Discussion on Modification to Transfer Process

[Hal]

There has been some very good discussions on how to use Google docs for keeping track of the various league rosters and to integrate that capability into our standard transfer processes.

I will cut and paste the pertinent posts from the other threads into this one to have a complete record of the discussion.

I will also cut and paste our transfer processes from the sticky on Draft Tips for new managers to give people a chance to propose how they would edit the existing processes.

Once we get a consensus or a couple of alternatives, we can put the proposed revisions to a vote.

[kuhnscoot]

One thing to note is that it does require a google account to post on the google doc.

[Hal]

Excerpts from the Drafted League Rules for New Managers:

From Ingromius:
3. Season Transfers: We use the following process, for both post-draft, pre-season transfers and regular season transfers.

a. Plan your transfer: (1) Ensure the player is a free agent and not already on someone's team; (2) Ensure your planned transfer complies with FPL game restrictions on salary cap and on the limit of players from one team

b. Post your transfer in the FPL Message Board for your league

-----------------------------------------------------
From Ingromius' reposting a FAQ on transfer process:

3. These are the steps to take to drop a player from one’s team and acquire a player from the “free agent” pool (those players not already on another team in your drafted league).
a. First, ensure that the player(s) you want are not already on another team in your league. You can do this by a) looking at each other team’s roster; b) keep an EXCEL sheet of your league’s rosters and update it with each posted trade; c) Check the blog site of someone who posts a composite of the league’s current rosters (Note the time when it was last updated and then check for League forum posts and BigSoccer Season Thread posts since the blog’s last update to ensure no one of the other managers in your League has the targeted acquisition player on his/her team.)
b. Second, ensure your proposed trade is executable – it must be legal within Fantasy.Premierleague.com rules. In other words, you must have sufficient funds to acquire the new player and the acquisition can not violate the limits on number of players from one team rule.
c. Third, post your proposed trade in your drafted league’s Fantasy.Premierleague.com’s League Forum. As a minimum, the post should include the following information:
i. Your Team Name
ii. Player(s) OUT, Position, EPL Team, Current Valuation
iii. Player(s) IN, Position, EPL Team, Current Valuation
d. Fourth, Check back in the Fantasy.Premierleague.com’s League Forum to ensure you were the first to post an acquisition of this player. If you proposed a multi-player trade and someone else “beat” you to a trade of one of your acquisitions, your entire trade is voided. You’ll have to post another proposed trade that does not include the player whom someone else swooped for before your post.
e. Fifth, once you’ve confirmed that your proposed acquisitions were the first posted for the player(s) you wanted, immediately go to your Fantasy.Premierleague.com Team Page and make the transfers, releasing the dropped players and adding your new acquisition.
f. Sixth, as a courtesy, post a copy of the completed trade in the BigSoccer.com Season Thread for your Rocks League.

Penalty / Procedures for Making an Illegal Trade:

1. During the Post-Draft, Pre-Season period (1-2 weeks), most draft league managers make about 4-5 adjustments to their drafted squads.
a. If a manager tries to acquire an illegal player, the entire trade under which he made the illegal acquisition is voided. For single player acquisitions, the manager just has to reverse the illegal trade, dropping the player that is already on another’s team and either adding back his dropped player (if the dropped player is still available and has not been acquired by another of his league’s managers in the meantime between the posting of the illegal trade and the time the illegal trade was discovered and corrected) or by posting a legal acquisition of another player. For multiple player acquisitions, his claim for the legal player is voided and another manager within his/her league could post a trade for that player.
b. We all have unlimited free transfers before the season starts, so there are no points or financial penalties for post-draft, pre-season illegal trades. Just correct it as soon as you can.
2. Illegal Trades made During the Season:
a. If a manager tries to acquire an illegal player, the entire trade under which he made the illegal acquisition is voided. For single player acquisitions, the manager just has to reverse the illegal trade, dropping the player that is already on another’s team and either adding back his dropped player (if the dropped player is still available and has not been acquired by another of his league’s managers in the meantime between the posting of the illegal trade and the time the illegal trade was discovered and corrected) or by posting a legal acquisition of another player. For multiple player acquisitions, his claim for the legal player is voided and another manager within his/her league could post a trade for that player.
b. Each team has one free transfer per week during the season, except for the one time use of the unlimited transfer wildcard. Additional transfers incur a 4 point penalty that gets deducted from the overall season score at the next update to the league’s table.
c. As soon as the illegal trade is discovered, the offending manager has to correct the situation. As a minimum, assuming it was a single player trade, he needs to release the illegally acquired player and either reacquire the player dropped or acquire another legal player. This means at least 2 more trades that week or a penalty of 8 points that the game will deduct from your season’s total score. (No one wants to lose points needlessly, as they are determinant in promotion and relegation between our drafted leagues.)
d. Points are not the only penalty for making an illegal trade. The Fantasy.Premierleague.com game taxes valuation gains in players. Let’s say you acquired a player with a 7.0 valuation and before you decided to release that player, his valuation increased to 7.3. The game will take .1 of that gain and if you tried to re-acquire the dropped player, unless you have reserve funds available, you may not be able to reacquire the same player, regardless of whether another manager swooped for your dropped player before you realized and corrected your illegal trade.
e. Bottom line: Making illegal trades is very costly. That’s why we emphasize that the first step to making any trade is to ensure you are acquiring legally available players.

---------------------------------


From Ingromius' reposting other posts of trade wisdom:

Why would a manager make more than one trade in a week an incur the 4 point penalty for every additional trade?

Newbies might wonder why any sane manager would make more than one trade a week and cost themselves points in the season long table and hurt their promotion/relegation chances.

Here are some reasons for active transfer activity regardless of whether they cost an extra 4 points.

1. Say a manager has already used his free transfer that week, and a new, hot prospect gets added to the database. Your competitors will not wait until next week to swoop for that player, so you bite the bullet and go for him even at the expense of 4 points.

2. The long-term injuries, discipline absences, multiple game weeks and no game weeks for some players really come into play. In order to field a full team for the inter and intra cup competitions, you may have to make multiple trades in a week.

3. For financial reasons: Early in the season, you may make multiple trades to swoop for some hot, in form, previously little known player, and ride that player's increase in valuation by 1-3M, then sell him and increase your team values by the discounted .2 - .5. It is important to build your team value to be able to acquire discarded better players later in the season, especially during the January transfer window.

4. Even though these are valid reasons, other things being equal, try to plan your trades to only use the one free trade per week. For example, say West Ham United and Wigan are going to be the only two teams with a double game week in about 4 weeks. You might start acquiring available starting players from those teams 3-4 weeks prior at 1/week.

Of course, if you drop a hot prospect from your team, expect him to be snatched up by other managers trying to improve their teams or be unavailable for you to reacquire the same player because you cannot afford him, due to his rise in value since your acquisition and the way the game taxes you between 50-80% tax on his valuation rise. The game has a weird sliding scale of how much you get to keep of the valuation rise.

[Hal]

Quotes from the Pre-Organizing thread on this same subject:

First up is Paul Blecher's post that started the whole discussion:

In VSR this year, we set up a spreadsheet on google docs. It's here if you want to take a look:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pkb5eYk-5OYsFDDBwfOyNAA

After teams made official transfers on the FPL site, they would then make them on this site as well, highlighting their transfers from the last week or so. We did this in VSR as a courtesy to one another, with the admonition that you still always needed to check every team's roster and the last week of transfers to make sure you hadn't missed someone, but I'd like to see something like this become a mandatory part of the transfer process so that you could rely on the spreadsheet, only needing to check for recent transfers on the FPL site in the last few days -- i.e., post it on FPL (1st post secures the player like always), and then post it on the google docs (or other) spreadsheet within 24-48 hours (if you haven't posted in the agreed time, you're stuck having made a transfer but the player is still deemed available and can be picked up by someone else).

This isn't meant to be punitive, and if someone is traveling or for some reason not able to access the spreadsheet document, they should be able to post in the FPL thread that they need additional time and/or request someone else post it for them. But, it's one of the few flaws of the system that we're not able to quickly see every other team's roster. And while everyone can (and may still) keep an updated list of their own, it is an unnecessarily duplicative amount of work for 8 teams to be updating their own lists with identical information rather than collaborating, and it is a huge benefit when making transfers to be able to see a quick, up-to-date snapshot of whose on every roster.


like that idea myself

Wait a second, I must be reading this wrong.
If you post the transfer on the Official site (as required), yet fail to post it on another site, you are denied the player?

I must be missing something, as that isn't how it should be.

I'd agree with Clan on that.

In fact, I find it hard to work out how people make errors on transfers. I was keeping my own record of all transfers in Dust, just to try and make sure no anomalies occured, but when I was making a transfer for my own team I always did a check of each team and the forum for that weeks transfers. It takes about 2mins max and is a 100% guarantee that you won't pick a player that is already chosen.

I think our VSR model was just about perfect in all respects. It was certainly a convenience to have the database available but I don't think we can make it compulsory. Great resource and the honor system was generally successful I thought.

I get that there is always resistance to change and see that I'm swimming upstream on this, but, yes, I would make it mandatory. I hear what's being said about it not being that time-consuming to double check, but it's even less time for everyone to input their own changes, and everyone benefits from it. It worked well enough in VSR on a voluntary basis, but it only takes one or two not to participate to mess it up.

Obviously, if it's mandatory, then there has to be a consequence if someone doesn't do it (which is where my earlier proposal came from), but that was just a proposal to get the conversation started and I'm assuming in any event that the "consequence" would never come into play because everyone would just do it. Which, again, benefits everyone.

I have nothing against your proposed changes Blech and would support them no problem. But I think its worth remembering that there will be resistance simply because the current "honor system" if you will has worked virtually perfectly for 7-8 seasons.

This year we were really lucky to have committed managers in all divisions who stayed active and didnt need veteran managers to monitor what was going on in other leagues. But in the past that wasnt always the case, with the Small Rocks always being an exception. The managers there have always tended to stay fully committed all season, all play by the rules, and even if they didnt Hal is always around to keep order

But again as I said, I dont mind at all adopting Blech's suggestion next season

I get it, and won't take any offense if it isn't changed. The request was for suggestions or improvements, and I think this would be, for everyone. But we'll all make due without it as well. So, no biggie.

No...no need to dismiss it.

If it's a rule change you feel will be of benefit to the league(s) as a whole, it is worth considering.

If it's something you feel strongly about, propose it at the start of next season and we'll do what we always do on these thing.
We'll have a members vote.
As always, we'll go with what the majority want.That has been our way since year one and it's kept us moving along.

It's not about resistance to change, I'm just hung up on the failure to get the player bit, after posting on the official site.

I tend to like Blech's idea, as to the compulsoary bit, if one posted in the official site or big soccer that they had an issue getting it on google, then there should not be a penelty, but I think the compulsoary part might be good to keep the same very few in line

and it is nice to have one sight to quickly see who is available to consider before you compare a player to all the teams from last week, I try to keep up with my site for my own benifit and others but if I am out of town or get really busy it falls behind as it is well behind now, and it would be nice to not feel responsable for keeping others or myself up to date or see taken players picked, though no one asked me to keep the site tbf, and not to have to hear either about my tardiness or spelling eroreroes causing issues :D


Quote:
Originally Posted by blech
I'd like to see something like this become a mandatory part of the transfer process so that you could rely on the spreadsheet, only needing to check for recent transfers on the FPL site in the last few days -- i.e., post it on FPL (1st post secures the player like always), and then post it on the google docs (or other) spreadsheet within 24-48 hours (if you haven't posted in the agreed time, you're stuck having made a transfer but the player is still deemed available and can be picked up by someone else).

No Thanks

As for Blech's google docs raft of ideas, I'm all for it.

Ingromius and IB4C mentioned the current honor system for transfers (posting them only on the FPL site. IB4C went so far as to say it's worked perfectly for 6 or 7 seasons. I'd say it's worked terribly.

1) There's at least one mistake per year requiring add-backs. But you know what, that's not really the problem. If that was the only problem, I wouldn't be in favor of a mandatory google docs system. I'll leave that for #2. But add-backs are a slight pain in the behind. Some of us remember Forza Moscow from three years ago in VSR, who blew a gasket at many things, one of them being his illegal transfers. Sure that was Forza's fault, but the fewer times a flawed system creates unnecessary conflict, the better. I believe this is basically the philosophy behind having stop signs for auto traffic.

2) A perfect system wouldn't require so much work in the face of a much simpler system that is absolutely no more work to implement. To know for certain whether a player is already taken, it's necessary to search many pages of a forum, which takes longer than 2 minutes, more like 20 to do it right. Not trusting my eyes or my browser search, I've felt it necessary to open multiple team pages and do a page-search on my browser to see if a player is taken. It's boring grind. I throw my hands up in frustration at least two times a year and simply don't do transfers, appalled at the lunacy of not using one mandatory web database. One place. All teams. This is not my idea of a controversial notion.

3) Several people keep their own databases, my brother for one, Cannon for another. This is kinda like unplugging from the grid and having your own home electrical generator. It's very much 'going Galt' and all, which is in vogue in certain strange circles, but it's just not what cooperative enterprise is about. It's inefficient. It's a waste of energy. It's duplicative One database, mandatory, solves it all. And of course if people feel the need to create their own databases, it kinda shows how far from perfect the current system is, doesn't it?

4) A google docs database for each league is no more work to enter transfers in than the FPL forum. It goes like this:
1) You go to the page
2) You delete the guy you transferred out
3) You enter the guy you're transferring in
4) You color-code the cell of the guy you're transferring in.

That's it. No need for a running list of transfers. The color-coding does that. By my count, it's exactly one more click than going to the FPL forum and typing in the names of the guys, the bank remaining, all that. That extra click is the color-coding, which would also be mandatory.

I don't understand the resistance. At the risk of venturing into dogmatism here, I don't see where anyone can disagree with a simple, superior solution when it presents itself.

Wow!

You Go, Richard!

You can add me to a team who keeps his own Excel Spreadsheets and tracks all the transfers.

I think my hestitation reveals my lack of understanding of the technology as you describe it.

If it is as easy and straightforward as you describe, I'd be willing to try it. I'm not sure if your post was enough of a primer for me to switch. I don't know if this is doable, but if Blech could set up a demo on his site that those of us who have never used Google docs and are scared of establishing websites and uploading and downloading, could go browse and try it out, perhaps this is an idea whose time has come. Train me, and I'm willing to change.

I'm from the older generation and sometimes need a nudge to switch. Just got a blackberry this Spring and have received a text message, but have yet to send one. The primer needs to be for someone like me!

A few questions:

1. Would your process be to go to the google docs site first and make the transfer and then go to the FPL site and make the switch?
2. I want to be clear about how you date/time stamp something to be able to determine who gets a player if two managers are going after the same player.
3. If you go to the google docs site first and make the trade, unless the google docs site updates the latest value, how does one calculate that he can afford the transfer? Any penaly for making a transfer he can't afford and subsequently reversing the transfer for the time that the player was unavailable? What if someone picks up the originally released player and then the manager realizes he didn't have the funds to exercise the transfer because of the FPL tax system, does the manager get the player back or not?
Any of these combinations could result in having to keep track of scoring adjustments, sort of like we do now on a case by case basis.
4. Does the google docs spreadsheet have a forum attached where you announce your trades before making them to be sure you were first to claim a player?

If some of these questions seem silly, let me know. You may have a way to improve our process of acquiring players, but we need to be sure that the new process doesn't add in chances for errors and if it does, how we handle it. We've figured out how to deal with the few manager errors under the existing system.

How is the google docs site updated to the latest FPL database? One of our transfer principles is that a player has to be in the database. There are a few times a year when we have a specific time when transactions can be made and we sometimes have several managers trying to beat each other to a particular player.

Examples include:
The Post-Draft, Pre-Season Squad adjustment transfer window opening up 24 hours after the last draft selection.
When managers keep watching the FPL database updates early in the season for the late EPL arrivals.
When the January Transfer window opens.



Hal
Manager of the Aviators


Here's a screen shot of our roster page:

http://www.planetsandvegetables.com/vsr_rosters.jpg

In that screenshot, color-coded player names are relatively new transfers.

So now here are two small snags with my plan.

1) We can't time-stamp the transfers, which means we can't use google docs exclusively. Even if a manager enters his transfers in a list and then saves publishes the document immediately, it won't be foolproof. What if you reload the page and someone else has simultaneously transfered in, say, Fletcher? Absent a time stamp, how do you know who transferred him first? My brother brought up this same point just now on the phone.

Note: This has never been a problem for me, because I'm on the west coast of the US and unlike my brother I don't get up at 3:30 am every day, so I'm never in conflict with you heathen eastern managers for a player.

2) Dropped players aren't apparent. I've used the dropped players as shown in FPL site forum as ideas for transfers. With google docs, all you see is the new guy, not who was dropped for him.

The answer: Have a google docs spreadsheet be mandatory AND the forum be mandatory. Too much effort? We made it work in VSR this season, because Blech and the other guys were on it like white on rice whenever they saw a transfer.

Or maybe it's just optional and heavily enforced by peer-pressure.

Because of the time-stamp issue, it was my original thought that both would still be needed -- post in the league forum as we've been doing (this remains the "official" stamp to get a player), and then make the transfer (as before) and make the change on the league's spreadsheet. It's a few extra clicks to update the spreadsheet, but probably less than 30-60 seconds in total once you're familiar with googledocs.

If you're already tracking lineups in spreadsheets, you'll be completely comfortable with the googledocs spreadsheet. If you haven't ever used Excel, then there might be a small getting up to speed time (but very small).

Preseason, the setup required is (a) for everyone to register for a free gmail/google account if they don't already have one as you'll need the account name and password to make edits and (b) for one manager in the league to create the page and authorize the other 7 managers in the league to have access to make edits.

During the season, the mechanics of inputting transfers is as follows:

- go to the page
- hit the "edit" button
- sign in if the computer doesn't remember you
- make changes to input new players just like on any spreadsheet
- color code the new player(s) to make identifying them easy
- "publish" the changes you've made (the spreadsheet equivalent of saving your document

In VSR this year, we would input the new player, his team, his original purchase price, and then on a less-regular basis update the amount in the bank and the date of the last update. And we adopted the color-coding of new players after a few weeks and thought it was a significant upgrade in what we were doing. We did not adjust price as it fluctuated, so the price shown was always just the original purchase price, which with few exceptions was relatively price to actual price in any event.


If you're already tracking the transfers of everyone in your league, this is going to save you significant time, as you would be inputting your own transfers anyways and you now won't have to enter everyone else. (Alternatively, if you want periodic league updates on your own computer, you won't need to update everyone else's team and can just cut and paste from the googledocs spreadsheet).

If you're not already tracking the transfers of everyone in your league, you will now have to spend this additional 30-60 seconds each gameweek to input your transfers, but will get the benefit of an official league roster being readily available.

I don't mind trying it but the main stumbling block is making sure every other manager in the division gives it due attention.

I kept my own record of all transfers in Dust League as they happened.

It took a little extra time but it wasn't overly intrusive and the main benefit was not having to rely on other people to make sure it was up to date with all information correct.

Again my two cents.

I like seeing the transfers of all the leagues posted on the Forum. Especially worth reading were the runs on Shorey, Robinho, Pavyluchenko and Arshevin. Also, to see brought in the trades for Annelka, Jagielka, Kuyt, Matt Taylor or Lennon as they went hot. Of course I wished I dumped Van Persie for Annelka and Ashley Young for Kuyt.

I kept a spread sheet up. It was more usefull during the draft to check other managers funds and empty roster positions. During the season after the values kept changing it was not that useful so I stopped. I think the group spreadsheet is more assistance to the less active managers.

The MLFS site with Hal has the two division listed. This is great to troll for players that you might have overlooked. Epikoinis does it and I expect it is a lot of work. If it happens here hopefully it is not at the detriment to updates on the Cups.

[Hal]

After re-reading all the comments, let's see if we can focus the discussion.

1. Nothing changes on our principle that a player must be in the FPL database, aka free agent pool, before anyone can transfer for him, or draft him.

2. Nothing changes in that managers still have to do some homework to ensure the proposed trade is a legal trade. (Refer to our previous comments regarding multi-player trades). To be legal: a) Player must be in the database; b) Player must be a free agent and not already on someone's team within your drafted Rock's League; c) Acquisition of the player must not violate the FPL rules on number of players from one EPL team on your fantasy roster; d) You must have the funds to make the acquisition. (This is important because of the tax FPL takes on players whose value has appreciated so that you may not have the funds to acquire the new player.)

Part of the reason for this suggested use of Google Docs is to help managers do their due diligence to ensure that the player is not on another team in their drafted Rock's league.

As a comparison, here is how I ensure a player is available:
1. I keep a team roster for all 8 teams in my drafted league and update each team's squad when they make a transfer.
2. I also keep a complete spreadsheet of all the players, with a column indicating whose team they are on, if any. I update that spreadsheet weekly along with the points and updated transfer values to analyze who I may want to acquire.
3. I check the League Forum and the latest weekly transfer threads since my last spreadsheet update and update it accordingly.
4. Like someone said, noticing who was released is key information and may evoke a quick claim by me or other active managers. So it is important to keep that aspect of knowing who are the recent releases.
5. I have a separate window open with my team in the Transfer mode and I make a trial run to acquire the candidate player (I DO NOT HIT THE TRANSFER BUTTON). This step ensures I have enough finances to make the move and that the move doesn't violate any FPL rules on number of players from one team.
6. If I have a legal trade, I then make the post in the Rock's League Forum; check to ensure no one else beat me to my target acquisition, then I go and hit the transfer button on the window I had open.

If I got lazy and didn't update my spreadsheet for several weeks, I may click on each team and ensure they don't have the player I'm targeting, and then I check the League Forum for the transfers since the close of last week that are not reflected (that I can see) in their roster on FPL to ensure the player is available.

[glorydaze]

On the other end of the spectrum, I do not keep a spreadsheet other than the one I create to track the draft. I am lazy at updating them during the long haul, accept that about myself and thus check every roster before making a transfer. I have gotten quite used to carefully double checking the position player(s) on each roster and then the latest forum. In two years I have not had a problem. Realistic time to check rosters is about 5 minutes once I settle on a target transfer. At that point I have already run through a mock transfer to be sure I have the funds. If all is in order I go to the FPL league forum and post the trade, then make the transfer to my team.
This has been a fairly painless process. Having said that...

I can see the value of all team rosters updated and posted on one page. I certainly understand how such a page must be accurate if it is to be counted on for transfer purposes. It would need to be mandatory to update the page immediately or express a need for additional time in your league forum as has been suggested. Perhaps we could explore other potential penalties for not posting other than making the trade invalid. I would not want a manager to lose a player he legally selects from the FPL site. Perhaps a 4 point penalty could be handed down and tracked separately (lobomojo has done with his site) allowing the actual trade to stand. There may other suggestions here.

I tend to lean towards keeping things as they are but could easily be persuaded if the change is for the good of the league, not just me. I can add a step to the transfer postings easily enough as long as I am walked through the process. My two cents.

[lobomojo]

as I'm said I'm mostly for, but if it is adopted, I think it should be as a supplement to, not a replacement for posting on the official site first which allows for times to be posted and the respecting of down, and update times (though perhaps allowing for penaltys/voiding transfers, if official post is not followed up in google.doc timely

[Clan]

I'm not at all in favour of the idea that posting on the official site isn't enough to get a player, however....

Due to the effort put forth by Blech/Djangone in voicing support for this idea, I'll not vote against it.

PS...never used google docs before and am much like Hal in respect to all the tech savy younger posters on here.

[1800-WorldCup]

I'm totally against an 'extra step' being put on managers when everything has worked just fine for all the years we've been playing this.

Posting in the official forum is more than enough.

It is in everyone's own interest to track the transfers and keep their own copies and I don't see why this should change, by 'forcing' managers to update an online copy as well.

[blech]

I'm not at all in favour of the idea that posting on the official site isn't enough to get a player, however....

Due to the effort put forth by Blech/Djangone in voicing support for this idea, I'll not vote against it.

PS...never used google docs before and am much like Hal in respect to all the tech savy younger posters on here.

I didn't create the existing VSR document so I don't have the authorization to do it, but it would be easy enough to expand the authorizations for people to experiment with it. As I said before, if you've worked on a computer spreadsheet before, it is basically the same, except that it is on the Internet not your computer and you publish instead of save when you're done.

As for the first point, maybe Glorydaze's suggestion of an alternate "penalty" instead of losing the player would satisfy your concern, and may be more appropriate. Perhaps an increasing points penalty for each additional time a transfer isn't updated (2, 4, 6, 8, etc.). Or perhaps an owner who finds and inputs a transfer that wasn't made gets the points that the transferring owner is being penalized (kind of a payment for doing what the first owner didn't do).

Regardless of the format, if this is adopted, I'd definitely be in favor of a 3-4 week grace period during the first season where any forgetful owners are "reminded" to do the update, and would even support reminders on a voluntary basis afterwards. Again, the point isn't actually to punish anything, just to get it done.

[kuhnscoot]

I didn't create the existing VSR document so I don't have the authorization to do it, but it would be easy enough to expand the authorizations for people to experiment with it. As I said before, if you've worked on a computer spreadsheet before, it is basically the same, except that it is on the Internet not your computer and you publish instead of save when you're done.


I'm the owner of the VSR document, so if people would like access to it to take a look at what it's like, send me a PM with your google ID and I'll add you.

[Hal]

I'm not worried about issues like penalties and the extent of mandatory_ness, yet. Initially, I just want to understand the capabilities of using this new technology and possibly for other uses.

For example, using this same Google docs, can one download and upload the entire player database? With latest points and valuations?

And then have a filter to weed out the players on our teams, so you have a spreadsheet of the free agent pool?

After we understand the capabilities, we can list the pros (benefits) and cons of using this technology.

Since we already have the experience of Very Small Rocks using this last season, they should be able to identify all the pros and cons of how they used it, but is there a broader application?

Is it useable in the draft for example? We all freeze the database when we begin the draft, so in theory, the database could be uploaded in this Google Docs and then as each player is chosen, he is moved from the free agent pool to the drafting team. I'm thinking that this might be helpful in dealing with BigSoccer access issues.

Is there a corresponding forum in Google Docs where a draft might be conducted instead of using BigSoccer.com? Not saying we need an alternate site, but wondering what are the possibilities.

[Clan]

I'm the owner of the VSR document, so if people would like access to it to take a look at what it's like, send me a PM with your google ID and I'll add you.

What is a google id?

How do you get one?

Why do I need to get one?

[kuhnscoot]

What is a google id?

How do you get one?

Why do I need to get one?
You can actually use your current email address and sign up for the account here (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?service=writely&continue=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fthanks.htm%3Fafter%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdocs.google.com%252F&followup=http%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fthanks.htm%3Fafter%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fdocs.google.com%252F).

You need one so that you can be given access to edit the document.

[blech]

I'm not worried about issues like penalties and the extent of mandatory_ness, yet. Initially, I just want to understand the capabilities of using this new technology and possibly for other uses.

For example, using this same Google docs, can one download and upload the entire player database? With latest points and valuations?

And then have a filter to weed out the players on our teams, so you have a spreadsheet of the free agent pool?

After we understand the capabilities, we can list the pros (benefits) and cons of using this technology.

Since we already have the experience of Very Small Rocks using this last season, they should be able to identify all the pros and cons of how they used it, but is there a broader application?

Is it useable in the draft for example? We all freeze the database when we begin the draft, so in theory, the database could be uploaded in this Google Docs and then as each player is chosen, he is moved from the free agent pool to the drafting team. I'm thinking that this might be helpful in dealing with BigSoccer access issues.

Is there a corresponding forum in Google Docs where a draft might be conducted instead of using BigSoccer.com? Not saying we need an alternate site, but wondering what are the possibilities.

For someone claiming to be from the older generation, you are operating on an entirely different level. We didn't attempt to do any of this in VSR this past year - all we did was have the spreadsheet with up-to-date teams.

However, you can add "sheets", so there is no reason that you couldn't have a second sheet that had players on it, or however else you arrange it. In short, I'm pretty sure you can duplicate on the googledocs anything you would do on an Excel sheet at your own computer. What I don't know is whether you can, for example, download directly there, of if you would need to download to your own computer first, and then cut and paste to put it into the googledocs spreadsheet. But, at the end of the day, I believe it has the ability to be identical.

Probably best to get you on and let you play around with it.

[Hal]

Here are some additional comments that were originally and recently posted in Pre-Organizing Thread:

I don't mind trying it but the main stumbling block is making sure every other manager in the division gives it due attention.

I kept my own record of all transfers in Dust League as they happened.

It took a little extra time but it wasn't overly intrusive and the main benefit was not having to rely on other people to make sure it was up to date with all information correct.

Again my two cents.

I like seeing the transfers of all the leagues posted on the Forum. Especially worth reading were the runs on Shorey, Robinho, Pavyluchenko and Arshevin. Also, to see brought in the trades for Annelka, Jagielka, Kuyt, Matt Taylor or Lennon as they went hot. Of course I wished I dumped Van Persie for Annelka and Ashley Young for Kuyt.

I kept a spread sheet up. It was more usefull during the draft to check other managers funds and empty roster positions. During the season after the values kept changing it was not that useful so I stopped. I think the group spreadsheet is more assistance to the less active managers.

The MLFS site with Hal has the two division listed. This is great to troll for players that you might have overlooked. Epikoinis does it and I expect it is a lot of work. If it happens here hopefully it is not at the detriment to updates on the Cups.


Hopefully you folks don't mind a comment from an incoming 2009-10 member. I like the idea of a Google docs roster listing ... however I would be hesitant to take it as gospel by relying on 7 other people to keep it 100% accurate. If I rely on it to make a move and it is not up to date, I assume that I am the one to pay the price of an errant trade. Not a happy event. :(

The only way to insure accuracy is to compare moves in the forum (which also tells me who has been dropped) to the Google spreadsheet before I make a transfer. If I am going to do that, I may as well keep my own records.

The online record keeping is a good suggestion, but unless everybody buys into it (which apparently is not the case) with a tight set of rules and consequences, there will be problems.



I am not resitent at all to the idea, and welcome it - lets do it. I've done my own thing in the past and updated my own documents accordingly, but am fine with everyone accessing the same one.

When I said things have worked perfectly, I guess I meant for myself. But whether or not the google doc is a superior solution, human error will always cause problems, no matter how good the technical solution. Under the current system, its always human error causing the problems.

Now, if only we could create a draft system like you have online for yahoo sports, that would be great.

[kopiteinkc]

i really liked the google docs spreadsheet as it allowed me to see every teams roster in one viewable screen.

As the official site is blocked for me at work, it was very convenient in planning a transfer.

I don't think it needs to be mandatory yet, but a compromise might be to have each division run a trial run this year allowing everyone to get used to it and give feedback at the end of the 09-10 season.

[Footy Magoo]

For example, using this same Google docs, can one download and upload the entire player database? With latest points and valuations?

You can copy the data from the FPL site into a spreadsheet but it takes a little effort.

And then have a filter to weed out the players on our teams, so you have a spreadsheet of the free agent pool?

Can't be done automatically. If you were working with an online data base, you could set up the function, but this is just a spreadsheet which relies on manual input.


Is it useable in the draft for example? We all freeze the database when we begin the draft, so in theory, the database could be uploaded in this Google Docs and then as each player is chosen, he is moved from the free agent pool to the drafting team. I'm thinking that this might be helpful in dealing with BigSoccer access issues.

Absolutely ... that is definitely doable.

Is there a corresponding forum in Google Docs where a draft might be conducted instead of using BigSoccer.com? Not saying we need an alternate site, but wondering what are the possibilities.

You can set up a Google group (similar to a forum) and restrict it to whoever you wish as long as they have a Google ID. I've never done it so I'm not sure about integrating the online spreadsheet into the group.

[lobomojo]

i really liked the google docs spreadsheet as it allowed me to see every teams roster in one viewable screen.

As the official site is blocked for me at work, it was very convenient in planning a transfer.

I don't think it needs to be mandatory yet, but a compromise might be to have each division run a trial run this year allowing everyone to get used to it and give feedback at the end of the 09-10 season.

that would be my first choice this year

[Ingromius]

Yeah I think the trial is a good plan. Generally I loved the spreadsheet in VSR... so much quicker to hit ctrl F and type in a player's name and see if he was available. BUT. That was never a sufficient procedure as there were times during the season when managers weren't updating their rosters on google. I remember a few times I had a little cartoon smoke above my head as I input several trades that had been posted to the FPL forum but not the spreadsheet. It only takes one inconsistent participant to make the whole thing unreliable.

Secondly, there were times that even the most diligent of us couldn't get to the google spreadsheet right away. This was never a problem as it was a supplement to the official procedure. Were it mandatory, we'd still need to figure out how to handle it. What if 2 managers drafted in at the same time, as happened back in the post draft phase with Shorey? Would it be a race to update the google page? What if a manager couldn't access google but managed to make a rushed trade on fpl? How soon would he (or she - sorry Chloe) be required to update the spreadsheet? We'd have to sort out this second issue in particular..

With all of these concerns though, I did think that the spreadsheet was a fantastic resource, even as a first check before doing a transfer.