The Course Needs to Be Changed

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

A hot topic indeed, recruitment is a beneficial theme where we as a league can look introspectively at our process and see what we can do differently. While my suggestion may not be a “this fixes everything” level idea, I think we can truly benefit from this.

 

Bringing in new players and people is tough right now. And Zetterberg’s call out of recruitment, while a bit intense, does bring to light some key issues. What exactly are we doing? Sure, seeing cool stats or graphics online through Instagram is neat as a current player/member, but if I’m on the outside looking in, what the heck am I looking at? Why would I get involved? What’s in it for me? We as a community struggle now with retention and getting people involved. And we struggle with bringing people in. There seems to be no good system to keep people here once they get here.

 

To put it bluntly, we need a recruitment and system overhaul.

 

To go into more depth, we need to look at a few things. I’ll break it down with some key aspects to look at along with some suggested fixes. Then of course, I’ll make some general points that I hope don’t come across as finger pointing but ones that I feel someone needs to make especially after having been a part of this community for a while.

 

RECRUITMENT

 

First up, let’s look at recruitment. Our current efforts have been…dismal. We need to focus on what exactly brings people in here to begin with. I look back at my own experience with how I discovered the VHL (reddit and we can’t do that anymore which sucks) but what made me pull the trigger to join was the community. I saw the comradery on the forum, in discord, and each team’s locker room. So I ask a question regarding recruitment…

 

How does someone on the outside now see this community if we are focusing on Instagram or Tik Tok?

 

Spoiler, they don’t. They have no idea what we’re doing minus the fact that you can make a player and have them participate in a sim league. They look at what we put out, are confused, or simply don’t get attached to it, and move on. Why would a random picture of Connor McDavid with a weird colored jersey and logo make me excited to go join this random sim league I see?

 

What we need to change and focus on with Instagram and Tik Tok is reels. We need some actual “ads” of the VHL where people are discussing the league, maybe taking a funny clip from a set podcast or blurb, and putting that on as a reel. We need to show the community of the VHL and hockey sim leagues, not just stats or cool pictures. Our target audience are more than likely people looking for a hockey community of some kind to spend time in. That’s what we need to showcase. And that starts to tip toe into my second notion…

 

RETENTION

 

This is another low point for us. We’re entering a realm where the cracks are beginning to show slightly, and all we can seem to do is point fingers at others and not do anything. We point out teams fielding low rosters, we single out users pushing a negative agenda, and we harm the community that makes us great. There is no responsibility taken, and the course does not alter. We need a change. A big change. Actually a few big changes across the board. I think we need to bring in another organization, tool, or job into this community that focuses on retention and maintaining the community. No, I’m not talking about mods keeping the peace. I’m talking about guides for new players and helpers who value this community and showcase the very best of us. There needs to be a new emphasis on a group experienced enough but level headed enough to bridge new players through their first few seasons.

 

Let’s run through a hypothetical of a user who joins for the very first time and is excited to get into it. We’ll call him Billy. Billy creates a new user and hops into the forum. He gets some fun messages from some people, maybe a VHLM GM, and gets waiver offers from a VHLM team. He joins, gets told in the Locker Room maybe how things should work (if he’s lucky) and is just kind of handed the keys to his own destiny and told “if you need help ask!”. Then he gets told he’s actually going to partake in 3 drafts in the offseason and suddenly has to try and figure out which team he’s playing for, earning TPE accordingly, builds for their player, etc. And now, after a season of getting help from a VHLM GM (again, maybe), he has to look around, figure some things out himself, and try to piece together a career. Who knows if anyone else is doing their job of assisting (we’ve discussed this point plenty of times before as well). Daunting? Absolutely, and it pushes people out.

 

VHLM GM’s are often tasked with this additional role, and it’s time consuming. We potentially need a separate group who are not aligned to a team that exists solely to work with new players on how the league works. I’m not saying they need to be on call all of the time for everyone, but like a “VHL Helpline” to answer questions and guide new players to a longer career here. This needs to be users who value the league and community far above their own player’s accolades or accomplishments to bring out the best in others.

 

What would also help a bunch are actual easy to follow guides for starting out. And I’m not talking about the point task guides. I’m talking about videos that walk you through in detail how to get started, how everything works, and what to expect at each phase of the VHL. It’s a big task and a bit of production, but having tutorial videos would help immensely with keeping people in the know when they first start out.

 

COMMUNITY

 

Here’s where I get to step on some toes after being fairly neutral for quite a long time. The VHL community is not completely free of bias. There is a trend to go with what is commonly viewed as the best with little to no other opinions. So here’s some other suggestions that I think would benefit how things are done here:

 

Members of the BOG should be completely free of other responsibilities. It is the duty of the BOG to remain impartial to dealings within a league to provide appropriate guidance for that league; being a GM can taint that level of oversight. I say this as a GM myself that, if I were to ever get to that level of responsibility, it would not be fair or correct to also hold a GM position in any league.

 

The community during the season is lackluster with no other events until theme week, and then we slowly churn through a season. If we want to help this community flourish, there needs to be more involvement on a weekly basis from higher ups that creates events or things for the community to look forward to. If we do the bare minimum, regardless of position or role, we will get the bare minimum, and the league will flounder until it is just the regulars doing the same thing. We need to give the extra push to keep people longer.

 

Attitudes need to be checked in certain positions. As responsibility increases, so do the characteristics you need to display. It is our duty (those who have been here awhile) to create an environment where everyone is welcomed, where everyone gets to participate, and where everyone enjoys their time, even at the expense of your own player and team. Especially at the expense of your own player and team if you are managing or in a key role within the community. If those wielding that responsibility abuse it or flaunt it to support their own gains, everyone else falls behind until only those in positions of power remain, creating a whirlpool where only the select few benefit.

 

I don’t like taking off my neutral hat, so after saying those things it’s going back on. There’s a lot to fix here and a lot to take in. But having been here now over 3 years, I think I have earned the ability to offer some input into multiple things. Each of the 3 categories need to be addressed in order to work towards bringing in more people and retaining them. I don’t have all of the answers, and some of mine may be wrong. Hell all of them may be wrong and I could be completely missing the mark. But the ship needs to be steered in another direction soon, or the path we are continuing on could spell dark times for the VHL ahead.

 

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Word count: 1,511 words | to be claimed for weeks 11/26, 12/3, and 12/10

[Ahma 1,444]

Bring back the Mentors! Was really helpful when I joined the league in early 2015. 

 

I still don't understand why the Mentor job hasn't been brought back.

[Daniel Janser 2,217]

1 hour ago, Ahma said:

Bring back the Mentors! Was really helpful when I joined the league in early 2015. 

 

I still don't understand why the Mentor job hasn't been brought back.

From what I understand from previous discussions is, that this part of the GM's job. Also nobody holds anyone back to help new players out. I think sometimes it is just the reluctance to seek help which torpedoes the whole retention endeavour.

 

If I do not know that a player needs help, how can I provide same?

[Ahma 1,444]

55 minutes ago, Daniel Janser said:

From what I understand from previous discussions is, that this part of the GM's job. Also nobody holds anyone back to help new players out. I think sometimes it is just the reluctance to seek help which torpedoes the whole retention endeavour.

 

If I do not know that a player needs help, how can I provide same?

from what Kaleeb wrote about retention, maybe it could do good to separate M GMs from the "mentor" job

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

22 minutes ago, Ahma said:

from what Kaleeb wrote about retention, maybe it could do good to separate M GMs from the "mentor" job

Exactly this. They need to be separate, since the VHLM GM is also focused on their team. It’s a lot easier to go ask for help from someone who reaches out to just chat about their player and how things work than the GM who could trade you or is trying to focus on multiple things at once

[Ahma 1,444]

2 hours ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

Exactly this. They need to be separate, since the VHLM GM is also focused on their team. It’s a lot easier to go ask for help from someone who reaches out to just chat about their player and how things work than the GM who could trade you or is trying to focus on multiple things at once

100%

M GMs have enough on their plate as it is

[AJW 2,201]

I think the higher ups believe that the Recruitment team should handle the “Mentor” job. I’ve suggested it before but got my idea denied right away

[Gustav 6,470]

1 hour ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

Members of the BOG should be completely free of other responsibilities. It is the duty of the BOG to remain impartial to dealings within a league to provide appropriate guidance for that league; being a GM can taint that level of oversight. I say this as a GM myself that, if I were to ever get to that level of responsibility, it would not be fair or correct to also hold a GM position in any league.

 

I will say that there have been one or two isolated cases where I question whether someone is saying what they're saying out of a conflict of interest. I'll keep quiet on the specifics but I've found that I have to wonder why some of our discussions on cap have some of the posts in them that they do. BUT, that's not to say anyone who doesn't pull that sort of thing is too stupid to notice it. We're talking about something I've seen come up maybe twice and it's been called out right away both times. It's not something that means that anyone who has any sort of job should be kicked out.

 

I think it's good overall that we have people who are involved in other parts of the league also involved in BoG. I, for example, have spent over 10 seasons as a VHL GM. I know how the job works and I think I'm qualified to speak on how I think it should be managed in general. But I'm also no longer a VHL GM and I'm usually completely unaware of specific issues that you guys face today until they're brought up. I don't think you'd want to face the consequences of a group of people exactly like me in that regard, where we're doing our best with outdated info but really have no idea what we're talking about. Have fun dealing with policies that don't make sense because they didn't have GM input when they were being drawn up. That's an example of why that diversity of experience is really important. Likewise, I find that I'm generally taken very seriously when talking about the M, and I certainly wouldn't like the BoG deciding they know what's best for the league I run if no one there has anything to do with it.

 

In this situation, how do you fill the BoG jobs with people who are active and involved and worthy of the job but also don't already have a job or are willing to give up other league involvement to get there? Usually those categories are pretty separate. If I were to offer you a BoG spot on the condition that you give up your GM job, I'd imagine you wouldn't be very into that. Honestly, BoG doesn't do enough to warrant that.

 

 

5 hours ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

Exactly this. They need to be separate, since the VHLM GM is also focused on their team. It’s a lot easier to go ask for help from someone who reaches out to just chat about their player and how things work than the GM who could trade you or is trying to focus on multiple things at once

 

Also, this is why we raised GM pay. It makes perfect sense to be both team- and player-focused if you're getting paid to do both of those things 

 

I think it's reasonable to expect VHLM GMs to reach out to players who need it, and I'd suggest that people reach out to us if their GMs aren't being very helpful.

[Spartan 4,531]

3 hours ago, Ahma said:

100%

M GMs have enough on their plate as it is

Just curious to hear what you think the M GM's main responsibilities are that would prevent them from being the "all in one" source of assisting the players on their team (either through draft, trade or waivers) and how much time you think those responsibilities take. This isn't targeted to you specifically, it's just the last post in this thread about "M GM's have too much to worry about" and I don't want to quote everyone.

[BOOM 8,818]

I used to be a mentor, along with a few others but even I was unsure how helpful it was. I used to DM every new create, offer to help them however I could etc, but a majority of messages would go unanswered. Maybe someone could be designated as a "mentor" from within the team that claims them, besides the GM. Having a teammate helping you out instead of some random user with no affiliation to the new person might be more effective in retaining them? 

 

 

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

Love the feedback! I'd like to at least say any of my suggestions and comments are not meant to call anyone out but provide constructive criticism or input on issues observed.

 

@Gustav you make some great points in your feedback. I would definitely mention that a role in the BOG should come with some experience as a VHL GM for a few seasons at least. That experience is crucial for understanding how things work. While having some involvement in the day to day aspects of a GM could be beneficial, it is the appearance to others outside of it that could draw questions. We have to wonder when a decision is released if bias was involved on multiple sides. Was a decision made involving those who are GMs because they brought their input in? Were decisions made against those GMs? From someone coming into a league, seeing a Gary Bettman equivalent acting as a BOG while also trying to GM a team like the Arizona Coyotes might not paint the best picture and cause extra scrutiny to be made over many decisions.

 

I'll admit - since you mentioned it - if I were to be offered a BOG job, I'd end my tenure in Malmo even if it was at the end of this season. Trust me, I'd love to stay, but it's the appearance of impartiality that helps benefit this league and I firmly believe that.

 

Second point, VHLM GMs still want to build a competing team. If a new player comes in and builds a player that isn't to the VHLM GMs liking, is the VHLM GM willing to let the player chart his own path while offering good suggestions to help them get better? Yes and no. Some do, some want to win. And that sometimes comes at the expense of the new player being told where exactly to put his TPE in order to fufill the role of the player that GM needs for that season. And then they have to try and progress forward.

 

I'll actually pull @BOOM's comment into this one as well on "assigning a mentor to a team". That could work as well! I just think the viewpoint of being a mentor needs to be separate from a GM trying to compete or rebuild, where the sole focus of the mentor is on the new player. And yes, a lot of those messages might go unanswered. That happens. But it's about providing that "service" to people that goes a long way with creating a community. If we're known for that, word of mouth might spread outside of our community to others looking for a group to join. You just never know.

 

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Again, the feedback is awesome and I think this is what the theme week was pushing for. Thank you all for weighing in!

[MubbleFubbles 1,292]

Nice article Kaleeb! Really enjoyed the read and agree with quite a few of your points, the only negative was I had to turn it to light theme to see it since it's invisible in dark theme haha. 

 

On Retention, I agree wholeheartedly that there needs to be a bigger focus towards it. You mentioned videos at some point, I'm not sure if you'd noticed but I made a couple a few months ago and the idea was to make more, but unfortunately the problem is while I have more than enough time to be fully active as a normal member, I need to both have access to my home computer and a free house to record Tutorial Videos and that just doesn't happen at the minute. Hopefully someone else can help make a few at some point to help with them but I get the feeling it's going to need a league-concentrated effort to do that which I don't see happening (E.g. I was willing to record it for no TPE, but I'm not sure how many others will). 

 

Regarding the BOG, I'm not going to say it is completely without bias and I get your points on why it looks odd to have General Managers in the BOG. In fact there was a time where General Managers in the BOG effectively stopped the league from making a ruling (back in the S60's, GMs in the BOG threatened to leave their GM role if they had the privilege that allowed them to make a second player taken away from them at a time where we were very short on GM candidates), but that era has long passed and since then I don't feel like I've seen a proposal born purely from bias make it's way through into acceptance. The big issue would be how many GM/BOG candidates you would have if you said you could only have one of those two jobs, especially if VHLM and VHLE GMs also counted as GMs that couldn't be in the BOG. Like I think the VHL might be alright for GM candidates if we did that, but the VHLE and VHLM would take a big hit because the pool is not that deep, either that or we'd miss out on valuable insights in the BOG. I'd also disagree that you need two seasons of VHL GMing to be a BOG member, I was first inducted into the BOG two seasons before I became a VHL General Manager (S45 in the BOG, S47 became Americans GM) and there's others who've been in the BOG without those requirements and given very good insights without needing to be a VHL GM (While they're gone now, Shindigs would be a great example as they were able to give great insights even only being in the league a few seasons). I think the main thing for BOG is just having a strong analytical mindset and being able to see problems and how to fix them, which doesn't neccessarily have to coincide with General Managing as I know some people who have very good thought processes just simply don't want to be a General Manager.

 

20 hours ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

The community during the season is lackluster with no other events until theme week, and then we slowly churn through a season. If we want to help this community flourish, there needs to be more involvement on a weekly basis from higher ups that creates events or things for the community to look forward to. If we do the bare minimum, regardless of position or role, we will get the bare minimum, and the league will flounder until it is just the regulars doing the same thing. We need to give the extra push to keep people longer.

 

This is probably the best point that I saw and I think it's particularly present at the minute, more than any other stretch I'd seen, predominantly because we've not had anything of note really happen that's changed the league recently (Last thing was Hybrid Attributes which was nearly two years ago now, last expansion was the VHLE about two and a half years ago), so the similarity of each season really stands out. It's going to be slightly different soon I'm sure with the Christmas Donation Drive, but we could definitely do with some more events to keep the community interested, like maybe another suggestion drive or something of that nature. The one thing I would say though, and this is something I've brought up in the BOG, is that I feel like commissioners are giving themselves too many responsibilities at the minute (especially when you consider the two most senior commissioners sim every season now and Josh is our only portal guy) and fair play to them for being willing to do all that for the league, but that heavy workload is becoming evident recently with how some key elements of the league are not being handled as well as they possibly could, so I think the responsibilities of a commissioner need to be split down and separated across more people before we talk about giving the current commissioners more to do. 

 

 

[Jonny 23]

Huh

[BOOM 8,818]

@MubbleFubbles should be able to claim that response for tpe. 

[Rin 138]

On 11/23/2023 at 8:31 PM, KaleebtheMighty said:

Members of the BOG should be completely free of other responsibilities. It is the duty of the BOG to remain impartial to dealings within a league to provide appropriate guidance for that league; being a GM can taint that level of oversight. I say this as a GM myself that, if I were to ever get to that level of responsibility, it would not be fair or correct to also hold a GM position in any league.

 

this is based af

 

14 hours ago, Gustav said:

But I'm also no longer a VHL GM and I'm usually completely unaware of specific issues that you guys face today until they're brought up. I don't think you'd want to face the consequences of a group of people exactly like me in that regard, where we're doing our best with outdated info but really have no idea what we're talking about.

 

Would league commissioners not suffice for this kind of perspective? Would they not be close enough to the GM situation to represent them?

[Daniel Janser 2,217]

12 hours ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

Second point, VHLM GMs still want to build a competing team. If a new player comes in and builds a player that isn't to the VHLM GMs liking, is the VHLM GM willing to let the player chart his own path while offering good suggestions to help them get better? Yes and no. Some do, some want to win. And that sometimes comes at the expense of the new player being told where exactly to put his TPE in order to fufill the role of the player that GM needs for that season. And then they have to try and progress forward.

It has been made very clear that the primary directive for VHLM GM's is retention and mentoring new players. That does of course not mean they should deliberately throw. 

 

Let's say a player has a 'Tiger Williams' build (i.e. high checking and fighting, not much else which contributes to the sim), it would be my job as a VHLM GM to explain this member that they will probably see limited success as a player and give some hints where they can improve. But it is also my job to find a role for such player if that is really the type of player they want to be.

 

We need to remember that the players we GM are not ours but the members' and if we try to shoehorn players into a role/build their 'owner' is not happy about, retention will be low.

 

When I was a VHLM GM I made people aware that high SC, SK, PH and DF is the accepted meta, but at the same time explained that they should make a player to their liking, pointing out that leadership does little to nothing and that passing is a bit misleading as it does not necessarily create assists but turnovers (simplified of course)...

[Beketov 9,103]

13 hours ago, KaleebtheMighty said:

I would definitely mention that a role in the BOG should come with some experience as a VHL GM for a few seasons at least.

Alright I’m out then. I have never and never intend to GM.

 

GMing is not the be all end all of the league. At the core this remains a player sim, not a GM sim, so I 100% disagree with the idea that only people with GM experience have anything to offer to the BOG role.

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

Ultimately - as comments increase and opinions are shared - I appreciate all of the input here even when it’s one that disagrees with the ideas I mentioned. Always good to get feedback and express different ideas to better things here, even if I end up being wrong.

 

Thanks everyone!

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

Claiming week 2: 12/3

[KaleebtheMighty 1,539]

Claiming week 3: 12/10