Track manual edits to players

[Sabermetric Baseball]

When someone goes into the player editor and makes a change, a new row should appear on that player's Scouting Report page with an asterisk signifying the edit was made on the specified date in the game.

As with the game currently, there should be no way (for a human playing the game) to modify records on the Scouting Report page.

This would greatly improve accountability in online leagues, and there's really zero downside.

[Bluenoser]

In online leagues, there is no way for human owners to edit anything unless they have the Commish password. Somebody would have to hack into the game to do that, and if they can hack through a password, I doubt anything would stop them from hacking further so they could start editing. I'm not aware of any leagues having accountability issues. If there were, I'm sure it would have filtered back to these forums.

When playing solo, one should never be stopped from editing things. Customization and being able to edit anything and everything are huge selling points of OOTP.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Yes, I'm saying showing when the Commissioners themselves have made edits would be one of the main incentives of this feature.

This would in no way be a deterrent to making edits, it would just allow more transparency for when edits are made.

Can't really see a reason why anyone would be opposed to this.

[OutS|der]

would these edits show up in my offline league as well?
If so then i don't want them, i don't want to see my editing in the history.

[Breckinridge]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

would these edits show up in my offline league as well?
If so then i don't want them, i don't want to see my editing in the history.

Unless perhaps there was an option to add notes to the edit, giving reason why the change occurred, as per the storyline of your league......(off-season workouts or injury, time off due to military service, or any factor you want to list)......or the option to not have the edits show at all.....

Regards,

Breck

[fhomess]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

Yes, I'm saying showing when the Commissioners themselves have made edits would be one of the main incentives of this feature.

I would expect such a feature would have to be an option since there are leagues out there with commishes who don't run a team and there are cases where they do edit players intentionally. Sometimes it's as a participation reward, at other times it's to adjust something in the amateur draft pool. There are other reasons.

Assuming it would be an option that could be turned off... I would then assume that any commishes who are using such a feature to cheat would just turn it off anyway. Any commish who leaves such a feature on probably isn't the type of commish you're going to worry about in the first place.

My experience with leagues has been similar to Bluenoser. I haven't been a part of many leagues where they commish was suspect, and the few that I've experienced where they were did not last long.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

Yes, I'm saying showing when the Commissioners themselves have made edits would be one of the main incentives of this feature.

This would in no way be a deterrent to making edits, it would just allow more transparency for when edits are made.

Can't really see a reason why anyone would be opposed to this.[/u]

Can't really see a reason for bringing it into the game.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by fhomess

I would expect such a feature would have to be an option since there are leagues out there with commishes who don't run a team and there are cases where they do edit players intentionally. Sometimes it's as a participation reward, at other times it's to adjust something in the amateur draft pool. There are other reasons.

Assuming it would be an option that could be turned off... I would then assume that any commishes who are using such a feature to cheat would just turn it off anyway. Any commish who leaves such a feature on probably isn't the type of commish you're going to worry about in the first place.

My experience with leagues has been similar to Bluenoser. I haven't been a part of many leagues where they commish was suspect, and the few that I've experienced where they were did not last long.

Yeah, this would lose all purpose if the feature could be turned off.

The asterisk would just be a line noting the player was manually edited. As stated in the examples you specified, sometimes this is an intentional occurrence for various rewards or player tweaks. Again, it still doesn't hurt anything for the asterisk to show up in those instances - the change can be accounted for.

Originally Posted by OutS|der

would these edits show up in my offline league as well?
If so then i don't want them, i don't want to see my editing in the history.

I was proposing this to show up on the Scouting Report page in the player profile. This wouldn't change any of the history pages or reports.

[OutS|der]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

I was proposing this to show up on the Scouting Report page in the player profile. This wouldn't change any of the history pages or reports.

It wouldn't matter where it showed up, i wouldn't want to see it at all.

If you don't trust the accountability in your online league you might want to think about joining another one.

I see no reason why i should have to have this in my game just because you don't trust the league you are in.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by OutS|der

It wouldn't matter where it showed up, i wouldn't want to see it at all.
If you don't trust the accountability in your online league you might want to think about joining another one.
I see no reason why i should have to have this in my game just because you don't trust the league you are in.

Why don't you want to see it? You know full well when and why you've tweaked the ratings/attributes. The appearance of an asterisk (or lack therefore) does nothing to change the reality that a change was made.

If denial is a huge issue for solo league players, perhaps this feature could be an optional checkbox for solo leagues and an automatic feature for online leagues.

[BIG17EASY]

IMO, a better option would be for each player profile to have a "Notes" tab where we can make any kind of player notes we want. The people who want to track player edits can do it there.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by BIG17EASY

IMO, a better option would be for each player profile to have a "Notes" tab where we can make any kind of player notes we want. The people who want to track player edits can do it there.

I was just thinking the Scouting Reports page because it would fit so smoothly with the interface that already exists.

Here's what a current Scouting Report row looks like....
OSA (01-01-2001) MLB 6(7) 4(6) 4(6) ◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊

And here's what an "edit" row could look like....
OSA** (01-01-2001) MLB 6(7) 4(6) 4(6) ◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊

Virtually unnoticeable change for gameplay, but the addition of that one simple line takes the game edits from zero transparency to 100% transparency.

I know nothing about how OOTP is coded, but I'm guessing there's some kind of save event on the Player Editor page. So to add this feature, they'd just need to add code to the save event to insert a new line into the scouting report with the asterisk.

[BIG17EASY]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

I was just thinking the Scouting Reports page because it would fit so smoothly with the interface that already exists.

Here's what a current Scouting Report row looks like....
OSA (01-01-2001) MLB 6(7) 4(6) 4(6) ◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊

And here's what an "edit" row could look like....
OSA** (01-01-2001) MLB 6(7) 4(6) 4(6) ◊◊◊ ◊◊◊◊

Virtually unnoticeable change for gameplay, but the addition of that one simple line takes the game edits from zero transparency to 100% transparency.

I know nothing about how OOTP is coded, but I'm guessing there's some kind of save event on the Player Editor page. So to add this feature, they'd just need to add code to the save event to insert a new line into the scouting report with the asterisk.

I don't have a problem with what you suggest (mainly because I never edit anything that changes a player's ratings). But what about edits that don't change ratings, like name changes, hometown changes or anything else someone might want to track? I like the addition of a "Notes" tab because we can accomplish a lot more with it without changing anything that already exists.

[tomwolf2008]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

Why don't you want to see it? You know full well when and why you've tweaked the ratings/attributes. The appearance of an asterisk (or lack therefore) does nothing to change the reality that a change was made.

If denial is a huge issue for solo league players, perhaps this feature could be an optional checkbox for solo leagues and an automatic feature for online leagues.

Because there is really no reason why it should be included in the game. If there isn't a really important reason to include it, then we don't want to see developers spent time on this features either.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

Why don't you want to see it? You know full well when and why you've tweaked the ratings/attributes. The appearance of an asterisk (or lack therefore) does nothing to change the reality that a change was made.

If denial is a huge issue for solo league players, perhaps this feature could be an optional checkbox for solo leagues and an automatic feature for online leagues.

No, it should not be automatic for anything. If you're dead set on having something like this, that's fine. But it has to be optional all around.

I agree with the above - add a "notes" tab to the player profile and record what you like in there.

[nebradska]

I think the heart of this problem is that Sabermetric Baseball has had some bad experiences with commissioners of online leagues in the past. That's very unfortunate, because if a person needs to cheat against other people in an online game to make themselves feel good, there is clearly some deeper problem there.

But, Sabermetric, I think everyone else sees this as an unnecessary feature because there's no good reason to play in a league with a cheating commish. If they would cheat by editing the players, they'll find another way to cheat if you take that option away from them, anyway.

That's the reason I prefer leagues where the commish doesn't run a team anyway--so there's never any reason for them to cheat.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by nebradska

I think the heart of this problem is that Sabermetric Baseball has had some bad experiences with commissioners of online leagues in the past. That's very unfortunate, because if a person needs to cheat against other people in an online game to make themselves feel good, there is clearly some deeper problem there.
But, Sabermetric, I think everyone else sees this as an unnecessary feature because there's no good reason to play in a league with a cheating commish. If they would cheat by editing the players, they'll find another way to cheat if you take that option away from them, anyway.
That's the reason I prefer leagues where the commish doesn't run a team anyway--so there's never any reason for them to cheat.

I will say I've had my suspicions, but there's really no way to ever know for certain because there's currently no transparency for edits.

It's not like this would require a complete rewrite of the player page. Again, I have no idea how OOTP is programmed, but I greatly suspect that this would be almost entirely leveraging code that already exists. And for that one minor change, you can provide immediate assurance to the entire population of online OOTP players that they know, for certain, when and why any changes were made in the player editor.

I've never had my house broken into. I'm fairly certain no one will break into my house in the future. That doesn't mean I should leave the front door unlocked when I leave for work. Even if there's not one 'cheating' Commissioner in the huge community of online OOTP leagues, it's still worthwhile to have this feature built in. Most online leagues are players from across the country (sometimes, across the globe) who don't know each other from Adam.

And like I mentioned before, many leagues do have legitimate edits incorporated in their league processes. Automated tracking of these edits could be useful for many secondary purposes.

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

I will say I've had my suspicions, but there's really no way to ever know for certain because there's currently no transparency for edits.

It's not like this would require a complete rewrite of the player page. Again, I have no idea how OOTP is programmed, but I greatly suspect that this would be almost entirely leveraging code that already exists. And for that one minor change, you can provide immediate assurance to the entire population of online OOTP players that they know, for certain, when and why any changes were made in the player editor.

I've never had my house broken into. I'm fairly certain no one will break into my house in the future. That doesn't mean I should leave the front door unlocked when I leave for work. Even if there's not one 'cheating' Commissioner in the huge community of online OOTP leagues, it's still worthwhile to have this feature built in. Most online leagues are players from across the country (sometimes, across the globe) who don't know each other from Adam.

And like I mentioned before, many leagues do have legitimate edits incorporated in their league processes. Automated tracking of these edits could be useful for many secondary purposes.

If you're that paranoid of playing a game on the internet with strangers, then don't. The vast majority of people I've been in online leagues with don't cheat, they play the game for fun. In fact I've been fortunate enough to have never had the problem of cheating in an online league, and I've been in a lot over the years. Not saying they don't exist, but I haven't encountered any.

The thing is, if somebody wants to cheat, they're going to find a way. You can put all the safeguards in the world into the game, it won't matter.

BTW - you can also put all the security systems you want on your house, if somebody wants to break in bad enough, they're going to.

You can't stop cheats from cheating anymore than you can stop people from eating. It's simply not possible.

[Sabermetric Baseball]

Originally Posted by Bluenoser

If you're that paranoid of playing a game on the internet with strangers, then don't. The vast majority of people I've been in online leagues with don't cheat, they play the game for fun. In fact I've been fortunate enough to have never had the problem of cheating in an online league, and I've been in a lot over the years. Not saying they don't exist, but I haven't encountered any.
The thing is, if somebody wants to cheat, they're going to find a way. You can put all the safeguards in the world into the game, it won't matter.
BTW - you can also put all the security systems you want on your house, if somebody wants to break in bad enough, they're going to.
You can't stop cheats from cheating anymore than you can stop people from eating. It's simply not possible.

It takes ten seconds to open up the player editor and make a change. That change is not currently documented anywhere, and there is no way to differentiate it from a naturally occurring change from the game engine. It's true there probably would be other ways to manipulate results even if changes were tracked, but they'd all likely require a great deal more effort and time than just going in and mucking up ratings/attributes. Again, locking your front door when you leave to go somewhere is not going to stop someone from breaking in if they really want to - but it is a significant deterrent and that's why it's still worthwhile for us to do it.

[nebradska]

Originally Posted by Sabermetric Baseball

I've never had my house broken into. I'm fairly certain no one will break into my house in the future. That doesn't mean I should leave the front door unlocked when I leave for work.

Sure, but if you knew there was a thief living next door, you'd move out of the neighborhood.