RomanesEuntDomus

1) After looking at the draft results and peoples power rankings it looks like we should be one of the favorites this season, so I hope we can build on that! 2) That's pretty tough to answer given that I haven't played a game in either the VHL or the VHLM in years, but I want to be a reliable all-situations player that manages to chip in offensively while minimizing mistakes in his own end. 3) Well draft day, obviously! Even though I couldn't follow it live when it happened it still was a great day for my player and I couldn't have been happier with how it went. 4) I would take them to the kitched were the players can either get money from the team chefs or prepare stuff themselves, and have a nice family cookout. 5) Nah I'm not gonna do that because sticks need to break! I for one prefer lighter sticks and to have them break occasionally is part of the process, I really wouldn't want a heavy unbreakable tree branch just to save some money. 6) I'm gonna go with disappointed/unimpressed Michael Scott. He always makes me laugh but at the same time his expression is pretty... demanding so maybe he will help the team give it all every night?

F Patrik Tallinder @rory

Claim +10

Good stuff, really enjoy stat-based articles like this one and you backed it up with some nice but not too serious analysis. Also liked the layout of this and the effort you put into gifs and tags, good job! Review: 9/10

Nice breakdown of what Toronto has done over the last few seasons, always great to read some insight from someone who was directly involved in these things. Especially the TOR/LON trade was interesting stuff. Some small formatting issues, for example when noting draft picks and some of the spacing was off on desktop as well. Review 8.5/10

As some people have pointed out already, I think it's important to make the distinction between completely active (14 TPE a week), doing the easier tasks but not PTs (8-12 TPE a week) and pure Welfare (6 TPE a week). And I would argue that the balance between that seems about right, if you only claim welfare and practice facility then you make less than half of what a fully active player makes so you are at a significant disadvantage. This disadvantage gets smaller the more tasks someone does per week which... is exactly how the system is supposed to work. If someone gets say 10 out of the 14 max TPE per week then he isn't a lazy slob who only takes welfare handouts btw, it means that he is doing at least two weekly tasks on top of Welfare + Practice Facility. One point of concern that is kinda warranted though is that the difference between Welfare and the pure PT-payout is very small. You basically have to do 500 words every week for just 2 TPE extra which really isn't a lot and I can understand where the frustration is coming from here. It can be frustrating to see someone who skips arguably the most work-intensive part of this league make almost the same amount of TPE as you do. I know I complained a bit about not being eligible for the 5 TPE Welfare earlier, but that was more because I was annoyed by how this transition was handled back then and the fact that there was no grandfathering. Generally speaking however, a 5 TPE Welfare seems really high, maybe too high even for proven veteran members. I don't think it's unwarranted to question and criticize that. If I remember correctly, way back in the day people started at 2 TPE Welfare and had to work their way up to 4 TPE Welfare after two active players. That's quite the difference from what seems to be bad in place and not necessarily worse, with both systems having different strengths and weaknesses.

1) Big Announcement within the VHLM of the new Junior System for overflow players, what are your thoughts on the new “expansion” to the Minors? I like it, it's an interesting idea for sure. I'm not sure if it will work out, it could very well be something that fails but it's new and I'm not aware of any other sim league having tried something like this before, so I applauf the audacity. 2) This is offseason week, both VHL and VHLM drafts have passed and with last seasons influx of recruits the Reapers are starting the season with 12 Forwards 5 D and 2 G for almost a full 4 lines. This means Ice time is going to change a lot for most players and how does this make you feel? It's gonna be a challenge for sure, looking at our roster it will definitely require some work for me to earn a spot in the Top-4, but I'd rather be on a team where I have to work for that kind privilege than just being gifted it because of a lack of depth. 3) What role do you see yourself playing for the S75 Reapers Squad? I assume that I'm gonna start out on the 3rd pairing, maybe with some time to PK, and hope to be able to work my way into the Top-4 eventually, maybe as early the end of the regular season 4) If there’s one thing everyone in Philadelphia needs to know about you what is it? Hmmm that's a tough question, right off the top of my head I can't really think of anything. I kinda like getting into controversial discussions about of all kinds of topics, so if that's not your cup of tea then I guess be warned? 5)What are your personal goals as an individual any milestones in particular you’re looking to reach? I haven't really thought about that too much yet because I don't know enough of the structure and stiatisctical realities of todays VHL yet, like, how many points per season are considered a lot for each position, that kind of stuff. 6)Where do you see the Reapers sitting right now in the VHLM Power ranking and how do you feel after your draft weekend experience? That's also kinda tough to judge without better general knowledge about the league but I'd think we are pretty high after the draft we just had where we both picked up starpower and some good depth.

Interesting, this sounds pretty cool!

Loved this, it helped a newer/returning member like myself to read up on some of the important stuff in a quick and concise manner. I know this was more of a stream of conciousness article with not that much work going into it but it certainly got the job done for me. Looking forward to learn more about the VSN, the VHL's podcast world and all the other aspects I haven't had much contact with yet. Review: 8.5/10

Hello new VHLM GM! Thought it was a good fit to review this one since I just got picked up by your team in the VHLM . Good content in this, it helped me quite a bit in learning about the Titans and the course your team is on. I'm not the biggest fan of the formatting though, this scould have used a bit more spacing and a bit more attention to punctuation, one mistake you made quite often was having a space before a comma for example, so maybe try to work on that . Review 7.5/10

What the VHL and SHL can learn from each other (Part 1) Hello VHL! I’m back with my first 2000 word article in this league ever so if you aren’t in the mood for a long read, you better skip this and leave now, I won’t blame ya! This is gonna be another article that takes a look at this league and its general structure and tries to look for things that we might wanna improve - but also for things that other leagues could learn from the VHL! Some people might have a bit of a negative opinion of me from the past because back when I was last here in 2017, I was quite critical of some aspects of this league and very vocal about these criticisms. I ultimately left because quite frankly, I found this league to be not as enjoyable and in many aspects inferior to others like the SHL or even the now defunct GOMHL. Luckily a lot of things have changed since then and I am looking forward to experiencing the new VHL now. I also don’t nearly have the full picture of all the new aspects of this site yet so it’s gonna be interesting to learn about all of them over the coming season. But for now I think I have already identified a few key points where I think the VHL does extremely well compared to other leagues and particularly the SHL - and also the other way around! I wanna look at a few of these things now and who knows, maybe both leagues can take a little bit of inspiration from this to learn from each other.... What the SHL can learn from the VHL: The Portal This is a super obvious one but we just have to start it because it is such a gigantic difference maker: The Portal and all the automatisation and quality of life improvements that came with it to make things is easier for pretty much everyone involved. Players, updaters and I assume even simmers are benefitting from it massively and it especially makes things easier for newer members who might not have sim league experience yet and for whom the weird updating system us veterans have gotten used to over the years were always a big turnoff. You probably can’t emphasize enough how crucial of a factor the portal has been for the success and reinvigoration the VHL has experienced over the last few years. What is a bit tougher though is to determine how the SHL could learn and benefit from that as well. Obviously it would be great for them to get their own sort of portal system and I can’t imagine there being much resistance to it if it was a possibility (I doubt there in the VHL either when it was first proposed?). But as I understand it such a system is a massive undertaking so how would that work? As someone who wasn’t here at the time I have no idea how many ressources the VHL had to spend on getting that portal, both in terms of man hours and actual money (let me know in the comments if you do). Would it be worth it for the SHL to invest considerable amounts of resources into such a system or would be a way to get help from the VHL to use their system and adjust it to the SHL’s needs, maybe even through a licensing model? This is where things get real messy because we are talking about actual monetary investments here which can be problematic for a non-commercial project like hours. Also, while it would help another league tremendously, would the VHL even be interested in sharing something that right now is one of their strongest USPs that has helped them grow by setting them apart from other leagues? I don’t know and am certainly interested in hearing people's thoughts on that. What the VHL can learn from the SHL: More help for new players I just talked about how the portal makes a lot of things easier for new members in the VHL compared to the SHL but as a matter of fact, a lot of things are done better the other way around as well. I would even go as far as arguing that the VHL might be a bit complacent in this regard because their Portal gives them such a big initial boost when it comes to drawing in new players. The SHL is more complicated to get into and more complex in general, so they were basically forced to set up a system of guides, introduction posts and mentors to have a chance to retain new members that might otherwise struggle to understand everything. As a result the SHL now has a whole infrastructure in place to both help new members get started and drive engagement and cohesion among them even after the initial struggles. A new member in the SHL will receive helpful guides via PM that are both written and include tutorial videos. They will be contacted by a mentor shortly after being recruited and will be invited into a draft class Discord where they get to hang out with and get to know all the other members of their draft class, be it newbies or recreates, as well as get additional help from the Mentors and some experienced members who might be there as GMs. These Draft Discords often tend to remain a thing even after people have settled in and moved on to their various teams, being a source of cohesion and camaraderie even years into peoples careers sometimes. The VHL has none of that, it basically just has the Portal. There are no mentors, no rookie discord and the guides that do exist are scattered around the boards, not standardized and often outdated. The Portal helps people settle in initially for sure but it also feels like it might be a bit of a source of complacency. The SHL is forced to give their new members a lot of help if they want to retain them so they do, the VHL isn’t so they don’t. I’m also speaking a bit from personal experience of course. I must say that I have enjoyed the VHL so far since my return, but both the amount of interactions in general and the help I have received as a “new” player have been pretty lackluster. The person who recruited me helped me get settled in again and answered a lot of my questions and I knew some other people from the past who I could also reach out to, that combined with the fact that I have a bunch of STHS experience already helped me get settled in pretty easily. But a completely new member, who is new to this league or even sim leagues in general, has none of those things and, in my opinion, has a pretty high chance of feeling lost even with the Portal being a big help at the start. And even if they do understand everything, the start still doesn’t feel super engaging. I for one really didn’t have a whole lot of interactions with the “relevant” people so far. I joined at a time where it wasn’t possible for me to get game action right away which is fine and something you can’t really do anything about so I’m not complaining about that. Maybe it’s also because I'm a Veteran so fewer people reached out to me either because they don’t think I need help or because they don’t like me. Take yesterday's VHLM Dispersal Draft as an example which was tough to even find out about in the first place since there wasn’t an official announcement until very late and draft threads like the ones from the past aren’t a thing anymore. There is no channel of communication with and towards the members of a draft class and no system to reach out to the people who create a new player. I had only talked to like two or three VHLM GM’s over my first few weeks here and still barely know anyone from my draft class. I mean, I know their names of course but there is no place I could really get together with some of them and get to know them. Plus the fact that VHLM Dispersal Drafts throw new members together with ones that have been here for almost a full season and have triple the TPE available can make you feel a dime a dozen with all the attention both in the media and from GM’s going to more developed players. Although that’s a separate issue and it’s not like there aren’t legitimate reasons for why it is done the way it’s done. So yeah I think it would be a good course of action for the VHL to work on their rookie retention and mentoring infrastructure. From what I have seen so far the league is doing very well in terms of recruitment and it has the Portal as a huge helping factor early on - but don’t get complacent because of those things. Actively reach out to new members, engage with them and provide channels where they can engage with each other. What the SHL can learn from the VHL: TPE Adjustments for late starters Okay so that “What the VHL could learn from the SHL” part got a bit long so to balance that out I’m gonna throw in a second aspect where I think the VHL does a better job than the SHL. In fact this is something that is so obvious (and not exactly new as far as I know) that I’m wondering why the SHL hasn’t adopted it already. I’m quite tempted to go over there right now and suggest this to the people in charge of the junior league. I am talking of course about the TPE-adjustments for late joiners. It has been an age-old problem in sim leagues that there are times where it’s objectively better to join than at others. In leagues where TPE are largely paid out weekly and where there has to be a cut-off between draft classes it is usually better to join as early as possible after a new class has started if you want to maximize the amount of TPE available to you. This leads to recreates usually making their players right around the deadline and recruitment drives being very early in a class's life cycle. Joining a few weeks after that cut-off isn’t that bad, in fact it might even be better for some people as you might lose out on a few TPE, but it also minimizes the amount time you have to wait for the draft and to be put on a team, so there is less downtime. But the later you join, the fewer TPE you will ultimately end up with to the point where people who joined right towards the end of their draft class’ life cycle potentially miss out on dozens if not a hundred or more TPE. The SHL doesn’t really do very much to rectify that. If you join late you have fewer TPE, you will have missed out on the fun experience that is the junior draft and your SHL draft stock will likely have plummeted, all that through no fault of the player himself. Even worse in a junior league that has been quite crowded recently, it will be tough for such a player to even get considerable playing time, not just in this season but possibly also the next and your chances at ever breaking the leagues TPE-records are basically ruined from the get-go. The VHL handles this much better through the system of TPE-adjustments, or should I say bonuses, for late joiners. Basically for every week after the cut-off that a player joins, he will receive half of the TPE that he missed out on for free. It’s a system that is quite simple but effective. It significantly reduces the TPE-disadvantage that late-joiners find themselves in, leading to them being in a better spot to perform well in the sim and be useful for the teams that pick them up, while also cushioning the feeling of having missed out on stuff a bit. At the same time however this doesn’t de-value the work of the people who have been here from since the start of their class and who have consistently contributed. They will still have more TPE than those later joiners and will have had time to build connections around the league and gain chemistry with their linemates - as long as they have put in the work. In my opinion this is a great balanced system that supports members in unfortunate situations without taking anything away from the rest. Right now I don’t see a reason why the SHL wouldn’t want to implement something like that as well. Their TPE-payouts are a bit more volatile from week to week so it would require some calculating beforehand, but ultimately I don’t see coming up with the right number as too big of an obstacle. But as I said before, if I’m missing something here feel free to point it out in the comments! Words: 2000+

Sure!

I did read them but you are dodging the central question. What I read in your posts is that you would be fine with one segment of the population being underrepresented in terms of political influence as long as this segment is urban voters, but it would be a travesty if those underrepresented where rural voters. You might not mean it this way but this is what an electoral college system boils down to, It undermines the one man, one vote principle so that a vote by someone from a populous region is worth less than a vote by someone from a rural region.

A simple "popular vote wins" system isn't really in place anywhere in Western democracies anyway, at least to my knowledge, they all have some sort of system to assure regional representation, be it through the parliament, party lists, regional seating etc... It's not like getting rid of the Electoral College would mean that the total nation-wide number of votes would suddenly be all that matters. At the end of the day, an electoral college or similar system, even if adjusted for today's demographics as you describe, would mean that the vote of someone who lives in the city would be worth less than the vote of someone from a rural area. And that just strikes me as deeply undemocratic. You have painted the grim picture that certain populous cities/states would completely dominate the political landscape if there was no electoral college, but right now basically the opposite is the case with low population-density regions being disproportinately powerful at the expense of high population-density regions. And that doesn't even take into account the issues with the "winner takes it all" approach that makes it that only a fraction of the votes from battleground states really count anway, another fatal flaw of an electoral college sort of system. You talk about the people from less populous province not having their voices heard but hell, what about the 5 million Texans who voted for Biden and whose votes go straight to the trash or the 4 million Californians or 3 Million New Yorkers who voted for Trump? And it's the same for every other state, big or small, where someone can win with a 51% margin which means that the voices of 49% of the people will not be heard because their votes don't serve to strengthen some kind of opposition in the parliament or elsewhere but go straight to the bin instead.

What is wrong about 1/6 of a countries population having 1/6 of the influence?

For me personally this basically comes down to the very simple litmus test of if you are okay with Trump's character or not. To me he is just so immoral and reprehensible as a person, he personifies so many of the traits that I hate in people and also in myself sometimes, he is just the anti-thesis of a good, decent human being which is reflected in the way he does politics. You can't separate someones personality from the way he does politics because one is clearly reflected in the other. If you don't care enough about all that to try and vote him out (and voting third party counts as not trying to vote him out) then that says a lot about your character. It doesn't necessarily mean that you are as bad as him but that you are opportunistic enough to be fine with all that as long as it only affects other people negatively and not yourself. And his character is only one part of the problem, it doesn't stop at his personal flaws but there are a million other issues, above all else his clear anti-democratic, authoritarian tendencies that seem to become stronger and are probably only kept in check somewhat by his incompetence and lack of impulse control.

That's an incredibly selfish way to look at things imho. "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."

The erosion of Democracy throughout the Western world which has only ramped up doe to the severe lack of American leadership might not have a direct effect on you yet but it definitely will over the next few years.

Oh man, and there I was getting my hopes up and thinking that there is a decent chance that they won't screw it up this time ?

Whooooooaaaaaa I'm in a class with Boom! Awesome!!!

Really enjoyed this article even as someone not very familiar with the current playoffs, very nice write-up that was both concise and emotionally engaging. The layout wasn't flashy but it doesn't have to, it got the job done and I prefer a few longer paragraphs over chopping articles up into too many short ones. The only issue I had with this article was that the start to it was very abrupt and that it seemed to assume that the reader knows all about the general situation and circumstances already, which wasn't the case for me. Some references or short summaries of what's going on would've helped. Review: 9/10

Woooo Toasty!! Nice article, i'm pretty excited we get to share a draft class together for i think the first time even and looking foward to what your player can do. Good write-up on your player so far which already makes me curious to learn a bit more about him through the career point tasks. The only small issue I have is that I'm not a big fan of some of your layout choices, it's a few too many/short paragraphs for my liking. Review: 8/10

Oh wow, how did you stumble upon the sport then? And yeah Floorball has been growing here lately... Well, until COVID that was ?

Yup but I'm from Germany, not Sweden. You ?

I really appreciate you taking the time to explain your reasoning for this and to answer my and other peoples concerns. But being told that I was essentially sacrificed to appease someone else doesn't exactly make this better ?