[satchel]

Originally Posted by BruceM

...maybe list it as a "Potential" League.

There is no need for "gauging interest" threads in the Online Leagues subforum.

If you build it, they will come.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by satchel

There is no need for "gauging interest" threads in the Online Leagues subforum.

If you build it, they will come.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with "gauging interest" threads either.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by BruceM

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with "gauging interest" threads either.

You are wrong sir, there are many severe problems with "gauging interest" threads. They are a pox upon this forum.

1. They clutter up our Online Leagues subforum. "Gauging interest" threads bury actual, concrete leagues' launch announcement and recruitment threads. A Commish expends the time, labor, and money that it takes to found and operate a league. Then that Commish enters the "free market" (which this forum largely comprises), to compete with other leagues for owners. (The "economics" of online leagues runs on the principle of supply and demand.) A constructed, functioning league is a serious investment of resources. Only those who have made that investment have the right to freely use the real estate of this Online Leagues subforum. If there is no requirement or qualification for advertising leagues here, nothing prevents this subforum from being over-run by threads without substance. An "idea" for a league is just a fantasy; it is a dream. Those of us who have made a real-world investment should not have our vital recruiting threads pushed down to the bottom of the screen, or off of the front page, so other people can discuss abstract proposals and stroke each others' egos.
2. Multiple "proposal" and "gauging interest threads hurt the credibility of actual constructed leagues. This is a venue for conducting business. It is not a place where people have the license to make false promises of things to come. People are forbidden from coming on this subforum and impersonating a Commissioner, by posing as one by acting as the proprieter of an entity that does not yet exist. That damages the trust that owners should be able to have, in this community's Commissioners. Someone offering involvement in an imaginary, "proposed" league, or asking people to emotionally invest in an idea by "gauging their interest" is in a position where they are probably going to end up abusing those peoples' trust. That diminishes the whole online league dynamic, therefore it will not be allowed.
3. If there is no price for discussing leaguex here, then there is no mechanism to prevent surplus of bogus league proposals from drowning the legitimate, vital posts in this forum. That is what almost all of these "proposals" and "gauging interest" theads are: bogus wastes of time that intolerably tax the intangible currency of trust and commitment exchanged by online league Commissioners and owners. They damage this community and pollute its healthy functioning. It does not belong here.
4. As those of us, who are veterans of the online leagues community know, those threads are unnecessary. Like we have recently discussed: If you build it, they will come.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by BruceM

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with "gauging interest" threads either.

I have ideas for 100 unique new leagues, none of which I will ever actually create and manage. Is it alright if I jam the Online Leagues subforum with 100 threads to "gauge interest" in these ephemeral phantoms?

May I distract community members away from actual operating leagues and divert their focus and participation into frustrating dead ends which will linger on indefinitely, but never accomplish anything?

[kq76]

Would you prefer if gauging interest threads go here, the managers' board, or their own future board?

I agree with you that they're probably usually rather pointless in that they typically don't garner much feedback, but I certainly don't want to prohibit them. If someone really wants to try one then I think they should feel free to. If the community would prefer they not be amongst ads though then I can try to accommodate that somehow.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by kq76

Would you prefer if gauging interest threads go here, the managers' board, or their own future board?

Thanks for discussing this matter, KQ. It's not a new topic, we've closely considered it in the past.

I do think that the board for announcing league launches and important new developments, and for recruiting for online league members, shouldn't have to compete with discussions about theoretical leagues.

[Afino]

Honestly, I think they're few and far between enough to not be a problem.

[tarmer]

Originally Posted by satchel

Thanks for discussing this matter, KQ. It's not a new topic, we've closely considered it in the past.

I do think that the board for announcing league launches and important new developments, and for recruiting for online league members, shouldn't have to compete with discussions about theoretical leagues.

Satchel,

What is your problem ? How can any post that is not spam and is not critical or threating of another person(s) be un-needed ? The whole reason for forum's is to get traffic, and have discussions on topics NOT to dictate what is not needed from a couple users perspectives. Now I am sure that your leagues are perfect with no issues and never any turn over so I will exclude you from the next paragraph

Many people spend countless hours and resources (as well as some monetary outlay) to create something they think is interesting and may want to share with other managers - And not all of these leagues get filled ever (or in a resonable time frame) so this person waits and waits and maybe never gets the results he was hoping for - Your use of the field of dreams line "If you build it they will come " is not really true - Most new leagues have a hard time making it - That is not all it is most. Backstories, Player histories - Websites etc.. They are all getting more challenging to come up with original ideas but also harder to fill with veteran managers.

The seasoned managers like the seasoned leagues - So the reason for gauging interest is to see if you get any number of intersted manager candidates prior to may be making a huge resource commitment - The commitment though it may seem trivial to some of you may be huge for somebody else who may have fewer resources

Quit being so critical of posts being placed on boards - If you have no interest in the topic do not read it move on - I don't respond to every topic I don't like because to decide what is and is not "postable" and under what terms is a little like censorship and I would hate to think OOTP and the moderators of this board think censorship is an appropriate behavior for such a non-threating topic as "Gauging Interest"

And since when did you become the authority on what is allowed on a free forum that you do not host, pay for or maintain

Only those who have made that investment have the right to freely use the real estate of this Online Leagues subforum. <------- Is this within your authority to dictate

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by satchel

You are wrong sir, there are many severe problems with "gauging interest" threads. They are a pox upon this forum.

1. They clutter up our Online Leagues subforum. "Gauging interest" threads bury actual, concrete leagues' launch announcement and recruitment threads. A Commish expends the time, labor, and money that it takes to found and operate a league. Then that Commish enters the "free market" (which this forum largely comprises), to compete with other leagues for owners. (The "economics" of online leagues runs on the principle of supply and demand.) A constructed, functioning league is a serious investment of resources. Only those who have made that investment have the right to freely use the real estate of this Online Leagues subforum. If there is no requirement or qualification for advertising leagues here, nothing prevents this subforum from being over-run by threads without substance. An "idea" for a league is just a fantasy; it is a dream. Those of us who have made a real-world investment should not have our vital recruiting threads pushed down to the bottom of the screen, or off of the front page, so other people can discuss abstract proposals and stroke each others' egos.
2. Multiple "proposal" and "gauging interest threads hurt the credibility of actual constructed leagues. This is a venue for conducting business. It is not a place where people have the license to make false promises of things to come. People are forbidden from coming on this subforum and impersonating a Commissioner, by posing as one by acting as the proprieter of an entity that does not yet exist. That damages the trust that owners should be able to have, in this community's Commissioners. Someone offering involvement in an imaginary, "proposed" league, or asking people to emotionally invest in an idea by "gauging their interest" is in a position where they are probably going to end up abusing those peoples' trust. That diminishes the whole online league dynamic, therefore it will not be allowed.
3. If there is no price for discussing leaguex here, then there is no mechanism to prevent surplus of bogus league proposals from drowning the legitimate, vital posts in this forum. That is what almost all of these "proposals" and "gauging interest" theads are: bogus wastes of time that intolerably tax the intangible currency of trust and commitment exchanged by online league Commissioners and owners. They damage this community and pollute its healthy functioning. It does not belong here.
4. As those of us, who are veterans of the online leagues community know, those threads are unnecessary. Like we have recently discussed: If you build it, they will come.

You have to be joking? They clutter up the online league forum? Give me a break. You act like they happen on a daily occurence. There's nothing wrong with them at all. They are actually, (now this is a novel thing) about OOTP. Way better than the tons of idiotic, immature, "+1" and "in before lock" crap that we see on these forums.

Excuse me for stepping on your veteran toes sir, but I've been playing in online leagues since OOTP was capable of doing so. I've seen tons of useless threads on these forums. Threads that talk about online leagues belong in the online leagues forums.

Your "if you build it they will come" theory is washed up. Many leagues are strugling to fill openings, much unlike a few years ago when they were easy to fill. Someone wants to create a league and asking if there's any interest in that particular type of league is doing no harm by asking about, and is in fact, promoting online leagues.

[BruceM]

Originally Posted by kq76

I moved it because online league threads have their place and that place is here. Just like people not interested in mods or dynasties shouldn't have to wade through those threads on the general board, we shouldn't make people uninterested in online league threads have to go through our threads on the general board either.

Satchel may take issue with gauging interest threads and when it comes to whether they're really useful to the person trying to gauge interest I agree with him that the threads probably don't end up helping the person asking for input much if any, but I'm not sure they're that much of a bother to most. Maybe they should have their own sub-board and maybe they'll get it one day, but at this time they are allowed and they go here. Regardless, I have since moved that part of this thread to its own thread.

I should mention that I later saw you had a very similar thread posted on the OOTP8 boards where you said this idea was for an OOTP8 league so maybe what I should have done was just closed this thread, but I figured I should be nice and leave open in case you were thinking of doing one for each.

Nice - I fully expect in the future ALL mod threads that pop up in the open forum to also moved to their respective forum. Far too often, much more than "gauging interest" threads, I see MOD posts in the open forum with the "I know this belongs in the MOD forum but I posted it here because more people will see it" opening. And then they stay in the open forum.

Censorship is starting to get totally ridiculous on these forums. I've been an OOTP player since verison one and never have I seen the crap I'm seeing now about moving certain threads and now "gauging interest" threads are cluttering up the forum.

Give me a break.

As far as I'm concerned I have no further interest in being a member of these forums, please feel free to delete my user account.

What a joke this place is turning into. Preferential treatment for certain members.

[satchel]

Originally Posted by BruceM

Give me a break.

As far as I'm concerned I have no further interest in being a member of these forums, please feel free to delete my user account.

What a joke this place is turning into. Preferential treatment for certain members.

Boo-hoo.

[ae37jr]

What about threads gauging interest about whether gauging interest threads should be allowed... Should they be allowed too or should we start another thread to gauge interest?.....

[kq76]

Originally Posted by BruceM

...

What a joke this place is turning into. Preferential treatment for certain members.

I don't believe I'm being "preferential" at all. I'm a strong believer that this place would be a chaotic mess if people posted whatever they wanted wherever they wanted and I'm simply trying to help make this forum function better by putting topics where people interested in them will be easier to find them. I didn't move that thead on anybody's request; I saw it and I moved it of my own accord. It's been awhile, but I recall I've abliged you in your requests to move some threads to their correct places before too so I'm a bit surprised you're throwing a fit over me moving that thread.

Maybe you feel I'm being preferential by moving some of the posts from that thread to this thread to ask the question of the community, but again, I don't think I am being preferential in that either. It's my belief that satchel is probably the only one who is really bothered by these threads and if he is then maybe someone will convince him that it's not that big a deal. Personally, I don't really care where they go and I don't think they're that big of a deal, but other than maybe asking him to try to be a bit nicer so as not to make people feel uncomfortable, I don't myself feel like arguing with him over it, I'll let others do that if they wish. Or maybe I'm wrong and a bunch of people will say no, it'd be best if they were elsewhere while next to one argues against that. I'm simply trying to flush out what the truth is.

Maybe you feel I'm being preferential in the topics I move and to that I'll admit that I am guilty. I'm simply not going to go after every topic because, frankly, I've got better things to do in life. However, I do consider myself the point moderator on online leagues since I probably take the strongest interest in it and I'd like the general OOTP community to feel as though the online league sub-community is a friendly and respectful segment. Why? Well, it's my belief that if the rest of the members see the online league community as such then more of them will be more likely to try an online league out. Sure, we've got plenty of people already, we don't need more, but I do feel like people are missing out when they say, "well, I'd try an online league, but I don't like how... whatever". Now for most games the common issue people take with multiplayers is that they're rude and childish and what not and we probably haven't had that problem since maybe 2006, but I do feel like a small part of it is feeling like you can leave a post wherever you feel like it and I do realize it bothers at least some people so I try to help pick up those threads and put them where they belong.

[jazzrack]

Originally Posted by kq76

I don't believe I'm being "preferential" at all. I'm a strong believer that this place would be a chaotic mess if people posted whatever they wanted wherever they wanted and I'm simply trying to help make this forum function better by putting topics where people interested in them will be easier to find them. I didn't move that thead on anybody's request; I saw it and I moved it of my own accord. It's been awhile, but I recall I've abliged you in your requests to move some threads to their correct places before too so I'm a bit surprised you're throwing a fit over me moving that thread.

Maybe you feel I'm being preferential by moving some of the posts from that thread to this thread to ask the question of the community, but again, I don't think I am being preferential in that either. It's my belief that satchel is probably the only one who is really bothered by these threads and if he is then maybe someone will convince him that it's not that big a deal. Personally, I don't really care where they go and I don't think they're that big of a deal, but other than maybe asking him to try to be a bit nicer so as not to make people feel uncomfortable, I don't myself feel like arguing with him over it, I'll let others do that if they wish. Or maybe I'm wrong and a bunch of people will say no, it'd be best if they were elsewhere while next to one argues against that. I'm simply trying to flush out what the truth is.

Maybe you feel I'm being preferential in the topics I move and to that I'll admit that I am guilty. I'm simply not going to go after every topic because, frankly, I've got better things to do in life. However, I do consider myself the point moderator on online leagues since I probably take the strongest interest in it and I'd like the general OOTP community to feel as though the online league sub-community is a friendly and respectful segment. Why? Well, it's my belief that if the rest of the members see the online league community as such then more of them will be more likely to try an online league out. Sure, we've got plenty of people already, we don't need more, but I do feel like people are missing out when they say, "well, I'd try an online league, but I don't like how... whatever". Now for most games the common issue people take with multiplayers is that they're rude and childish and what not and we probably haven't had that problem since maybe 2006, but I do feel like a small part of it is feeling like you can leave a post wherever you feel like it and I do realize it bothers at least some people so I try to help pick up those threads and put them where they belong.

if you ask me the forum set-up is backward, it's the advertisements that should get the sub-forum and the main online league forum should be for general online league related discussions including "gauging interest" posts, because they are needed.

[playball]

Maybe if the same person was creating a "gauging interest" thread every day it could get annoying. But I haven't noticed any forum over-run with those threads. Apart from which, such threads are on topic aren't they?

Live and let live. I ignore threads I have no interest in every day, and just move on. Be good to each other.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by jazzrack

if you ask me the forum set-up is backward, it's the advertisements that should get the sub-forum and the main online league forum should be for general online league related discussions including "gauging interest" posts, because they are needed.

In a way, yeah, that makes sense, but when I proposed that a bunch of people threw fits for a multitude of reasons. However, the one reason I thought made the most sense was because ads have always been the major reason for visiting the online league board so why make people click through another link to get to them? So that's why I said okay, I'll propose to Andreas to create a managers' sub-forum to put the more general stuff in and leave the ads in the main forum, which in a way makes sense too IMO.

That still leaves the question of where to put gauging interest threads, but at the moment I think my opinion at least is leaning towards the managers' sub-forum because like the other threads here: 1) their purpose is similar in that they're asking online leaguers in general for their input, and 2) to the benefit of their own starters, they wouldn't get buried by all the ads so people might actually reply to more of them. That sounds like it would work well to me, but I'd like to see what others think. Why didn't I suggest that before? Well, I guess I just saw them like a type of ad, which I guess they are, but maybe they're sufficiently different to warrant them being here instead of there. And while I don't feel nearly as strongly about it all as satchel does, I can't help but agree with him on his point that ads of leagues that are actually going and trying to do their best to be full should be given as much of the prime screen space as possible.

[kq76]

Originally Posted by playball

Maybe if the same person was creating a "gauging interest" thread every day it could get annoying. But I haven't noticed any forum over-run with those threads. Apart from which, such threads are on topic aren't they?

Live and let live. I ignore threads I have no interest in every day, and just move on. Be good to each other.

Well, there was 1 person who started 3 or 4 gauging interest threads within a fairly short time which I'll admit I found a bit annoying too. But yeah, generally people will just make one thread and either not make another or start a league some time soon afterwards.

I second the let's just try to be nice to each other. If we can make this place a little better, great, but let's try to be nice to each other in going about it.

[remangiii]

Let's vote.

[jazzrack]

Originally Posted by kq76

In a way, yeah, that makes sense, but when I proposed that a bunch of people threw fits for a multitude of reasons. However, the one reason I thought made the most sense was because ads have always been the major reason for visiting the online league board so why make people click through another link to get to them? So that's why I said okay, I'll propose to Andreas to create a managers' sub-forum to put the more general stuff in and leave the ads in the main forum, which in a way makes sense too IMO.

That still leaves the question of where to put gauging interest threads, but at the moment I think my opinion at least is leaning toward the managers' sub-forum because like the other threads here: 1) their purpose is similar in that they're asking online leaguers in general for their input, and 2) to the benefit of their own starters, they wouldn't get buried by all the ads so people might actually reply to more of them. That sounds like it would work well to me, but I'd like to see what others think. Why didn't I suggest that before? Well, I guess I just saw them like a type of ad, which I guess they are, but maybe they're sufficiently different to warrant them being here instead of there. And while I don't feel nearly as strongly about it all as satchel does, I can't help but agree with him on his point that ads of leagues that are actually going and trying to do their best to be full should be given as much of the prime screen space as possible.

well it is a matter of preference & opinion, i doubt there is a right & wrong. I just look at forums as buildings. the whole forum is OOTP HQ. online leagues are on say floor 5, you get off on floor 5 and you are hit with nothing but ads, if you want a discussion about , your team, your league, drafting, ect. you have to go over to one corner, if you want to chat with commish,s you goto the other corner. it just seems to me that you should open up to a lobby/lounge and then if you want to read an ad or chat with cimmish's you goto the back wall/ corner.

I am not sure i agree with the premise that most visitors are hear looking for a league. a more discussion friendly main online league forum could actually help the whole online community.

but then again i have no special knowledge on this so it is nothing but opinion.

[ShoelessJ03]

Why isn't there a sub-forum dedicated to recruitment for online leagues. It does seem that there should be a main lobby for general online league discussions and then if you are specifically looking to join a league or recruit for your online league, there should be a dedicated area just for that purpose.

I agree with a few others who mentioned that this forum is set-up backwards.

As you enter the online league forum you should be greeted by a general lobby. There should then be dedicated areas such as the manager's lounge and commish corner AND a recruitment forum for the sole purpose of advertising leagues.

It does suck a bit to have legit, up-and-running leagues pushed down the ladder and down the page (or off it altogether) for threads simply fishing for interest.

If someone has already done the leg work and setup their online league they should not have to compete with league ideas for ad space.