VHL GM Increased Activity Proposal

[DMaximus 1,046]

The most in demand position in the league is the role of VHL General Manager. There are a glut of overqualified candidates for the job. We just had 4 GM spots open in the last month. All of them were filled with extremely qualified people and there’s still 15+ qualified people ready for the next opening. When a job like VHL GM is that in demand, it means you can ask more of the position because there are so many people who would do anything they could do for the position.

 

One of the changes introduced a couple seasons ago was for the games bot to no longer post game results to Discord. Rather the bot would post a link to a summary page for each sim. The reasoning was that, this is a forum league and we want to drive people to communicate in the forum. One way to make that happen is to force people to go to the forum to view the results of games and maybe they’ll read the comments and join in. Although I disagree with cutting off functionality as a method to force something to happen (I think the solution should be to find a way to enhance the forum post so that it would be more desirable to visit, rather than by forcing visits by removing functionality), I understand the reasoning behind the decision. Get people onto the forum and posting in the forum.

 

My proposal aligns with that thinking. We want to have continual quality content created in the forum to get people to spend time in the forum, read posts in the forum, and join in the conversation. To promote increased forum content, we should require all VHL GMs to write a media-spot-length article about their team every week. The article can be whatever they want as long as it’s about their team. It can be a made-up story, it can be a summary of their games, or a single game, it can be behind the scenes information about a trade, it can be advanced metrics analysis, or fake metrics analysis, anything related to the team.

 

The increased content would be a boon for forum activity. 16 unique, high quality posts from top members in the community would be a driver of activity and discussion. It would also increase awareness of each team and between each team in the league, something the shared game posts do, albeit in a limited manner. The increased engagement between players, GMs, and everyone in the league would only help strengthen this community.

 

I know there’s probably a fair amount of people who are repulsed by this suggestion. They’re probably thinking, VHL GMs already are super dedicated to this site and they do enough already, they don’t need to do any more. I disagree and I think if VHL GMs are unwilling to step up and take on the added responsibility they should know there’s a bunch of qualified people that would be more than happy to replace them and take on the additional responsibility.

[McWolf 3,115]

I don't think anyone wants to read shitty game summaries just because GMs have to do them weekly. It's not like there are special things to talk about every week, so you damn right know it would end up being media spots about boring game summaries every other week, just so they can check it off their checklist.

[DMaximus 1,046]

1 minute ago, McWolf said:

I don't think anyone wants to read shitty game summaries just because GMs have to do them weekly. It's not like there are special things to talk about every week, so you damn right know it would end up being media spots about boring game summaries every other week, just so they can check it off their checklist.

 

If producing poor content is the response from GMs, then maybe that is an indication that GM shouldn't be in that position.

[McWolf 3,115]

Giving the GMs more responsibilities just so we can cut those unwilling to take these responsibilities seem counterintuitive. If there are so many people that want jobs, why not create a position that is exactly what you said? A team-media liaison or something, that writes weekly articles about the team, sets interviews with players and stuff like that.

[McWolf 3,115]

Just now, DMaximus said:

 

If producing poor content is the response from GMs, then maybe that is an indication that GM shouldn't be in that position.

do you write weekly media spots about your own VHLM team?

[Rayzor_7 741]

8 minutes ago, McWolf said:

do you write weekly media spots about your own VHLM team?

Fuck no lol

I love them to pieces and they know that but I'll tell them that in my LR and chat with them and run through games and such. 

 

I would quite disagree with this proposal even if it came with a pay increase (on top of the 6 for MS and 2 for GM). No point to force someone to write when it's not their thing if they're doing well in other ways

[McWolf 3,115]

7 minutes ago, Rayzor_7 said:

Fuck no lol

I love them to pieces and they know that but I'll tell them that in my LR and chat with them and run through games and such. 

 

I would quite disagree with this proposal even if it came with a pay increase (on top of the 6 for MS and 2 for GM). No point to force someone to write when it's not their thing if they're doing well in other ways

Exactly. I'm not going to go all "woe is me", but I think the pay is already fairly low for what we do on a daily basis. We manage the roster, lines, finances, look for trades when it makes sense, keep the forum and/or Discord locker rooms active, keep the players involved, stay in contact with other GMs to keep up with the league news, help players when they need to. Some GMs even set up press conference questions and link every TPE opportunity to their players. It makes sense because of the demand; it's not a job that needs to pay much for people to be interested in, but I think adding more to it is unreasonable.

 

Not writing about our team doesn't make us bad GMs.

 

EDIT: This is not me saying GMs should get a pay raise. If anything, it could drop to 0 and I'd be ok with it. There would still be a lot of people willing to do it even if it didn't pay.

Edited March 23, 2021 by McWolf

[DMaximus 1,046]

 

Just now, McWolf said:

Not writing about our team doesn't make us bad GMs.

 

That's not what I'm implying.

I'm talking about an opportunity to increase forum activity, which is one of the major goals of the BoG, as evidenced by their decision with the game posting. Like I said, my suggestion falls in line with that goal and I don't think it's a major ask to have GMs write about their team on a weekly basis.

[Gustav 6,407]

Yeah, I mean, it shouldn't come as a surprise that I'd say:

 

-I'm active

-If this were required I'd do it

-I like to think I can write well enough that it wouldn't be boring

 

But about your point about activity: in my opinion, if someone needs to be forced to write one specific article every week to prove they're active...they're not the type you'd want to see as a GM anyway. Forcing them to fake it doesn't help anyone; it just gives them something to point to when the league tells them to step it up ("but guys, I've been doing this super formulaic article every week").

[DMaximus 1,046]

2 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

But about your point about activity: in my opinion, if someone needs to be forced to write one specific article every week to prove they're active..

 

I might have chosen poor wording. I don't mean this as an active check, like does this GM still log in. My assumption is that all GMs are "active" in the fact they run the team and are engaged with the team in Discord and all that. 

 

My proposal is to have more activity in the forum through more frequent posts, because increased forum activity is a desired goal for the league.

[Banackock 8,044]

I usually kind of do this.. Bears Den or whatever.. but I like writing big ones sometimes and having a break too. Writing about the same generic stuff is a good way to go Bushito if that’s all you do too. 
 

I appreciate the idea and effort but it’s not something that I would be supportive of. I’ve done my share of team + league promotion and activity boosting the last 29 seasons as manager. Head over to my press conference page and you’ll see I ask about 80-100 questions per season engaging team members and even VHLers.. for S77 so far the team has I think 30 or so to pick and choose from. 
 

Have a good day ALL!

[eaglesfan036 4,602]

Every week would be extremely excessive.

 

Maybe have this be a one week a season thing where every GM writes an article hyping up their team for a theme week kind of thing

[JeffD 648]

DMAX really out here trying to expose me for being an inactive general manager.

 

[Dom 1,445]

To be honnest, it would end up like the carreer tasks. Nobody would read that except those who need some inspiration to write their own. 

[frescoelmo 1,276]

Define "overqualified candidates" when most members just claim welfare and share answers to trivia

[JigglyGumballs 1,056]

A few seasons ago, I started this series of articles about the progress of players. One at the start of the season, one by the end. After a while. I stopped doing the series of articles entirely. It was super formulaic, and over time doing the same thing over and over again just wasn't motivating enough. 

 

 

I don't mind a GM making occasional articles about their team every now and then. The problem is making it a requirement as a part of their job. I get the need to promote forum activity and engaging the team, but again, I don't think hyping up your team via a media spot length article as a part of the job is a viable option for me.

[Esso2264 774]

in 3 years i havent done a media spot yet, im not gonna start doing this and i shouldnt be fired cuz of that but because i cant make my team win

[.sniffuM 1,741]

I can only get behind this proposal if pay is slashed to 1 and the weekly article can only be claimed as a VHL.com

[Quik 4,113]

This just seems like fast track to member burnout...

[Nykonax 1,564]

1 hour ago, DMaximus said:

My proposal aligns with that thinking. We want to have continual quality content created in the forum to get people to spend time in the forum, read posts in the forum, and join in the conversation

sounds like a job for VSN

[Josh 1,670]

When I'm already like 8-12 hours in to development and simming in a week the last thing I want to do is try and put my dumbass thoughts down as a media spot. Doesn't mean I can't submit lines and chat in my LR though.

[Advantage 2,891]

22 minutes ago, .sniffuM said:

I can only get behind this proposal if pay is slashed to 1 and the weekly article can only be claimed as a VHL.com

Minimum 2000 words too.

[DMaximus 1,046]

14 minutes ago, Quik said:

This just seems like fast track to member burnout...

 

Aren't many GMs already creating weekly point task posts to get their full weekly TPE earnings? The team-specific posts would be claimable as a media spot not an additional requirement on top of a point task. 

[Peace 1,530]

21 minutes ago, Quik said:

This just seems like fast track to member burnout...

This. 

[DMaximus 1,046]

5 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

sounds like a job for VSN

 

The problem is that people don't want a job to be a reporter (and thank you to those of you who do). That makes it very difficult to find people to fill a role if the role is, you have to report on this team.

People want the job of GM. Since that position is in high demand, you can increase the requirements for the job and still have it be a desired position.