Hello ISFL!
I hope the offseason has treated you well, and that you aren’t too grumpy about the @everyone to get you here. As there appears to be a number of you that aren’t super aware of the newsletters, we wanted to promote them just a bit more as we enter into the season!
We in HO have been hard at work with our offseason tasks, and we’re excited to provide a few updates!
How The Rulebook is Maintained
In the interest of acquainting the league with what HO gets up to, we’re starting a series to highlight some of our seasonal HO tasks. To start with, I’d like to take this time to walk you through one of my favourite HO tasks.
When I first got into Head Office, one of the big things I wanted to change was the rulebook. I found it hard to navigate, and my friends were constantly pointing out stuff that was unclear and out of date. There were two rulebooks at the time, one for the DSFL and one for the NSFL. The DSFL one had not been updated in quite some time, and contained outdated language that had been changed in the NSFL rulebook. Basically, it was a bit of a mess. (You’ll notice that making it less of a mess is a continuous mission of HO.)
So, given free range to work on my passions, first as an HO intern and then as a young HO member, I sat down with both rulebooks and cross checked each rule. I laid out which rules were duplicates, which contradicted, and which simply made no sense. I did my best to flag rules where the wording did not match the actions that were actually happening with the league. Once that had been done, I had a lot of conversations with the more experienced members of HO to clarify and adjust things. In my first year as commissioner, we were able to launch the unified rulebook in the form of a google doc. This meant that it was much easier to update each season and gave us more formatting options than what jcink had previously allowed for.
When the previous member of HO who was in charge of rulebook updates made the decision to depart from office, I was able to take that task on and continue working on the rulebook. It continues to be one of my favourite things to do at the end of the offseason.
With that background in mind, I’d like to walk you through how I go about those seasonal updates.
I generally start my work when the rule summit results are announced. I go through and adjust any old rules that were voted on, then go through to add new rules that were approved, taking care to place things in the best possible subheading so that they’re easy to find in the future.
Once the rule summit portion is complete, I turn to HO. Within HO, we have a channel called Rulebook Maintenance where we log future edits that need to be made. This might be something like adjusting a section title or other formatting, or it could be to add or adjust language to make rules more clear. This also might include notes on rulings around existing rules made by HO over the course of the season. One example from this season’s update is in regards to Undrafted Free Agents. A few seasons ago, a rule was passed that inactive players under 57 TPE would not be ISFL draft eligible. This season, there were a few of these players that resurfaced after the draft began. A few teams reached out as to what the procedure was in regards to contacting these undrafted players. The HO determination on this was that those players can be contacted and signed after the draft is aired. We communicated that decision with the GMs who inquired and will be adding that clarification to the rulebook for future reference. These changes are in line with HO’s power to adjust voted-on rules so that they logistically work within the league context. These aren’t generally wholesale changes to rules, as those are put through rule summits. But if we come across things that need a bit of clarity, or if we come across something that is in practice and should be in the rulebook but is currently missing entirely, we have the ability to make those adjustments.
Every few seasons, I also like to go on a rulebook deep-dive. I go through each section to make sure that the rules in that section fit the header and will create new sections if there are enough rules to warrant a split. An example of this would be the new section on rule summits. These rules previously were all across the rulebook. Since there are enough of them, I gathered them up and gave them their own dedicated section. With these sorts of edits, as there may be a few larger changes present, so we open up the draft to GM feedback. They have the ability to flag and veto changes at this juncture. Previous folks have raised concerns about not keeping historic rulebooks for reference, so when we do this large-scale change, we now make a new rulebook and archive the old one.
I hope that’s a helpful insight into the general process. I’m happy to answer any questions about it! The rulebook really is my passion. I will be the first to admit that it isn’t perfect, but I’m very proud of how far we’ve come, and that we have people who continue to work on it to make it better. If you have things you’ve noticed that are a bit odd within the rulebook, please feel free to flag it for me and I’ll look it over while we perform seasonal maintenance!
For some more specifics, here are a few adjustments you will be seeing in this season’s update
HO Explainer
League Survey Point Task
As you may already be aware, this season’s Offseason Point Task is a league survey that we created to get invaluable feedback and insight from you, the user of the league, on a range of topics and areas. Most focus on what us as HO can do to further improve this league and as a direct avenue for people to make suggestions all in one place to allow us to see what topics or ideas are common from the league and where you want us working on. After the PT is completed, HO will be taking the data and critically analysing it and will be posing their findings on it, whether it be in a newsletter or its own full report, commenting on what the data tells us and some of the things that we took out of this to begin working on. We cannot encourage you enough to do the survey and get your friends to complete it too, it's TPE for you and a wealth of information for us.
Draft Leak
Per the punishment thread, a member of the league made the decision to leak draft picks from the ISFL draft and was banned for malicious action detrimental to the league. I do want to address a few matters related to this. One question that has come up is what is being done in regards to the person who gave the information to the person who leaked it publicly. We do not currently have evidence as to who gave him information. If you have evidence or more information as to the identity of that person, please contact HO.
Because of this leak, we also had to reassess the viability of the ISFL Mock Draft Point Task. ISFL and DSFL HO worked together to make a decision on this matter. We went through a few different options, including a modified ISFL mock draft, doing a draft parlay akin to what is done in the PBE, and moving the focus to the DSFL. We agreed to celebrate the DSFL by making the task a DSFL Mock Draft. In response to raised concerns regarding more leaks, we made the decision to have the Mock Draft PT close before the draft itself had begun.
We are aware of ongoing concerns about leaks in future years. I want to acknowledge those concerns as very real, and let you know that HO is continuing the conversation as to how to approach this. We’ll keep you updated as we make further determinations, and would encourage you to reach out if you have ideas!
Rule Summit Procedure Changes
Going forward how the procedures the league uses to conducts ISFL and Universal Rules Summits will be changing.
First, roughly at the conclusion of each ISFL draft stream, a thread will be opened to allow new rules to be proposed for the upcoming season. That thread will remain open all season. Rules listed in the previous season's thread will be added to a ballot that will be sent out to voting parties to cast votes on. This change should allow rules to be proposed throughout the season and give more time for league members to flesh out the details of each proposal.
Second, all proposals that go on the final ballot will be released publicly before voting begins. This should allow all members of the league to weigh in on proposals and provide their feedback to voters, increasing their agency to promote change within the league.
Third, there will be structural changes on how the league facilitates discussions between voting parties around rules. Threads and individual channels will be opened for rules as needed to provide a more streamlined way to discuss proposals and provide an archive of the discussions that were had around each rule. For universal rule summits, department heads will have access to these channels and threads to make sure their voices are heard on issues that concern their departments.
These changes are just a start, however, they will hopefully facilitate improved communication on rule proposals and allow the league to make changes that the community desires. These changes are in response to robust conversations within HO and league leadership at large.
Around the League
From the RM Team:
This past season the Rookie Mentor team has been hard at work revising and updating the rookie guide.. We've broken it into some easy to digest sections that should give you almost all of the information and links you need on a given topic. You don't need to read it all, but it's a great resource to double check information. This season we should continue to see updates to our video guides as well, which are included in the Rookie Guide.
From HO:
HO has hired two new interns to replace our recent intern graduates. We’re excited to be bringing aboard abh89 and excelsior as our S28 interns!
TL;DR
- Rulebook is a fun job, but a constant battle
- League Survey to get at league concerns for TPE!
- Response to leak and future concerns
- Changes to Rules Summit Procedure
- RMs doing great stuff with the rookie guide
- HO brings on some Interns
Thank you all for taking the time to read this! As always, we’re happy to keep the conversation going. Feel free to @me or any other members of HO in the comments with questions, comments or concerns!
Best,
![[Image: 32e31433db39c503e91a14e4a51827b0.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/645819533424066581/705118834708840548/32e31433db39c503e91a14e4a51827b0.png)
ISFL Commissioner
I hope the offseason has treated you well, and that you aren’t too grumpy about the @everyone to get you here. As there appears to be a number of you that aren’t super aware of the newsletters, we wanted to promote them just a bit more as we enter into the season!
We in HO have been hard at work with our offseason tasks, and we’re excited to provide a few updates!
How The Rulebook is Maintained
In the interest of acquainting the league with what HO gets up to, we’re starting a series to highlight some of our seasonal HO tasks. To start with, I’d like to take this time to walk you through one of my favourite HO tasks.
When I first got into Head Office, one of the big things I wanted to change was the rulebook. I found it hard to navigate, and my friends were constantly pointing out stuff that was unclear and out of date. There were two rulebooks at the time, one for the DSFL and one for the NSFL. The DSFL one had not been updated in quite some time, and contained outdated language that had been changed in the NSFL rulebook. Basically, it was a bit of a mess. (You’ll notice that making it less of a mess is a continuous mission of HO.)
So, given free range to work on my passions, first as an HO intern and then as a young HO member, I sat down with both rulebooks and cross checked each rule. I laid out which rules were duplicates, which contradicted, and which simply made no sense. I did my best to flag rules where the wording did not match the actions that were actually happening with the league. Once that had been done, I had a lot of conversations with the more experienced members of HO to clarify and adjust things. In my first year as commissioner, we were able to launch the unified rulebook in the form of a google doc. This meant that it was much easier to update each season and gave us more formatting options than what jcink had previously allowed for.
When the previous member of HO who was in charge of rulebook updates made the decision to depart from office, I was able to take that task on and continue working on the rulebook. It continues to be one of my favourite things to do at the end of the offseason.
With that background in mind, I’d like to walk you through how I go about those seasonal updates.
I generally start my work when the rule summit results are announced. I go through and adjust any old rules that were voted on, then go through to add new rules that were approved, taking care to place things in the best possible subheading so that they’re easy to find in the future.
Once the rule summit portion is complete, I turn to HO. Within HO, we have a channel called Rulebook Maintenance where we log future edits that need to be made. This might be something like adjusting a section title or other formatting, or it could be to add or adjust language to make rules more clear. This also might include notes on rulings around existing rules made by HO over the course of the season. One example from this season’s update is in regards to Undrafted Free Agents. A few seasons ago, a rule was passed that inactive players under 57 TPE would not be ISFL draft eligible. This season, there were a few of these players that resurfaced after the draft began. A few teams reached out as to what the procedure was in regards to contacting these undrafted players. The HO determination on this was that those players can be contacted and signed after the draft is aired. We communicated that decision with the GMs who inquired and will be adding that clarification to the rulebook for future reference. These changes are in line with HO’s power to adjust voted-on rules so that they logistically work within the league context. These aren’t generally wholesale changes to rules, as those are put through rule summits. But if we come across things that need a bit of clarity, or if we come across something that is in practice and should be in the rulebook but is currently missing entirely, we have the ability to make those adjustments.
Every few seasons, I also like to go on a rulebook deep-dive. I go through each section to make sure that the rules in that section fit the header and will create new sections if there are enough rules to warrant a split. An example of this would be the new section on rule summits. These rules previously were all across the rulebook. Since there are enough of them, I gathered them up and gave them their own dedicated section. With these sorts of edits, as there may be a few larger changes present, so we open up the draft to GM feedback. They have the ability to flag and veto changes at this juncture. Previous folks have raised concerns about not keeping historic rulebooks for reference, so when we do this large-scale change, we now make a new rulebook and archive the old one.
I hope that’s a helpful insight into the general process. I’m happy to answer any questions about it! The rulebook really is my passion. I will be the first to admit that it isn’t perfect, but I’m very proud of how far we’ve come, and that we have people who continue to work on it to make it better. If you have things you’ve noticed that are a bit odd within the rulebook, please feel free to flag it for me and I’ll look it over while we perform seasonal maintenance!
For some more specifics, here are a few adjustments you will be seeing in this season’s update
- OL Bot Scales to be added
- Recruitment TPE structure to be added
- Undrafted FA Time Frame to be clarified
- Adjustment to Time Frame for IA Re-signings in response to previous rule moving up the start of FA
- Clarification on Players waiving rights to play time at the DSFL level
- Re-add a section of DSFL Depth Chart rules that were approved through rule summit
HO Explainer
League Survey Point Task
As you may already be aware, this season’s Offseason Point Task is a league survey that we created to get invaluable feedback and insight from you, the user of the league, on a range of topics and areas. Most focus on what us as HO can do to further improve this league and as a direct avenue for people to make suggestions all in one place to allow us to see what topics or ideas are common from the league and where you want us working on. After the PT is completed, HO will be taking the data and critically analysing it and will be posing their findings on it, whether it be in a newsletter or its own full report, commenting on what the data tells us and some of the things that we took out of this to begin working on. We cannot encourage you enough to do the survey and get your friends to complete it too, it's TPE for you and a wealth of information for us.
Draft Leak
Per the punishment thread, a member of the league made the decision to leak draft picks from the ISFL draft and was banned for malicious action detrimental to the league. I do want to address a few matters related to this. One question that has come up is what is being done in regards to the person who gave the information to the person who leaked it publicly. We do not currently have evidence as to who gave him information. If you have evidence or more information as to the identity of that person, please contact HO.
Because of this leak, we also had to reassess the viability of the ISFL Mock Draft Point Task. ISFL and DSFL HO worked together to make a decision on this matter. We went through a few different options, including a modified ISFL mock draft, doing a draft parlay akin to what is done in the PBE, and moving the focus to the DSFL. We agreed to celebrate the DSFL by making the task a DSFL Mock Draft. In response to raised concerns regarding more leaks, we made the decision to have the Mock Draft PT close before the draft itself had begun.
We are aware of ongoing concerns about leaks in future years. I want to acknowledge those concerns as very real, and let you know that HO is continuing the conversation as to how to approach this. We’ll keep you updated as we make further determinations, and would encourage you to reach out if you have ideas!
Rule Summit Procedure Changes
Going forward how the procedures the league uses to conducts ISFL and Universal Rules Summits will be changing.
First, roughly at the conclusion of each ISFL draft stream, a thread will be opened to allow new rules to be proposed for the upcoming season. That thread will remain open all season. Rules listed in the previous season's thread will be added to a ballot that will be sent out to voting parties to cast votes on. This change should allow rules to be proposed throughout the season and give more time for league members to flesh out the details of each proposal.
Second, all proposals that go on the final ballot will be released publicly before voting begins. This should allow all members of the league to weigh in on proposals and provide their feedback to voters, increasing their agency to promote change within the league.
Third, there will be structural changes on how the league facilitates discussions between voting parties around rules. Threads and individual channels will be opened for rules as needed to provide a more streamlined way to discuss proposals and provide an archive of the discussions that were had around each rule. For universal rule summits, department heads will have access to these channels and threads to make sure their voices are heard on issues that concern their departments.
These changes are just a start, however, they will hopefully facilitate improved communication on rule proposals and allow the league to make changes that the community desires. These changes are in response to robust conversations within HO and league leadership at large.
Around the League
From the RM Team:
This past season the Rookie Mentor team has been hard at work revising and updating the rookie guide.. We've broken it into some easy to digest sections that should give you almost all of the information and links you need on a given topic. You don't need to read it all, but it's a great resource to double check information. This season we should continue to see updates to our video guides as well, which are included in the Rookie Guide.
From HO:
HO has hired two new interns to replace our recent intern graduates. We’re excited to be bringing aboard abh89 and excelsior as our S28 interns!
TL;DR
- Rulebook is a fun job, but a constant battle
- League Survey to get at league concerns for TPE!
- Response to leak and future concerns
- Changes to Rules Summit Procedure
- RMs doing great stuff with the rookie guide
- HO brings on some Interns
Thank you all for taking the time to read this! As always, we’re happy to keep the conversation going. Feel free to @me or any other members of HO in the comments with questions, comments or concerns!
Best,
ISFL Commissioner
![[Image: jay_banker_sig_500.png]](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/324284917485797398/1069128807656726679/jay_banker_sig_500.png)
![[Image: Jay_Cue_III_Sig.png]](https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/736700931864920064/1117125068653350972/Jay_Cue_III_Sig.png)
![[Image: xtriisfl.gif]](https://sig.grumpybumpers.com/host/xtriisfl.gif)
![[Image: wU5O0K2.png]](https://i.imgur.com/wU5O0K2.png)
![[Image: 63897_s.gif]](https://signavatar.com/63897_s.gif)
![[Image: XyZODaF.gif]](https://i.imgur.com/XyZODaF.gif)
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