My Response to "The Great VHL Job Pay Review

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

So, I was originally going to write this as a response in @GustavMattias's article linked here. I even started this off with "so here's my quik response"...but then I realized this just got longer and longer, so I'm just going to make this a media spot instead.

 

GM Pay - listen pals, this used to be an unpaid position, and really should still be an unpaid position. The VHL was at a point where recruitment was so bad that we were having trouble finding GMs, so the TPE was added to entice users to apply. Having done both roles, I'd actually say it takes more daily work to be a VHLM GM than it does a VHL GM, so I feel better about them getting paid, but at the VHL level, it's much easier and more so about being able to run a team and enjoy that versus getting paid for it.

 

AGM Pay - No, no, no no. Don't care if it's VHL or VHLM, this shouldn't be an official position in the VHL, and I'm only OK with it in the VHLM since so much can change on a day to day basis there, with new members needing to have offers made to them, questions answered timely, etc... However, with that being said, I don't think this is a position that should be paid. I view this as an "unpaid internship" type of position (and no, I don't care that these may or may not be illegal depending on where you live) for learning the ropes. I also don't really love the idea of a GM being able to pick their AGM and automatically assume that that person gets to become GM when they step down. I don't think that's a rule currently, but it sort of feels like it's true. I think it's very important to make sure suitable people are put in these positions, so it's something that leadership (either Blue Team or Dark Green Team) should have final say over. I also wouldn't want to see a situation where a member can't get one of these positions because they're not friendly with the right people.

 

Commish pay - Specifically talking about VHL Blue Team pay, the job has always been underpaid compared to the amount of work that goes into it, but I think that just comes with the territory. I don't love the idea of this being too highly paid of a job, but could be OK with it going to 4 TPE during the season and 6 TPE during the off-season.

 

Recruitment Team - Hard disagree with a caveat that I'm primarily talking about the work @Beaviss does, since I see the behind the scenes stuff there much more than I do the rest of the team, which I don't really see/pay attention to. Beaviss specifically does a ton of work off the forum reaching out to different websites for recruitment/partnerships, reaching out to youtubers/streamers, etc... it's not just reaching out to reddit once a season and then saying "OK, I'm done". As someone who was initially skeptical of making this position 12 TPE, I'm 100% OK with the pay, but it comes with high (and tbh, maybe should be higher?) scrutiny of weekly/monthly work being done. It's not just the amount of work done, but how important this job is. Not to pull out the "back in my day" card again, but we've seen what happens when recruitment stagnates, and it's not pretty. This is an extremely important job and should be compensated as such. I'm not trying to talk down the rest of the team, but again, I just don't know enough about what they do to comment appropriately on it.

 

Updaters - I don't think it's so much as a TPE issue versus a "needs more staff" issue. This is something that really needs to be kept on top of hopefully daily, and I don't think it's realistic to expect everyone to be on every day. The most recent list of updaters lists that there's 6 (although I'm not sure this is 100% accurate in the individual members, the total number seems correct), but I feel like this number could be raised to 8 or so to make sure that updates are done within 24 hours. While the current team does a good job with it, I think increasing the roster would make the 24 hour mark (which is a completely made up metric by me) close to 100% adherence. 

 

VSN - So I'm going to be blunt - after being hugely successful, and in my opinion, one of the top two point task related things on the sites history (only matched by the Pajodcast put on for over 200 episodes by @Devise @Jericho and @Advantage) the VHL Mag/VSN has failed for probably close to 4 years now. Given this happened with multiple members running the mag, writing for the mag, and reading/not reading the mag, I find it hard to put too much fault on the current mag/VSN leadership. In my opinion, it all comes down to the fact that in general, people don't read and respond to media spots anymore. It's very rare for a media spot to get onto a second page, let alone the 4th or 5th. Someone suggested this before, I think the VSN should shift into a position that goes about highlighting specific articles and graphics each week/month or something, and perhaps a "new member recap" that talks about some of the new members/number of new members each week. I think the old way of "hiring an editor, hiring weekly writers, etc...) is extinct at this point, especially with how easy it is to hit the TPE cap now. Again, back in the mag's hay day, it was really hard, if not impossible, to hit the weekly cap without a job.

 

BoG - So, just going to throw it out there - I'm pretty sure but not 100% sure that some other leagues have their BOG/BOD as a paid position. I could see this being a 1 TPE a week job, just to give a little something for the extra work that these people (and full disclosure, I've been included in that group for a very long time) do without any TPE reward. This is something I'm not going to fight too hard about, and I'm not 100% sure it should be implement, but it is a "food for thought" type of thing.

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

1,000+ words, claiming weeks ending:

10/27

11/3

[Garsh 1,195]

What does the BOG do?

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

1 hour ago, Garsh said:

What does the BOG do?

 

The Board of Governors helps come up with ideas to improve the league. It's basically a big discussion group to bounce ideas off everyone and to flesh things out before they're implemented.

 

They also do VHL award voting and voting for the Hall of Fame.