Tier 1 Task 6
The thing that really brought me back to the league after being gone for several years would have to be the league's wiki page. I'm a big sports history fan and I especially love me some sim sports history. In the Simulation Hockey League, the history is preserved but it's not the easiest to use. Thanks to people like Luke it is a lot easier but for a while the best option you had was to go through a million links and old web pages and keep open 20 tabs and piece together much of the history in your own head. This wasn't because of laziness but rather because when the SHL was started, I think the founders were probably hoping the league could gain enough people to even exist and then the league could exist maybe long enough to be fun for a couple months or a year. But here we are 11 years later and the league exists on a house of systems that weren't really designed with historical preservation in mind. It's been a frustrating issue and I think I've done a decent part to help by chronicling a decent amount of Newfoundland Berserkers history. But the ISFL made the very wise decision to try to record the history of the league as it happened through their wikipedia page. This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. In May I found myself going through page after page soaking the history of the league into my head. It's an incredible feature that I think every sim league should have. This is a feature that allows a new player to the league an easy way to access the history of the league and feel more invested. It not only helps to inform new players about the lore of the league but it can help them to remember that their actions as a player will be chronicled and recorded forever. I actually had a fun trip where I went and looked at the NSFL Draft where my original player was drafted and thinking "darn I was a freaking bust!" But there were problems with the wiki. For one thing, much of it is only updated by the players themselves and there are many players who very clearly do not care about the wiki. So since I joined the league in Mid June I've actually been working with the wiki team to create pages and or update pages of every single MVP Winner in league history. It's been a good way to educate myself on league history while making the wiki a better place! My first page was a page that had been bothering me. Borkus Maximus the Third. So quick background on Borkus. Borkus Maximus is a player whom is technically the oldest player in league history. While your typical ISFL player played at like Florida State or Michigan, Borkus Maximus played at the Platonic Academy run by none other than Plato himself about two thousand years ago. Borkus played football for the New Orleans Second Line for many seasons where he was a several time best Quarterback in the league and an MVP winner. Leading New Orleans to a championship at some point in his career. But much of this information was completely void from the page. In fact if you were a new player and you stumbled upon this page before I fixed it you might even make the mistake of thing that Borkus Maximus is still an active player when he's been gone for many seasons now. Being frustrated by this I decided to correct the page. I put in the rest of Borkus' career stats and then I put in all of his awards and retired the player formally so it could be recorded in the system and navigated better. I also added a hall of fame banner. When I finished I decided to do similar things with other players and I have had a lot of fun doing that. My hope is that at some point the whole wiki will be generally more accurate making the history of the league fully accessible to all players in an easy way. By helping people to better know the history of the league it can help them feel more invested in the league and their actions within it. At some point all of our current players will be gone and retired. And the notion that their actions were just dust in the wind is not one that should be allowed to prevail. I think all users owe it to all those who came before and after to see that the history of the league is not lost. The history of a sim league is the soul of the league and thing that gives it the weight that gives that real life reflection that so many of us look for in sim leagues. May the history of the ISFL live forever!
Word Count: 818
The thing that really brought me back to the league after being gone for several years would have to be the league's wiki page. I'm a big sports history fan and I especially love me some sim sports history. In the Simulation Hockey League, the history is preserved but it's not the easiest to use. Thanks to people like Luke it is a lot easier but for a while the best option you had was to go through a million links and old web pages and keep open 20 tabs and piece together much of the history in your own head. This wasn't because of laziness but rather because when the SHL was started, I think the founders were probably hoping the league could gain enough people to even exist and then the league could exist maybe long enough to be fun for a couple months or a year. But here we are 11 years later and the league exists on a house of systems that weren't really designed with historical preservation in mind. It's been a frustrating issue and I think I've done a decent part to help by chronicling a decent amount of Newfoundland Berserkers history. But the ISFL made the very wise decision to try to record the history of the league as it happened through their wikipedia page. This is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. In May I found myself going through page after page soaking the history of the league into my head. It's an incredible feature that I think every sim league should have. This is a feature that allows a new player to the league an easy way to access the history of the league and feel more invested. It not only helps to inform new players about the lore of the league but it can help them to remember that their actions as a player will be chronicled and recorded forever. I actually had a fun trip where I went and looked at the NSFL Draft where my original player was drafted and thinking "darn I was a freaking bust!" But there were problems with the wiki. For one thing, much of it is only updated by the players themselves and there are many players who very clearly do not care about the wiki. So since I joined the league in Mid June I've actually been working with the wiki team to create pages and or update pages of every single MVP Winner in league history. It's been a good way to educate myself on league history while making the wiki a better place! My first page was a page that had been bothering me. Borkus Maximus the Third. So quick background on Borkus. Borkus Maximus is a player whom is technically the oldest player in league history. While your typical ISFL player played at like Florida State or Michigan, Borkus Maximus played at the Platonic Academy run by none other than Plato himself about two thousand years ago. Borkus played football for the New Orleans Second Line for many seasons where he was a several time best Quarterback in the league and an MVP winner. Leading New Orleans to a championship at some point in his career. But much of this information was completely void from the page. In fact if you were a new player and you stumbled upon this page before I fixed it you might even make the mistake of thing that Borkus Maximus is still an active player when he's been gone for many seasons now. Being frustrated by this I decided to correct the page. I put in the rest of Borkus' career stats and then I put in all of his awards and retired the player formally so it could be recorded in the system and navigated better. I also added a hall of fame banner. When I finished I decided to do similar things with other players and I have had a lot of fun doing that. My hope is that at some point the whole wiki will be generally more accurate making the history of the league fully accessible to all players in an easy way. By helping people to better know the history of the league it can help them feel more invested in the league and their actions within it. At some point all of our current players will be gone and retired. And the notion that their actions were just dust in the wind is not one that should be allowed to prevail. I think all users owe it to all those who came before and after to see that the history of the league is not lost. The history of a sim league is the soul of the league and thing that gives it the weight that gives that real life reflection that so many of us look for in sim leagues. May the history of the ISFL live forever!
Word Count: 818