Calling all commish's past current and anyone looking to start a league

[OOTPBleader]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

I don't think that's true at all. Obviously, there are some great commishes out there who post (or posted a lot) here: LL, Andy Brown, Cooley, Prof, kq, Iatric, sporr etc. etc.

But there are absolutely tons out there with very little posting, but are commonly known to run really good leagues (or at least their leagues are known): my other commishes past and present like BC Stone, Drew from LotD, Akrobat, Jason Dettbarn, and other guys who I've never had the pleasure of being marshalled by like Dean Gordon, mking, halofan, nmleague, Matt from Tennessee, all the Crash Davis ones, 20thC challenge, blue meanie, the list is actually massive. All these leagues I look at and think, 'this looks really good'.

The problem is this: everyone wants to join a new 2004 league. Many 'modern' leagues will then run into ownership issues as soon as you hit sometime when it wanders into fantasy. Moreove, online league consumers know what they are looking for, and sadly there are a few of them that's winning the WS with 2004 Red Sox, or Yankees, or whatever, and will jump ship if things go wrong. That's fine if that's what they want to do, but this is where the shortfall comes. It's not always guys new to OOTP who are coming and joining new leagues, it's guys who've left other leagues.

So, once you cut off those that follow that philosophy, and you take away the fict/historical crowd, you're left with very few guys interested in taking on 'modern' franchises in 2009. It's a lack of owners for this group, not a lack of knowledge, that leaves the shortfall.

you are very ture about what you are saying about guys jumping ship. That is one thing i do what commishs to report to me and my group and when a commish is filling holes he can come and ask us if we have a report on that owner if so we will let him know then if he what to take him on then so be it

[bmcg1709]

You've talked a lot about judging Commissioners reputations and now about keeping records on owners. Yet no one is allowed to know anything about who you are or your reputation. This is the reason you have a huge credibility problem and that your project is probably doomed to fail.

[DaveHorn]

Originally Posted by Cooleyvol

What he's offering is not really needed, IMO.
I mean, why would I need help filling spots in my league from someone else?

I just don't get it.

The ideas are a whole lot more than that. Folks getting hung on his phrases like "that we support" and "support new commish with good record" I believe are misinterpretting his poor grammar and writing skills. The idea is not some group of elitist commishioners roving around stomping out creativity of new leagues and commishioners. The idea is very simple to me. He looking for a better way to support and help the online community grow besides this forum.

Cooley, you are actually a perfect example of someone who could of recently benefited from this idea. You wanted to add an export tracker to your league. You found mine and came to me for help. How? You must of stumbled upon one of my posts here or perhaps word of mouth. You needed help tweaking the script for your site and I had the free time to give you hand. What if I didn't? What would you do next? What if there was a website with reources dedicated to helping online leagues? I'm talking about more than the simple links to leagues and links to tools that many other fine websites provide. My export tracker and others could be sitting there for commishioners to look at and evaluate which one meets there needs. Except not only you you download the scripts you get a nice readme or something that details exactly how to use it. You are need a script slightly customized, but you don't have the skills to do it, the person who created the script isn't available to help and you have no idea who else might have the skills to help. What if there was a forum where folks could get this help? "Hey guys, I just downloaded export tracker A and I need it to do this, can someone give me a hand?".

I'm also an example of someone who could of benefited by this. I recently decided to join some leagues (never been in one besides my own). I hit a site or two that claimed to have a list of leagues, but found them extremely out of date. So what do I do? I watch posts in this forum and look back through posts of the last seven days or so. I find most posts that don't even include the basic info that I could make a decision on whether that league is possibly for me or not, they simply contain very basic info and a link to the website. So I visit the website after website and dig through them to try and determine, does the league use BOSI, CATO, salary cap, cash max, how long has it been around, etc. Try to determine all the things necessary for me to make a decision whether or not I'd like to join. What if there was a database of leagues that could be upkept by the community, not just one guy running a website? The database would contain all this info and more. Folks could quickly put in their criteria get a list back of leagues and begin to search for their league. In addition, the database could include user rating system, where user's could rate and comment about the league. So when your viewing you list of leagues, you can quickly see what others have had to say about the league. Yes, I realize this will cause griefers to purposely make bad posts with bad ratings. But if you've done online shopping almost anywhere, you know these systems work even with the griefers because its not the overall rating score that counts, its the comments that others leave where you'll quickly be able to separate the griefers from folks who are actually leaving a honest comment.

Another recent observation of mine is the large differences of what online commishioners practive for their league files. Some zip them up from the OOTP directory, some zip them up from within the league directory, I found one that zips it up from Program Files. Then I found large differences between what makes up a "full", "large" and "small" league file. I found some that don't even include the .txt files and other important files in their "small" league file. So if I want to see league news or how players developed I'm stuck grabbing the 10-20mb "full" league file. If I grab the small file, I basically have nothing but the very minimum necessary to export my rotser. Do these commishioners know they can include these other files and increase the size of the download by only a fraction? I doubt it. Isn't this a pain in the ass for those in multiple leagues? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a website where a standard could be published? Sort of a FAQ for online commishioners that could state what the different league files are, what they should contain, how to make them, and even include simple batch files that they can make them with. I made batch files like this available ages ago, how is anyone going to find them. Either word of mouth or a lucky search on this website. Of course, no one has to follow the guidelines, but I bet most would if all the information was gathered in a single place.

Sorry for book, I guess I got on a roll. My point is that all I think Mr. Anonymous is after is a better place for online leagues to communicate, help each other, share resources, share knowledge, etc. One person with an incredible amount of free time could pull this off or a team of folks who share a common vision and goals could pull it off. This forum as great as it is does not cut it. Hell, maybe we won't always have this forum, maybe SI pulls the rug and makes us join their nazi regime forum. Then what? Its discouraging to see so many folks quickly run in and slam this guy. Its the message not the messenger that is important here.

[jnshmoo]

Originally Posted by DaveHorn

Sorry for book, I guess I got on a roll. My point is that all I think Mr. Anonymous is after is a better place for online leagues to communicate, help each other, share resources, share knowledge, etc. One person with an incredible amount of free time could pull this off or a team of folks who share a common vision and goals could pull it off. This forum as great as it is does not cut it. Hell, maybe we won't always have this forum, maybe SI pulls the rug and makes us join their nazi regime forum. Then what? Its discouraging to see so many folks quickly run in and slam this guy. Its the message not the messenger that is important here.

I'm not so sure that most of us disagree that the idea itself is a bad one. The message may not be all that bad, but in this case, since the messenger is the one who wants to take charge of the project, he is part of the message. By cloaking his true identity, he is drawing the skepticism.

Even if his plan is a good one, he is asking us to blindly trust him to be able to pull it together and make it work. There must be some reason why he chose not to hatch this plan without hiding behind the curtain.

I also stand behind my suggestions that he step up the professionalism if he wants to be taken seriously. If he can't take the time to proofread his posts and communicate clearly, how can he successfully handle such a large project such as this?

[ifspuds]

I'll echo jnshmoo's words. All those things you mention, Dave, would be a fabulous addition to the online world. But I can't trust a guy that can't even take time to spell things properly and use junior-high level grammar to take the time necessary to either run or oversee an effort like this.

If he'd come on with, as jnshmoo says, a professional post, with some work already done on a website, some concrete proposals similar to what you've said, Dave, then not only would I be supportive, I might have even offered to help. I don't care if he's a newbie, a board veteran, hiding his identity or not. His message is badly obscured by the method he uses to express it.

The idea is potentially sound, the execution? No.

[disposableheros]

the grammar and spelling could be a function of nationality rather than education, but the identity issue is a little worrisome.

$.02

[Jeremy Weimer]

[baseballsim21]

Originally Posted by bmcg1709

You've talked a lot about judging Commissioners reputations and now about keeping records on owners. Yet no one is allowed to know anything about who you are or your reputation. This is the reason you have a huge credibility problem and that your project is probably doomed to fail.

I have to agree with this post.

[rem]

Originally Posted by dougaiton

But there are absolutely tons out there with very little posting, but are commonly known to run really good leagues (or at least their leagues are known): my other commishes past and present like BC Stone, Drew from LotD, Akrobat, Jason Dettbarn, and other guys who I've never had the pleasure of being marshalled by like Dean Gordon, mking, halofan, nmleague, Matt from Tennessee, all the Crash Davis ones, 20thC challenge, blue meanie, the list is actually massive. All these leagues I look at and think, 'this looks really good'.

Sorry but I have to take issue here. Unless I'm mistaken Akrobat has commished at least 3 and perhaps four leagues in the past year. Now granted he's a pretty good commish when he's actualing commishing but FLASH only ran one year and he stepped down from commishing UBF at the all-star break of year one. Pennant Fever Baseball can't have last long and I'm not sure how long FLOG ran. Perhaps it's sour grapes over FLASH but I think your being too generous.

[jnshmoo]

Originally Posted by disposableheros

the grammar and spelling could be a function of nationality rather than education, but the identity issue is a little worrisome.

$.02

I could understand that, and I'm not even necessarily saying that he has a low education level. I often find that the spelling and grammar of my message board posting is quite a bit below the level that I use in my communication at work. If he came right out and said English wasn't his primary language I'd be understanding of that, but I don't think that is the case here.

[Jeremy Weimer]

Originally Posted by remangiii

Sorry but I have to take issue here. Unless I'm mistaken Akrobat has commished at least 3 and perhaps four leagues in the past year. Now granted he's a pretty good commish when he's actualing commishing but FLASH only ran one year and he stepped down from commishing UBF at the all-star break of year one. Pennant Fever Baseball can't have last long and I'm not sure how long FLOG ran. Perhaps it's sour grapes over FLASH but I think your being too generous.

Well I only know about FLASH and UBF but the reason he closed down FLASH is because interest in the league just disappeared rather quickly. There was like 5 guys even turning in exports and paying attention. UBF he handed over the commish job because he was/is in the process of moving to Boston and once he's settled there he's going to be quite busy with work or school or both, I forget. He just didn't think he'd have the time to continue running UBF so he handed it over.

So neither of those situations were necessarily bad situations as far as him closing the league or handing it over. It was for the best for both situations. I can't speak about FLOG or the other league though because I know nothing about them.

[bmcg1709]

Originally Posted by remangiii

Sorry but I have to take issue here. Unless I'm mistaken Akrobat has commished at least 3 and perhaps four leagues in the past year. Now granted he's a pretty good commish when he's actualing commishing but FLASH only ran one year and he stepped down from commishing UBF at the all-star break of year one. Pennant Fever Baseball can't have last long and I'm not sure how long FLOG ran. Perhaps it's sour grapes over FLASH but I think your being too generous.

I was in FLASH and have noticed Akrobats penchant for starting leagues and then abandoning them. I'm not surprised it happened to the UBF as well.

The ultimate irony was his thread complaning about GMs who abandon leagues.
http://www.ootpdevelopments.com/boar...ad.php?t=71140

[DaveHorn]

I've put my money where my mouth is. I just grabbed ootponline.com, ootpresource.com, and ootpvault.com. I hope to put some of my ideas into practice. I hope when I come on here looking for help, advice, opinions, feedback from fellow online commishioners I'll get a better response than ootpbleader received.

Obviously, I understand folks refrain from respecting the source when the source remains anonymous, but get past it and talk about the ideas. There are multiple things here that can be accomplished by many different people. Even if you assume the worse of ootpbleader, it doesn't mean any discussion generated from this thread is a complete waste of time.

[Raderick]

Originally Posted by DaveHorn

I've put my money where my mouth is. I just grabbed ootponline.com, ootpresource.com, and ootpvault.com.

As in you just purchased the domains? I tried going in each one and I get a cannot find server message, thats why I asked.

[DaveHorn]

Originally Posted by Raderick

As in you just purchased the domains? I tried going in each one and I get a cannot find server message, thats why I asked.

Yes, as in just now. I've got them forwarded to HFTC for now. But I'm sure you probably know new domains take 2-3 days for them to trickle through all DNS servers.

[rem]

Something led by a recognizable and highly succesful commish has much more appeal. Proper word use is also nice perk. However, I still question the practicality and usefullness of the entire thing.