rights & responsibilities of owners & commissioners

[jazzrack]

We, the citizens of the Out of the Park Developments Community, hold this truth to be self-evident. Out of the Park Baseball is more than a game, it is a hobby. Online leagues being an important aspect of the hobby experience should be a relaxing, competitive, friendly and fun community experience.

so I am updating our constitution and figure this might be a decent conversation to have here. when done I'll put it on a wiki page so we don't have to re-invent the wheel, so to speak.

what are the general rights and responsibilities of commissioners and owners in online leagues?

I figure we can break it down by almost "universal" rights/responsibilities and league specific rights/responsibilities. (I am personally more interested in universal type, but will happily keep track of all.)



Universal commish
rights & responsibilities
communicate
develop a concept
create a file
create and maintain some form of communication center (website/forums)
create and maintain league file and team exports infrastructure
create and maintain a civil community
create and maintain sim a schedule (to the best of ones ability, life does exist outside ootp)
develop a rule-set
be dedicated to continual improvement
be open to constructive criticism
recruit compatible owners

(needs to be cleaned up & re-worded, but I think I covered at least some of the basics)


The right to remove a GM if he/she does/not meet the requirements of the league (this leaves room for leagues to define what is acceptable/not acceptable).

The right to deviate schedules, sims, and other league related activity (with sufficient notice) so that the commish may attend to personal affairs.

Universal owner
rights & responsibilities

manage the franchise to the best of your ability
participate in league discussions & functions according to league rules and culture
communicate - respond to trades and other communications. if you desire to leave a league, inform the commissioner.
add value as time and skillset allow




league specific

Participate in League voting procedures

[stevem810]

For GM's there is plenty that can be listed in terms of exports, etc. I'm going to list one suggestion that is a bit open ended:

Value - Figure out a way to add value to your league. Articles, assisting the commish, use your imagination, but do something that makes your league a better more enjoyable experience for all.

[baseballonly]

For GMs, I think the most important role is not exporting. It is posting on the forum and engaging in the community. To me, OOTP leagues aren't all about winning, it's about the community of GMs. this is just for fun, after all. Also, they should take the team they have and use the players to give the team the greatest chance of winning, so exporting as often as it's needed to do this.

For the commish, of course running sims on time, but really just keeping the GMs in line. Another thing is filling up the league and getting the right people in the league when you have an opening. If you have the right guys, the commish shouldn't have to do much IMHO.

[jazzrack]

Tis the season to be busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking contest.

thanks for the responses. this is actually a bit harder than I assumed. I have been a GM since v5 and a commish since 6.5 but when I sit down to try and quantify what I instinctively know my mind seems to go blank.

we developed a preamble that I tweaked

We, the citizens of the Out of the Park Developments Community, hold this truth to be self-evident. Out of the Park Baseball is more than a game, it is a hobby, online leagues are an important aspect of the hobby experience and these leagues should be a relaxing, competitive, friendly and fun community experience. Out of the Park leagues should be created to honor this truth.

so lets vomit stage it and work from there

a commish must

develop a concept
create a file
create and maintain some form of communication center (website/forums)
create and maintain league file and team exports infrastructure
create and maintain a civil community
create and maintain sim a schedule (to the best of ones ability, life does exist outside ootp)
develop a rule-set
be dedicated to continual improvement
be open to constructive criticism

needs to be cleaned up & re-worded, but I think I covered the basics

I am much less clear on what the rights of a commish are ...

[stevem810]

Thanks for your efforts to date.

suggestion: Drop the last line "should be created...." It implies 'guilt' if you don't or have other reasons and isn't really needed. Keep it simple and clean.

Commissioner rights:
Agree this is a bit more challenging but I'll leave a few ideas...

1. The right to remove a GM if he/she does does not meet the requirements of the league (this leaves room for leagues to define what is acceptable/not acceptable).

2. The right to deviate schedules, sims, and other league related activity (with sufficient notice) so that the commish may attend to personal affairs.

[jazzrack]

Originally Posted by stevem810

Thanks for your efforts to date.

suggestion: Drop the last line "should be created...." It implies 'guilt' if you don't or have other reasons and isn't really needed. Keep it simple and clean.

good call. when used for a specific on-line league it's is a powerful statement of cultural direction

"We, the owners of Corporate League Baseball, hold this truth to be self-evident. Out of the Park Baseball is more than a game, it is a hobby, online leagues are an important aspect of the hobby experience and these leagues should be a relaxing, competitive, friendly and fun community experience. Corporate League Baseball was created to honor this truth. "

but when used in the more generic sense it's arbitrary and overbearing, and I was too close to "see" it.

"We, the citizens of the Out of the Park Developments Community, hold this truth to be self-evident. Out of the Park Baseball is more than a game, it is a hobby. Online leagues being an important aspect of the hobby experience should be a relaxing, competitive, friendly and fun community experience. "

is much better. thank you

Commissioner rights:
Agree this is a bit more challenging but I'll leave a few ideas...

1. The right to remove a GM if he/she does does not meet the requirements of the league (this leaves room for leagues to define what is acceptable/not acceptable).

2. The right to deviate schedules, sims, and other league related activity (with sufficient notice) so that the commish may attend to personal affairs.

I wonder if it should be "rights & responsibilities" rather than "rights" and "responsibilities"? some of these seem to be 2 sides of the same coin, it may be easier & more natural to combine them. ...

[stevem810]

I'd just drop the 'rights' from the language but include the content under responsibilities. 'Rights' sounds a little formal. Since the theme is 'fun' I'd recommend keeping the language informal and casual. Not to be confused with not being clear and definitive.

[jazzrack]

for the sake of the discussion I have merged rights & responsibilities. when I/we put together a final write-up we'll have to frame it differently.

and I do apologize for the break in the conversation but I have been swamped and when I have had time I simply have not wanted to think this hard.

on the plus side I passed my 6 unit Fundamentals of Marketing and Business Communication class in less than 3 weeks

[MBarrett]

Instead of debating the importance of exporting vs. writing/posting, a catch-all responsibility could be "Actively participating in the league".

Our league doesn't care if you post much or export much, as long as you do something. We have some GMs that don't export very often, but they're busy in the forums. We also have GMs that hardly ever post but they never miss an export. To us it doesn't matter, they're proving they are engaged and active and that's all we need.

[MBarrett]

Award voting is also a mandatory requirement of ours, not sure how other leagues feel about that.

[jazzrack]

some changes

owner
rights & responsibilities

manage the franchise to the best of your ability
participate in league functions according to league rules and culture
communicate - respond to trades and other communications. if you desire to leave a league, inform the commissioner
add value as time and skillset allow

[stevem810]

Originally Posted by MBarrett

Award voting is also a mandatory requirement of ours, not sure how other leagues feel about that.

Agree with including Award Voting as mandatory.

[tarmer]

Originally Posted by MBarrett

Instead of debating the importance of exporting vs. writing/posting, a catch-all responsibility could be "Actively participating in the league".

Our league doesn't care if you post much or export much, as long as you do something. We have some GMs that don't export very often, but they're busy in the forums. We also have GMs that hardly ever post but they never miss an export. To us it doesn't matter, they're proving they are engaged and active and that's all we need.

"Actively participating in the league"

This is super critical in every league, It may be looked at and agreed to be just that... But all members including commish need to fully realize what it means to the league in terms of overall success. You can set up a site put the league together do all the work to start it off including recruit managers to play BUT if members do not activley participate the league will soon lose steam and failThe leagues that have managed to survive the longest have a few things going for them the rest do not.. One of them is active participation - Now whether you export (or do not) post articles (or do not) doing something is important so as MBarret noted above this is of the top importance

[jazzrack]

.

participate in league discussions & functions according to league rules and culture

?

[Bluenoser]

Commish responsibility - Look after vacant teams.

Vacant teams being left to be run on their own for a period of game time while waiting for an owner. Players not moved to DL, up/down minors. Set line-ups/rotation.

Most importantly, - Off season. Make sure arby offers are made and FA's extended.

You don't have to manage the team, just make the common sense moves that any GM would.

[MBarrett]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

Commish responsibility - Look after vacant teams.

Vacant teams being left to be run on their own for a period of game time while waiting for an owner. Players not moved to DL, up/down minors. Set line-ups/rotation.

Most importantly, - Off season. Make sure arby offers are made and FA's extended.

You don't have to manage the team, just make the common sense moves that any GM would.

This is huge. Can't believe no-one mentioned this yet. Can really destroy a league if a few teams are left unattended for even a few in-game weeks.

[jazzrack]

sorry guys, I have been buried in moving/merging ootpmods.com & ootpwiki.info onto a new server and ran into some technical issues. this is still on the stove

[jazzrack]

I have not forgotten, just been insanely busy... i am still thinking on how to form the final document

[MBarrett]

Take as much time as you need. Thank you for putting this together.

[stevem810]

One of the things that go wrong in the GM/Commish & League relationship is often traced back to not sharing clear and measurable expectations of the GM. For example, manage your team to the best of your ability is much less precise than, 'vote on all mandatory league votes', export a minimum of 'x' amount of days per week, update your block every 'x' amount of weeks. So, I would add to the commish list that clear and measurabl expectations be in place.