bigAL

DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM? I WANT TO TALK TO YOUR MANAGER!!!! G - Artem Tretiak

Last picks, nicely done team! F - Jivere Zolnek G - Rara Rasputin @Enorama

That’s amazing dude. It feels even better when you’ve gone through hell to get there. I love the life updates, your journey past, present, and future is always so interesting. People are deep and complex and more than just profile pics!

Hmm, you only seem to be excellent in even numbered seasons.....

It’s one standard, single spaced page of writing the MLA rule is each page is 250 words double spaced, so if a professor assigns a 2000 word essay, they really just mean a 8 page paper. They don’t want to count words like we do…

Ahma picked him and then immediately edited it and changed his pick lucky you Tina

How are your players always so damn good???

I like this a lot.

Yo @LumberChuck you could make a killing producing podcasts. Lots of people have the voices and ideas, but I struggle so much with turning the raw bits into an actual publishable audio file. I’ve been looking for a producer for some time, it’s a great chance to learn a new skill, but audio engineering is hard.

1. S81 baby! Nagy AL is going to lead the league in hits and (defenceman) goals. You just watch. 2. Bold move with the 5th overall pick. I’m glad it paid off, you did your homework more than me. I’m pumped to be here. Minion’s a great GM, Jardy is absolutely Jardy, @Timmy Turneris a chess god, @SpicyGecko is my euro boi, and now I’ll get to meet everyone else! 3. I, uh, am already at the VHLM cap and now will continue to bank like I have for the past five seasons. Rip. 4. My advice: find things that make this place fun. If it’s not fun to do point tasks, you won’t. I came here initially because I really missed writing. I was a few years out of uni, not working in museum research anymore, back to the grind of classroom teaching, and there’s just not much of an outlet for creative or informative writing in the real world. I did some “30 Thoughts” style writing for my fantasy hockey leagues, and when I saw the VHL, I knew that skill would be used a lot here. My writing has gotten so good again, by doing epic media spots every few weeks. Sometimes I even write not for TPE! The other thing I learned to enjoy was podcasting. I did one radio ad campaign way back in the day and fell in love with it. My mom says I have a face for radio. I would have wanted to podcast, but wouldn’t have had anything to talk about before the VHL. I haven’t recorded in many months, but doing podcasts with fishy & thad, or for the WJC, are some of my fondest memories here. Have fun with point tasks, or you’ll burn out and leave. 5. Bold assumption I am a real human. I very recently got into running. I used to just run on the treadmill because it was the only time I’d watch TV. This August, my new roommate in Hungary got me to come run outside with him. I joined a Saturday morning running club, and made my best friends here through a shared enjoyment of running. In September, I ran for 10km for the first time in my life. Literally today, I ran 22km (a half marathon distance). That’s insane. I’m so proud of how far I’ve come, and that runners high has gotten me through some dark spots already this year. I love to hike and climb mountains, so next summers adventure will be starting to do trail running. 6. DC Dragons and it’s not even close.

D - Battre Sandstrom D - Hard Markinson @Enorama

Lucky you guys, I won’t hit the 200 mark til this week’s updates get approved. I wasn’t eligible for the E draft on the portal, so, woooooo go 21st!

Done.

Done.

What day and time do you normally record?

Sweet, it’s just 1000 words. Claim 2/2. Thanks for the feedback everyone. I find organizational structure and administration fascinating. Here’s to hopefully hearing my name called at the E draft tonight!

Let’s get GROOVY, what a send off for the Dude.

F - Asher Reinhart F - Taro Tsujimoto @Enorama

What a hectic time to be in the VHL. We’ve got players moving teams, teams moving leagues, draftees moving up and down the scouting lists. It’s a great time of the year. One of the things happening now is that we’re starting to see the unanticipated side effects of the VHLE. We’re a season in to having this third league. We planned to have things happen that we couldn’t plan, and that’s part of the fun of wide scale system change. You gotta adapt on the fly, or die. Already we’ve had to nuke two VHLM teams and add two more VHLE teams. That wasn’t planned, but it was an efficient, data-based response to a problem that popped up. I have an off-season problem as well. Disclaimer: I’m writing this as Nagy AL, not blueAL. I’m just a guy with thoughts, *not* speaking as commissioner and saying these things are law now. My problem is that I want to skip the VHLM. Woah. Bold eh? When we first dreamed up this crazy idea, we had a lot of pushback from people who wanted to skip the VHLE. They thought it was another unnecessary step between them and the Hall of Fame. They said they don’t care about the minors and want out of that prison as soon as possible. I disagree with the sentiment, but I get it. With a year of data, and being personally in the situation with my new player, I think skipping the VHLE is wrong; it’s the VHLM that should be bypassed for recreates and max earners. Where to start? It’s a complex problem with many, many threads to pull on. I think the first question is: What is the VHLM? Full disclosure, I chose not to apply for the VHLM Commish job that McWolf got because of this question. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about things like: what does “development” actually mean in the context of an online sim league? Who is this league actually for? What’s the big-picture purpose of this league? Deep, existential questions with deep answers. My philosophy of the M is that it’s a filter league that sorts first gens into the ones that will be successful here and the ones that won’t. That means learning the physical act of doing point tasks and updating; it means understanding the culture here and seeing if there’s a fit; it means teaching them what sim leagues are and whether or not that meets their expectations. We don’t want people who “fail” this “test” clogging up our actual competitive leagues; if you’re going to crash and burn, please do it in the M before a VHL GM spends a first round pick on you eh? The culture aspect is a huge piece too. I’m always torn on the idea of the perfect VHLM GM. I often say that I think it should be an experienced, newer member. As the first point of contact, the VHLM is where new members learn who we are, what we do, and how we do it. Of course we’re open to change, but organizational culture is a real if not intangible thing. We need the right people on-boarding our new members. VHLM GM is not an entry level job: it’s the hardest job in the league. We’ve seen how a cynical, jaded GM can mess up a whole cohort of first gens, or how an overly competitive GM can piss off new players with the extreme boom and bust cycle. Our GMs need to know what the league expects of all its members, so they can lead by example, nudge people towards good decisions, and keep our community positive and safe. Of course, it’s not only the VHLM GM’s job to do that. Recreates play a large role in the organizational structure of the M, but I argue they play too large a role now. My argument is that welfare+ and higher earning recreates should not be drafted to the M, and go to the E after their waiver season. First, this league is for the new members. It’s so much fun to have ownership over your team, to be part of the core, and really have unbridled, creative fun with the M. Not to brag, but if I enter the VHLM draft, I’m going in the top 5. The team I get drafted to immediately begins to build around me. Like it or not, it’s “my” team, and the first gens are just along for the ride. This is in contrast to my previous season signing with Philly on waivers. I recreated and signed at the trade deadline. The team already had a core group that had been together all season, started their own traditions and silly games, and it was their team. I was a supporting member in their show, and not the other way around. The counter argument is that the recreates are also helping the GM in on boarding the new players, but my Reaper friends still got the experience of playing with me for a month or so. Second, the VHLM isn’t meant to be competitive, and the VHLE is. Us high earning recreates know the things that are being taught in the M. We just came off a high of an eight year career in the bigs, and want to win some more trophies. Fair enough. The VHLE is meant to be competitive. It’s for the people who want to win. As a player, I’m mostly excited to actually grow and progress. After four seasons of banking TPE, I just want to apply more each and every week. I want the GM to be aggressive in trading. I want to win trophies. Sure that might not happen right away as a 200 TPE third liner, but the opportunity beats the thrill of zooming past the rest of the league on the TPE leaderboard and putting up insanely inflated and overall meaningless stats. Third, I hope this can mean the VHLE means something in the grand scheme of things. Since the wheat is already separated from the chaff, will VHLE accomplishments and accolades actually factor into things like the Hall of Fame? I hope so. Anyways, this is a long winded way of a) getting a PT in during a crazy busy week in the ol real world, and b) really hoping I get drafted to the E this weekend.

I was a first gen 1OA with my last player it’s definitely the soft skills that matter. First gens are high risk - high reward. GMs need to trust you immensely to stay active, not disappear, and want to actually be here. There’s a very short window to get to know someone between joining and getting drafted to the VHL. I was lucky that I was able to spend most of my days that first month playing League of Legends with the GM who had the first overall pick

UHHHHH THAT WAS NOT MENTIONED IN THE JOB INTERVIEW.

It was an epic power move hiring yourself to do your intro. Why not eh, there's an Aussie and a Canadian person each in that intro. Selling skunky beer is a sleazy move, but I guess way up at the lodge, he who has the beer has the power. > "There are so many people who want to be GMs, and they just promoted mostly VHLM GMs to the E? Whyyy?" We really, really don't like people to see the VHLM as a stepping stone to a bigger league GM job, but in this case, it kinda was. Adding the E was going to change the purpose and philosophy of the VHLM, and to be fair to the GMs there, that wasn't exactly what they signed up for. We wanted to give them a chance to run a more-competitive development league team, as the VHLM gets "less competitive" with the lower TPE cap. In replacing the VHLM GMs, commissioners can find people who know what they're getting themselves into. Getting hired into the newest, super-development-focused version of the VHLM is like getting hired to a rebuilding team - you have to understand the purpose and be on board with it, because if you're not, it'll be a bad time for the GM and the team. Frig you're smart eh, you predicted the "too many teams in the VHLM" problem way before we yoinked Yukon and Minnesota from the league. Nicely done. We're happy to have you on the mod team, probably because you've had run ins and genuine reconciliations with fong and Quik. For fucks sakes man, put a note on your fridge to remind yourself to wait and crack the beer ten seconds later so we can hear the satisfying sound too.

Thanks for (not specifically but I hear ya) calling me out on the "don't be a dick" explanation as an all-encompassing direction. It made me think real hard about that idea, and you're completely right that it doesn't fit. I think, like you and I love this quote, "never was into harassing, that wasn't something I had to unlearn." Listening to everyone this week, reading all the discussion on the forum, made me realize that harassment is such a grey area that people need and want genuine, clear, specific education on it. "Don't be a dick" works for malicious behaviour - maybe just, like, don't use that slur? - but harassment is so subjective and situational that, like more than a few people mentioned in the comments thread, it's hard to know exactly what's offside. So you're right, that's shit advice, I'll revert back to my "it's offside when someone tells you it's offside" generic blanket statement for harassment and consent. I've never had a backtrack to one of my pods, but I heard it on 3PPAO and think it's great. I didn't find it too loud. Your thoughts about BoG being active and exciting are really interesting, because I've seen a lot of shit talk about BoG from the inside lately. One member who just left described on a pod that it was a complete disorganized shitshow where nothing gets done; another new member (in one of those few random times I lurk into genchat) described BoG as "just another forum the obc uses to gossip about members and pick fights with each other." That's, uhh, not good (or true). I'm glad you're enjoying the experience. It can be overwhelming, there is a lot going on, but the disagreements are civil and well thought out, and the gossip is actually just us doing our job in selecting new BoG members. I love good governance, fuck yeah bureaucracy, and hearing someone say good things about the BoG makes me happy.