Hey guys and gals and everyone in between WildfireMicro here and I want to discuss something near and dear to my heart in this league: media. There is nothing in this league or any league like this quite like a very good and insightful media peice. It gives you money and let's you interact with the community in a pretty unique way. But as I have been active in the SHL as well as here I noticed something in there: the SMJHL Commissioner's Award of Excellence. While this might be more of a generalization of the award as I am not 100% sure of the qualifications, it does seem to award those who have good media. I mean I was nominated last season for my story media. I didn't win by the way, Zeagle did.
So what am I getting at? Well we don't really have an award that awards amazing media here in the ISFL. And before you talk about the Most Dedicated Member Award that isn't really the same thing. That award is for those who have been extremely dedicated to the league and isn't necessarily for media. That means that a lot of the time great media by those who may not be as dedicated does not get the same recognition unfortunately. It also makes it a lot harder to archive media that deserves it. Looking through graded media to find an article from a few seasons ago would be hard and searching would probably be a pain.
Like for example my ISFL players as wrestlers media aka the International Simulation Wrestling League or ISWL. I do plan on continuing the storyline of that media but it may be hard for people to follow what's going on without an easy way to look through each one of them one by one. It would also be nice for a team to look at a media from a few seasons ago about a rebuild they are doing after the rebuilding is complete to see how far they have come. And a big one is for story media of a particular player's backstory so we can get context on what happened during thier career, especially with Hall of Fame players. And maybe also include media on how different seasons have gone while they are happening so that the history and context of the league is persevered.
So what I am proposing is two fold: first let's talk about the media award. My idea on that is an award that will award the user who has been writing the best media each season. I'm honestly not sure what to call the award but maybe the Media Master Award. I don't know someone could come up with a good name I guess. But anyways this award would make those who write good media see thier efforts mean more in the long run. Money is nice but when you have a lot of it you get to the point where you might become stagnant and complacent. Not blaming anyone on that it's just how it goes sometimes.
Plus this would bring attention to users who have made good media but may have flown under the radar as they may not be as active. I personally think the award should not be given to the same person two seasons in a row to give a lot of users a chance. Otherwise the winners might seem like the same people every year. Yeah I know a user is popping into your head right now who would win it multiple years in a row. This is to encourage users to keep trying for it though that shouldn't be the end goal of media writing. Just writing a bunch of words shouldn't win you the award it should be the context of the media itself. For example a 2500 word article where they dance around the point to try to up the word count shouldn't be judged better then a 1000 word article that gets to the point quickly and makes the point clearly.
I don't blame anyone for trying to up thier word count a lot of us are guilty of that at some point. But what I am saying is that good media needs to be awarded more, and this proposal would help out a whole bunch on that front. The other part of my proposal is that we need a better way to archive good media. I'm not 100% sure of the right way to do this, but I personally think archiving media by seasons is a great start. So then users can easily find context on what happened in each season by thier media. You'd be surprised how much context media can give on what the users have experienced in each season. Controversies and drama included.
I hope that my two part proposal is interesting and will be considered going forward. This has been on my mind since I was nominated for that SMJHL award and I think these would be great ways to keep the community engaged and in the know with the history and context of the league. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all on the field!
Btw yes this is for the Colorado rules proposal @Sylphreni and @SchwarzNarr
So what am I getting at? Well we don't really have an award that awards amazing media here in the ISFL. And before you talk about the Most Dedicated Member Award that isn't really the same thing. That award is for those who have been extremely dedicated to the league and isn't necessarily for media. That means that a lot of the time great media by those who may not be as dedicated does not get the same recognition unfortunately. It also makes it a lot harder to archive media that deserves it. Looking through graded media to find an article from a few seasons ago would be hard and searching would probably be a pain.
Like for example my ISFL players as wrestlers media aka the International Simulation Wrestling League or ISWL. I do plan on continuing the storyline of that media but it may be hard for people to follow what's going on without an easy way to look through each one of them one by one. It would also be nice for a team to look at a media from a few seasons ago about a rebuild they are doing after the rebuilding is complete to see how far they have come. And a big one is for story media of a particular player's backstory so we can get context on what happened during thier career, especially with Hall of Fame players. And maybe also include media on how different seasons have gone while they are happening so that the history and context of the league is persevered.
So what I am proposing is two fold: first let's talk about the media award. My idea on that is an award that will award the user who has been writing the best media each season. I'm honestly not sure what to call the award but maybe the Media Master Award. I don't know someone could come up with a good name I guess. But anyways this award would make those who write good media see thier efforts mean more in the long run. Money is nice but when you have a lot of it you get to the point where you might become stagnant and complacent. Not blaming anyone on that it's just how it goes sometimes.
Plus this would bring attention to users who have made good media but may have flown under the radar as they may not be as active. I personally think the award should not be given to the same person two seasons in a row to give a lot of users a chance. Otherwise the winners might seem like the same people every year. Yeah I know a user is popping into your head right now who would win it multiple years in a row. This is to encourage users to keep trying for it though that shouldn't be the end goal of media writing. Just writing a bunch of words shouldn't win you the award it should be the context of the media itself. For example a 2500 word article where they dance around the point to try to up the word count shouldn't be judged better then a 1000 word article that gets to the point quickly and makes the point clearly.
I don't blame anyone for trying to up thier word count a lot of us are guilty of that at some point. But what I am saying is that good media needs to be awarded more, and this proposal would help out a whole bunch on that front. The other part of my proposal is that we need a better way to archive good media. I'm not 100% sure of the right way to do this, but I personally think archiving media by seasons is a great start. So then users can easily find context on what happened in each season by thier media. You'd be surprised how much context media can give on what the users have experienced in each season. Controversies and drama included.
I hope that my two part proposal is interesting and will be considered going forward. This has been on my mind since I was nominated for that SMJHL award and I think these would be great ways to keep the community engaged and in the know with the history and context of the league. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you all on the field!
Btw yes this is for the Colorado rules proposal @Sylphreni and @SchwarzNarr