Quote:
Originally Posted by Corsairs
The right owner will make your league better for years to come, while the wrong one can do considerable damage in a relatively short tenure.
For those of you who do screen incoming owners, what methods do you use?
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To answer your question, besides reading a selection of their posts here, I googled whatever I could find about them like their email address or AIM ID.
I'm curious what "considerable damage" someone did in a short period of time however. I mean, what's the worse someone can do, call you a cheat? If someone does that and can't at all back it up then I think pretty much everyone is going to look at the guy as just being a troublemaker. If a third party does turn on you as a result of the accusation then there was probably something else there that was a problem.
Anyway, my point for the question and getting a bit OT is I'm not sure screening is really that necessary. I mean, excessive screening could potentially turn a great GM away. I know I've reacted that way to jobs in real life. I've never done anything all that bad in my life, but I don't like people snooping into my personal life either so if someone says that's part of the process then I'll probably stay away. I could kind of see the point for you if you've somehow had a really bad experience with some GM, but have you really and if not, why do it?
There was one person that applied to the KBL that I had a bad feeling over and I didn't really want to let him into the league, but after thinking about it I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and see if he could prove me wrong. In the end my initial feeling was right and he ended up making a somewhat nasty post later (IIRC, it was either a comment that we never got full or that we ended up folding after 7 or 8 seasons), but really, it wasn't that big of a deal and I easily let it go which can sometimes difficult for me so that should tell you it really wasn't that bad. Even with that, though, I still think I made the right decision letting him in because when you start doing that where do you draw the line? I'd rather let someone in and have them turn out bad (again, how bad can it get, really?) than risk turning away someone that might turn out fine.
What little screening I did do was more out of fear of someone taking on two teams to trade much of one team's talent to the other. I don't think that ever happened and if anything, I'd say the fear of that probably created more of a problem than had it happened. That is, I initially reviewed every trade and then if I was worried by one I would ask a committee to look it over. IIRC, I overruled a couple when looking back on it I probably shouldn't as not only do people have different trading skills, but I've learnt that sometimes you really do just want to take whatever you can get so if you're talking to someone that doesn't tick you off then why not make the deal? Anyway, I regret the backlash from overruling those trades and I most likely wouldn't do it now unless it was just so glaringly obvious and maybe not even until it happened twice between the same two GMs.
I didn't really consider their communication ability because I don't think that's a good judge of character. For instance, my wife's brother is a great nice guy, scary looking dude and can barely write a coherent phrase, but a great hard-working guy nonetheless. Why should we discriminate based on writing ability when it comes to online leagues? Sure, they probably won't contribute much in the way of forum discussions, but as long as they're taking decent care of their team and enjoying themselves, I don't care. I take discussion contribution as just a bonus.
So, before you start looking into better ways to screen, maybe you should ask yourself: do I really need or even want to screen?
(If you'd like me to split this tangent into another thread, I'll be happy too. Sorry, if it bothered you.)