Have we automated too much?

[Beketov 8,939]

@Bushito‘s post this week, whether serious or not, has brought up an interesting discussion that I’d like to touch on today for my “old man of the VHL ranting” article: have we automated too much?

 

As usual, a bit of historical context. Our newer members won’t know this but not long ago everything we did was done by hand and on the forum. Creating a player involved copy and pasting the entire template and then filling it out. Updating involved posting an update thread, formatting it correctly with all your links, doing the math, and then waiting a week for an updater to come confirm it and another week or more (usually only twice a season or so in the VHLM) for it to end up in the sim. On top of that all career stats, records, awards, etc were all maintained by hand with manual calculation.

 

We operated this way for over 10 years before all of it started to change with the portal. Now we no longer have to manually do anything and things like rating updates in the sim can be done daily if we wanted to. Everything is done for us with very little manual oversight. The topic for discussion of course: has this gone too far? Has automating the process, and continuing to automate it, made the VHL lose its heart and soul? Did somehow things feel more robust when they were done by hand instead of by a few lines of code?

 

In my opinion it goes a bit both ways. It’s true that there was a little more heart in the VHL of old, knowing people were putting piles of time and effort into things to keep the league running. On the other hand, it also lenses itself more easily to mistakes or things being missed. The concept of knowing for example that half a season of updates in the VHLM simply wouldn’t show up until around playoff time seems horrible now but that was a reality we lived with. I feel like we got used to the shortcomings in a lot of ways and just accepted them for what they were without considering that we could do better.

 

Obviously we still have a lot of people doing a lot of tasks to keep the VHL wheels greased, we haven’t fully been taken over by our robot overlords, and I will say that’s probably a good thing. I love the automation because it makes the VHL run smoother but I’ll admit that it could one day go to far. If we hit the point where it basically becomes a clone of EA’s Be a Pro mode without any actual gameplay than what’s the point? Ultimately community is the most important thing in the VHL. So long as we can keep the community aspect though, I personally welcome automation. What are your thoughts? 

[Tagger 2,722]

To be honest, the only thing that became automated that I was slightly gutted was no longer human was Free Agency and the thread discussions prior to the signing, but even just before these changes, those hadn't been as good as they used to be anyway so it's not a big loss. As for the rest, I'd have been fine doing them the way we do know even if it wasn't for ease of use for the simmer, so knowing that it's easier for them is just an extra bonus. Trades are still posted as usual so generate the same amount of discussion, the only differences in updating is no longer being called out publicly when your updates were wrong, and the draft goes so much quicker!

[Devise 4,475]

16 minutes ago, Tagger said:

To be honest, the only thing that became automated that I was slightly gutted was no longer human was Free Agency and the thread discussions prior to the signing, but even just before these changes, those hadn't been as good as they used to be anyway so it's not a big loss. As for the rest, I'd have been fine doing them the way we do know even if it wasn't for ease of use for the simmer, so knowing that it's easier for them is just an extra bonus. Trades are still posted as usual so generate the same amount of discussion, the only differences in updating is no longer being called out publicly when your updates were wrong, and the draft goes so much quicker!

 

Yeah I think if anything the onus may be on us to create a spot for these discussions? Perhaps an annual Free Agency Rumors and Discussions thread, or Trade Rumors thread for a season. Obviously most of that will just get filled with side talk, and GM's/players leaking any private negotiations. But it would at least be a hub for people who want to see conversations around the leagues activities that are now portal features. 

[Beaviss 4,956]

Nope

[Da Trifecta 1,896]

TBH it was better when people had to earn their updater pay rather than just clicking a button. Granted it's kinda similar but you still had the friendly reaction of someone posting updated and what not.

[BOOM 8,650]

I do miss "liking" the updaters reply to my update post. But the portal has made the entire process much easier. 

[Exlaxchronicles 415]

I prefer it this way now. It's less work/time to get things done. I found all the manual input just to earn TPE a chore when I first started. At least now members have more time for gfx, articles etc.

It takes too long to get shit done here the other way. Knowing what I do now I wouldn't have played this game if I was new here and had to get tasks done the previous method.