Totally Against And Will Not Comply The fact that all of this was started by a call to 'make it mandatory and impose penalties for non-compliance' totally put me off the idea before we started. As I seem to be the only person happy with the way things are, it seems that I will be the only person totally ignoring Google Docs, whatever the outcome - penalties imposed or not. I'm totally against an idea that starts out with something along the lines of: 'This is how I do it and how I want everyone to do it (as it saves me time - go on, you do agree with me don't you) and if you don't do it like I want you to then you should be penalised'.
Re: Totally Against And Will Not Comply Fair point. But what about a system in which each manager has an equal voice, and majority rules? I thought that was what we were doing.
that will be Generalisimo Lobomojo to you infidal as I said in an earlier post if someone posts here or on the FPL that they can't get to the google and will catch up later or asks for a little help I'd be for that negating any penelty; not looking for any draconian order of things, supposed to be fun afterall; it really is just a way to encourage the rare few that drift now and again to stay in sync; and it does make it easier to quickly eliminate a few players that you see taken from the anaylsis stage,* without going through each team first, or having to catch up on my own database first *teeing it up as straight-man, I realize, for misEddirable and Wigggguuummmm
I succeeded in deleting what I wrote the first time (although definitely therapeutic to write it). Maybe I'm being a little touchy about this since I take your comment to be directed at me as the original poster, but you have misread everything I've written if you think this is about "me" and saving "me" time as opposed to making the game better for all us. To go back to Hal’s comment: “One of the guiding principles of this league is to develop long term trusting relationships, albeit, highly competitive relationships, among the managers.” I think that extends to this discussion. I appreciate the honesty of your reaction, but I hope you can move past it and we can keep the discussion to the merits of the proposal and not digress into comments about allegedly disguised agendas, personal motives, and the rest.
I guess it is time to chime in. What is the point of the Google Docs? 1. It allows some users such as Kopite in KC to access it while at the office and not be screwed by waiting till night to make a transfer. I get it. Fraser was awake for all of the best transfers last year. Violin for me please. 2. It allows League players to see all of the players and stay current on available players. We are doing this in MLFS with Epikoinis doing it single handedly. Yes I like this but I had most things in Dust League memorized anyways from scrolling through teams and even adjusted my teams accordingly for the Golden Boot by just going through the EPL Barclays site. It was sort of fun seeing that someone I was up against made two transfers (and a 4 point hit) in a league that I had no access to and had to guess who it was. So that two people had Johnson for defense one could eliminate them as part of the strategy. 3. It allows people running tournemants away of quickly seeing squads and players and summarizing the results. Alright, so this is too long for anyone to read. To summarize. If everyone will not agree to post and update a google docs for every trade they make it will not happen. A compromise could be that people should post to google docs but if they don't then one person in each league will be responsible for keeping their league up. In Dust, our winnner, Duck Butter - Das Root by week 8 could only lift his finger enough to post a transfer on the official Barclays forum but did not post on the Big Soccer Forum. I did it for him and enjoyed outing him. No big deal and he did well. So I could do this for Sand. For Kopite in KC to make a trade during the work day when not allowed on EPL site, I say work the buddy system. Email somebody to make the trade. They write it on EPL site, Google Docs (unless hunger striking), and then on Big Soccer. I liked All Rocks, but must say I updated Golden Boot when no posts happened as Gameweeks passed and others could not complete the tourneys they started. There is a guy BSPsoccer who ran a CL draft tourney using the player rankings averaged from 3 webs sites with substitutions without even having a squad in the tournery on Big Soccer. Ask Fraser, that is dedication. So use Google Docs. There are enough of us to use it and enjoy it and those not will be posted based on neighborly fence mending. Let's keep this active and fun.
I'm not officially in this league yet, but having much experience in leagues of this type, I feel that my opinion is worthy. Making transfers on a "first come" basis is inherently unfair, ALWAYS seems to be a major source of varying degrees of ill-will, and in trying to deal with that, league administration becomes a headache and/or a morass of patchwork rules. This whole discussion, while on the surface being about "protocol", is really just a backwards attack on the "first come" system. I must say that I am not the least bit surprised. I favor a waiver system. One of the eight division members volunteers to be waiver admin. If he foresees a busy time personally at some point during the season, someone else can become temporary admin. Every day (or week?), the other seven managers send their transfer requests (prioritized, along with drops and conditional instructions) to the admin by a very specific deadline. The admin can send his own transfer requests to a manager in another division. The requests are processed in this order: #1 request of the current 1st slot team #1 request of the current 2nd slot team (or #2 request if #1 already taken) and so on Next highest request of the current 1st slot team (who isn't already taken) Next highest request of the current 2nd slot team (who isn't already taken) and so on and so on The waiver "slots" are assigned after the draft concludes. The team that drafted first is put in the 8th waiver slot, the team that drafted second is put in the 7th waiver slot, etc. Whenever a team is awarded a free agent during the process described above, that team IMMEDIATELY drops to the bottom (8th slot) of the waiver list. Using this waiver process, everybody is on a level playing field. Different work schedules, differing amounts of free time, limited access to the EPL site, limited access to the internet--all those inequalities go away because everyone has a full 24 hours (or 7 days?) to decide upon and submit his transfers. Now that I think about it, there is no reason it has to be daily or weekly--it could be MON-WED-FRI or any other set frequency. If this process ever gains approval, I will volunteer my time to help run it. P.S. - After re-reading Hal's original posts, I would say that "daily" is the way to go. So if someone higher in the waiver list scoops your player on, say, TUE, you can submit a different request on WED. But also remember that in your TUE request you could have put a conditional instruction such as "If I don't get player A, take player B" or something even more sophisticated. P.P.S. - The waiver method also eliminates any need for posting in multiple sites/docs. You send ONE email to the admin, and then shortly after the deadline the admin posts all the processed free agents in this forum along with a fresh copy of ALL team rosters. Nothing could be simpler or more fair. I sense that a lot of managers are reticent about abandoning established ways, but it only takes a little time before the waiver system would become established and comfortable. Anyway, I'll shut up now and leave it to y'all.
The current discussion doesn't have anything to do with the "first come" system from my perspective. (I also don't agree that "first come" is inherently unfair, since by definition everyone has exactly the same opportunity and ability to do anything they want -- with perhaps the only inherent "unfairness" being for those of us (a) on the west coast who are typically asleep when each new gameweek begins and/or (b) with lives who aren't able to watch games and pounce immediately on the latest hot player). I've played in other (non-EPL) leagues with various waiver systems, and have been in one league for years that uses a hybrid system where it's waivers/draft at the beginning of each week and then a free for all after that for the rest of the week. There really are pros and cons to each. Regarding a waiver system, there would be an enormous administrative burden for one or more persons in each league since it wouldn't be computerized, as well as potential for things to get messed up with transfers not being processed immediately by the computer. More importantly, it would be a substantive change in the fantasy game we are playing. Of course, there is nothing wrong with changing the game or playing a different game, but it would really involve a significant change in transfer strategies. Only thinking about it briefly thus far, it would present a number of interesting situations given salary cap issues that sometimes require multiple transfers to be made to stay within budget (you would no longer be able to do this simultaneously and would have to make the moves in a series without knowing whether you would get all of the players you had mapped out for yourself), fluctuating player values that could result in a waiver being approved but the owner no longer able to process it if values had changed and you had planned it out to the last penny, and the biggie of them all is wildcard week (a brief but joyous time of year when any restrictions would be a totally foreign concept!).
As for wanting/needing to get two players in a "package", I was thinking it could be done the same as it is now--the two players are considered ONE request, and you either get both or neither. Very good point on the potential for problems because of fluctuating salaries. The leagues I have run were baseball with no salary feature. Anyway, I just thought I'd throw in my two cents/euros. You guys who have been through the mill in this league would certainly know better than me.
Welcome and always good to hear new ideas; I have played in such systems but for me here it is a non-starter I like it as it is, Capt and Bonus flaws and all (the google options are just suggested bookkeeping changes, they don't change the game or the strategies)
My problem with the penalty idea is that we are not really dealing with a "requirement" of the game. Yes, it could be nice. Yes, it might reduce the number of transfer problems. But maintaining this database is about making certain elements easier. Not really easier for me. Not going to stop all the transfer problems. Tough to think that non-compliance is worth a penalty. As noted , I will do my part if this is the direction.
A scenario - Manager A posts his move on the FPL forum, makes the transfer on his roster, but forgets to update the google doc. Manager B checks the google doc for a player he wants, doesn't see him on any team, does not see the transfer on the FPL forum, and adds him to his team. The player gets 15 points in the next game. Obviously that's a screwup on both managers' parts. Under the penalty proposal, I guess Manager A gets an offline deduction of 2, 4, or whatever has been predetermined for not updating the google doc. Manager B gets an offline deduction of 15 and has to remove the player from his roster ASAP. There is also a possible penalty imposed by the FPL for excess moves in a week. Am I understanding that scenario correctly? Thanks.
You don't have it quite right. The existing system already covers your scenario. Manager A posts his move on the FPL forum. Manager B messes up when he does not see the transaction in the FPL forum. He relies on the accuracy of the Google Docs rather than the primacy of the FPL forum transfer posts for the current gameweek, and the FPL squad rosters for transfers from previous gameweeks. We also usually catch the illegal moves before the GW starts by other managers who notice the error when looking at the FPL transfer thread for the gameweek. The failure of the manager to post on the help aid Google Docs is contributory, but not the cause that the manager made the illegal move. The existing penalty of 4 points is the FPL imposed penalty for the manager making a 2nd transfer, a legal one, to undo the illegal transfer, thus incurring the FPL 4 point penalty for transfers in excess of the weekly free transfer. Many of the veteran managers maintain their own squad rosters for the teams in their league and update their own spreadsheets with moves posted in the FPL forum transfer threads. Even though I keep the spreadsheet, I still go through the squad rosters and this GW transfer thread and the last few gameweek transfer threads to ensure I don't make an illegal move If the Google Docs concept works well, and we all get used to using it, there is the possibility that some of us will be able to cease updating our own spreadsheets. The Google Docs concept also seems to help those who have the FPL website blocked at work, although we have other workarounds for that by emailing other managers to proxy post our transfers.
Am I to understand that a player cannot be picked up (in this league) until he shows up in the FPL database? Does that database update at the same time every day? If a star such as Ribery signs with an EPL team after the Rocks draft, does that mean that the Rocks team that gets him is the team that presumably opens two browser windows, pre-composes their transfer claim in both windows (FPL and Bigsoccer), and then sits there and waits for the exact minute/second that Ribery enters the database and then hits the Enter key on both windows?
Absolutely! I used to think it worked like that and that the time was about 11 PM EST or EDT. But for the last two seasons, they seem to vary the update times and sometimes do multiple updates in a day. Over the years, some of us have done what you suggest above. We'd be refreshing the FPL thread and have a second window open in the FPL transfer forum with our transfer ready as soon as we confirmed the player was in the database and would add his valuation to the transfer post and hit send. That's one of the reasons we want you to post the player valuations in the transfer post. The other is that you have to ensure you have the funds to make the transfer. This was more a factor during the season and more importantly during the January transfer window. For the draft, we freeze the database after the first pick. For additions to the database after our draft database freeze, we have a first come first served period that begins 24 hours after the date/time stamp of the draft's last pick. At the end of that 24 hours, we have also had some congestion like you describe. From our years of experience, we have found that these new superstar players sometimes take a while to get acclimated to the English game or maybe not at all. Sometimes it works better to pick up the experienced, highly rated player that a manager drops to acquire the new wonderkid. This occurs because the new wonderkid will probably have a high valuation and you'd have to release someone like an Anelka or Drogba, to be able to acquire the new player. The other option is to draft a team substantially under the 100 valuation so you'd have a large bank available. With a large bank you could drop your medium priced non-performer or an injured player to go for the highly valued newbie. Because of not wanting to release someone, our experience tends to favor the more poorly scoring teams taking the time and effort to grab the new wonderkid. For example, Jay, aka DoctorJones24, who was in last place at the time, was able to grab Arshavin during last year's transfer window. And I think he noticed he was available by browsing through some transfer posts for other leagues in BigSoccer that alerted him Arshavin was in the database and he swooped for him in our league. He wasn't hanging around checking the updates to the FPL database. (That's another reason why we also do the extra, voluntary point of making a post in BigSoccer forum after we've made the transfer.) Also, we don't give anyone penalties if they don't post it in BigSoccer Forums. We have tried the waiver ideas before, but found they didn't have much participation. So over the years, we've felt the first come, first served (based on the date/time transfer stamp in the FPL forum transfer thread) system is simple, understandable, and works the best.
Hal, Thanks for taking the time to give that thorough answer. I'm much more at peace with the way things are done here, especially given the trials and tribulatons of the league's past. Elliott
I can tell you that I am two years into participating in this league and it has been an exceptionally well thought out, organized and entertaining experience. From your posts I gather you already have much more of an idea of what goes on than I did when I started. I believe you will really enjoy it. Even with lobomojo in the mix!
Hells yeah I am still in Sand. I finished 4th fool! (Even though the year before I finished bottom of the table in Dust I got promoted!) You want some of this? You want Lobo's position as main rival? ]
Hey, question... what's happening with the discussion about modifying? We seem to have stalled. I have a spare few minutes now so I'll go through and count votes, then post a "where we are now" report. Not going to bother tabulating who's voted and who hasn't, nor who's voted how, just a pure numbers count of for/against/etc. votes. Time's passing and soon we'll be organizing drafts again (thank God!) so I'd propose we get all these other issues sorted long before the other issues arise.
Below are the various categories from djangone's excellent post on page 5 (I think) of this thread. I've added an extra "fourth category," which you'll see below, and will only comment that, surprisingly for such a contentious issue, it's currently winning by a landslide. I. Current Method 1 vote II. Hybrid - Mandatory 8 votes III. Hybrid Method - Optional 5 votes IV. I don't care, and promise not to complain later if I don't vote now 22 votes Come on, people, get those votes in...
With the looming prospect of making transfers in FPL, BS, and Google, I decided to learn a bit about Google. There appear to be two features (or more) where timestamps can be used. One involves the spreadsheet as a whole. It can be found by opening the spreadsheet, then clicking "File", then clicking "Revision history". It shows the time of the update and who made the update, and it highlights the changed cells in orange. Another is internal to the spreadsheet. It can be found by clicking "Insert", then clicking "Comment". Once you add a comment, others can then mouse over the comment cell and see the timestamp. Unrelated to this, another feature allows each manager to define how/when they are notified of spreadsheet changes. See this by clicking "Tools" and then "Notification rules".