management itch, and being a commissioner gives me the ability to assist with back-end things like opening training camp, setting draft boards, a lot of admin things that take some work off the Blues plates. But I also joined during the COVID pandemic and was able to give a lot of time to the league when I started, which allowed me to become a M GM within a season of joining. I highly doubt I'd have gone at that pace if I joined the league today. I refuse to hold any jobs in any other league for similar reasons, I simply can't hit an activity level that I feel is sufficient. If people are able to earn 8, 10, 12 TPE a week just from doing tasks in 30 minutes a week, that should be more than fine.

1. I certainly think he could do it, he's been playing really well for us recently. I think we're also playing some of the bottom 2 teams in the EU a decent number of times to end the season so it could be close! 2. The standard in the VHL is always to be the best team, and that's certainly within our sights as well. We're in 3rd place now, just a point behind Warsaw and just 7 points behind Calgary with 2 games in hand. It'd certainly be nice to have home ice advantage through the playoffs. 3. I enjoyed the hype of watching the USA vs England game for about the first 30 minutes, but it was a bit of a snoozefest after a bit. Disappointing, and I haven't really watched many other games either. 4. I'd honestly like to play volleyball or badminton. Both are two of my go-to fun/casual sports to play with friends and I think it'd be really fun at a pro level. 5. Fanta is probably my top option, followed closely by Dr Pepper. Stewart's Orange Cream Soda though has to round out the top three there. 6. I had a few morbid ones at first but I'll go with James Harrison's pick six in the Super Bowl against the Cards. I bet the stadium was absolutely electric for the longest pick six in Super Bowl history.

One of my stretch goals as M Commissioner is to make the M GM's lives easier, which we've tried to do by increasing their pay and changing up the waiver system. We're still working on ways to improve it to help reduce burnout and maybe even make it more of an appealing role for veteran members who would just like to help new members without the stress of forum pitches. We have seen a bit of renewed interest from some veterans in regards to positions in the future, so as long as we do continue to have interest, I doubt we even consider any avenue involving mentors/paid assistants.

The issue with job pay splitting has always been the ability to abuse the system and feed TPE to friends or players on the team. When we still have plenty of candidates willing to do the M GM job after increasing the pay and removing some of the time sink components in regards to waivers, there's no reason that we should be paying other people to do the M GM's job. I still think that an AGM holds their role for the learning experience and to show their ability to hold a GM position in the future. If people feel like volunteering a little bit of time to serve as a teams unofficial mentor/guide, they're still free to do that.

But what happens with new candidates, as Tate seems to be?

IIRC there were no interviews sent out in general. I don't think there have been interviews used for a period of time. Also I disagree that the line was that long, in fact I think that every qualified candidate at the time he was hired has already received a VHL GM gig. IR, Kaleeb, Thad, Moon, N0H, maybe even Acyd(?) have all been on the wait list recently and have gotten their turn. None of them seemingly went IA after Frank got the position. I genuinely do think the hires have been a lot better recently. And I'd still request that these sorts of concerns get reported using the incident form that we're trying to make more folks aware of. They obviously can't sit on their own conduct reviews so it's your best shot at oversight. Something else I've sort of learned since I joined BoG and some staff roles is that moderation can be influenced by the BoG if there are valid arguments and decisions made to shape the direction of moderation. Otherwise the mod team as a whole is given leeway to do what they feel is appropriate with the Blues signing off as needed. I wouldn't really put any agenda on a single mod, but if you've got a concern about specific moderation policies, I think sending a BoG member a formal writeup for discussion would be the best way to go about it. You get more non-mods with a platform discussing your points.

It is admittedly easier to push back on things when you're not the one being accused

If you could provide those please, we could always have some internal discussions to fix/tweak hiring processes. We've changed them over the years as public feedback asks for different hiring processes and transparency, but I would need more specifics here since none of the examples provided yet really fit the "toxic" aspect. Or even the retention portion with Frank considering he was a phenomenal M GM and has proven himself to be the right hire with his GMotY award.

But there are no examples that are relevant. If your only potential examples are from the past and not the present, clearly current hiring processes aren't making the same mistakes. You can't just tell the world that we've got toxic people in jobs and then not support it at all. I gave you the option to inform me in DMs because obviously I don't intend to put people on blast. As someone who hires others, I think it'd be appropriate to be informed if we're hiring presumably poor candidates.

Just to clarify, this is what I asked about. Which toxic members are getting rewarded with positions? In response I got a piece about Frank being a wonderful person but seemingly getting hired before others. Frank is absolutely not a toxic member. We have had plenty of questionable hires in the past but going after Frank's is probably one of the softest ones. Then you went after the mods again which I'm still not seeing anything that paints them as toxic. You're free to think that not wanting to listen to a podcast critiquing them is toxic, but then go after every commissioner ever who has asked for podcasts to be transcribed or summarized if they were given feedback or ideas for changes. It's quite easy to read media spots of critique - they're quick to get through and can be paused and rescued easily. I absolutely would not listen to podcasts unless they were relatively short or had timestamps, and if I even cared about the person recording. Otherwise I too would ask for a summary. Fishy isn't even a mod now, being toxic is a perk. Mod jokes aside, if you feel anyone is harassing or bullying you, we have reporting avenues for someone else to review the case. As someone who only uses "read new content," I don't ever see status updates so I would never have known about that unless I was told. So no one who is being toxic is getting hired for league jobs. That was the main component of your piece that I wanted more details about and I just don't see any evidence to support it. We've discussed this a bit in private as well so you know my stance regarding your second point about the current mods. To me, not reaching out to console you is not toxic but we'll disagree there. So yeah, I think mistakes can be made during hiring (see banned M GMs) but going after fast-tracked GMs and former moderators and how they behave after leaving the staff doesn't prove that point.

We have had this discussion with M GMs before as it was a BoG topic, and the general consensus was that teams could appoint their own informal mentors if they'd like. We don't quite have the league-wide resources or even agreement within the BoG of what the program would like like considering how many toes it would step on - ex. Recruitment, VHLM GM, JST.

Curious as to who these are, DM me?

My throat and voice are fucked so don't listen to this

I've thought about that as well tbh. Maybe switching teams, doesn't just have to be NA. Plenty of teams out there with cup droughts, but I can't see myself leaving Moscow to GM another team if I don't have a cup lol. Would make no sense to leave a team on a cup drought for another team with a cup drought. Might as well just stay in Moscow where the culture and future is how I like it.

Anyone in Moscow can probably infer the "reference" here, but for the unaware, I've basically been spamming the emoji daily. There's a multitude of reasons behind this, so let's get into them! 1. I am currently extremely sleep deprived. 3 hours of sleep max per night this entire week. Basically turned back to energy drinks which I'd done a fairly good job at avoiding since college since I either couldn't get comfortable in my hotel room, or some fuckwad neighbor made it his personal mission to walk around in boots. While I feel like I've been functioning fine so far, I would just like to have proper sleep. 2. More generally since I've been spamming since the off-season, I'm not in a slump as a league user, but I feel a bit of a slump as a VHL GM. I've privately flirted with the possibility of temporarily stepping down from Moscow to go be an M/G GM to just take a break, but it's not much of an option anymore as an M Commish. Plus I would think if I stepped away from Moscow for any period of time, the job would rightfully be Brandon's to keep. The slump is mainly due to 1. Finals win rate and 2. Perceived ease of getting to said finals. It's pretty stupid to say considering I haven't won anything and awfully cocky, but GM'ing in the VHL just doesn't feel challenging right now. From S80 - S85, we've fielded a roster that has yet to either not make the finals or not finish at the top of the regular season standings. In S86, we seem to be on a decent pace to at least challenge for the top seed in the EU. NA is such a shitshow that CGY is running away with the points lead. Either way, it's a 7th straight season of dodging a rebuilding season and with 2 1st round picks in the next draft and plenty of future assets, it doesn't seem likely to change anytime soon. Overall, I do feel like I'm just sleepwalking through sim leagues across the board. Perhaps it's just a seasonal thing being winter and getting tired at like 2 PM when the sun decides to abandon us. Maybe it's because the auto-12 from random jobs every week has made me too comfortable. I'm happy the Moscow LR is fairly self-sustaining to not need my hyperactivity to stay engaged. Glad Voss and AK are co-existing as elite defensemen. Papa needs 21 more wins to tie the franchise wins record. Good night.

$20 per question right?

Thank you @Frank for the chats and the good times on VAN. I hope the swap can get both teams back on track. @Bulduray_1, I'm sorry it worked out like this, its the worst part of the job. I have full faith that you will succeed in Vancouver and I hope you can get them back on track. Thank you for being a fantastic player and person.

Only unsustainable if you don't believe in your ability to sustain it . Tear it up in Miami!

Perhaps the OP is updated I'd like a cookie please

Probably the best media I've read this month, good shit lmao

I don't think any are as extreme as checking since you only have so many opportunities to hit a player. Scoring sometimes can be a tricky one depending on attributes, but just thinking back to Moscow from S80-84, I've seen elite forwards play well together. Godlander and Kotkakoivu on PRG this season are also doing well together. I think there are a lot of factors at play as to who will "lead" a team in any one category, but generally you'll find the people who have the most TPE invested into certain attributes will find themselves performing better in those aspects than those with less invested.

Congrats

So looking at CGY's lines, AirRig plays with Phil Strasmore, who is even more physical than AirRig. You can see the same issue with Max Torq over in Malmo (and I've chatted with @Steve about this as well in his case), where when a physical defenseman plays with another more physical defenseman, there are simply less hits to go around. Add in that you likely play a large amount of minutes with Daniel Janser who leads CGY in hits, there just aren't chances for you to hit someone. By the time your team doesn't have possession anymore, either Janser or Strasmore has already gone to lay the body on them.

Ok Cam Newton