S29 Open Newsletter

[bex]

       

Hello all! It’s been quite a while since we’ve been able to chat, so we have a lot to catch up on! You all made Season 28 very special, raising a huge amount of money for charity and showing exactly what’s possible when the community unites for good! I’m so proud to be a part of this community, and I hope you are feeling that pride as well! I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in the future!

Now that my sappy feelings stuff is out of the way, let’s hop into our updates!

HO Changes! 

Offseason is always an exciting time for Head Office as we get set for the new season and say goodbyes to our departing members and hello and congratulations to our new members. We’d like to thank excelsior for his hard work as an intern this past season, and wish him all the best on his next adventure. We’d also like to thank abh89 for his work, and would like to share an announcement regarding his future involvement with HO. As the league grows, it’s important to have Head Office accessible and working on the many issues that come across our desks. Part of that means expanding HO so that that work can be spread out and completed thoroughly and efficiently. As we look forward to the next few seasons, we are filled with excitement and hope that this goal is finally attainable. As the first step in that goal, we will be promoting abh89 to be a full member of Head Office for S29. This means we’ll be able to hire two interns going into this season, with the plan for another promotion in the future to round us out to our ideal number of 7 members of ISFL HO. abh89 is a tremendous help, and I’m so happy to get to offer him this opportunity. It is well deserved.

DSFL HO is super excited to welcome @”.simo” to the team! He has been an important part of the group for the last season and a half as an intern, and we can’t wait to see what he can do as a full member. His first project as a part of DSFL HO is to head up tracking user activity in the DSFL, so we’ll be able to see how active teams are, and when users are tending to go IA. The first is something we like to see data-wise since it’s a good indication of how teams are at developing their players, and the latter will mean we can track potential trends in people going IA. With those trends, we can address likely reasons people go IA and hopefully improve league-wide retention numbers going forward. This is a huge project and it’s really exciting to see our new hire take it head on.

With that in mind, as was stated in the hiring post, both HOs are in need of some new interns! If you want to be able to weigh in on all the decisions that go on behind the scenes, please let a member of HO know immediately!

Mental Health Awareness

Currently in America, it is Mental Health Awareness month, and it is an important topic both in the league and in your everyday lives to consider and reflect upon. Mental illnesses can be extremely debilitating and impactful on one’s life and can take many forms in an individual. Stressors in life can cause mental health problems to even the most mentally strong individuals, and that is okay!! Just like our physical health, our mental health can take a turn for the worse but you should never feel embarrassed or ashamed if this is you, it is common and you are not alone. Mental illness is nothing to be ashamed of. It is a medical problem, just like heart disease or diabetes and seeking help and treatment, is no different than going to a doctor.

Within the context of this league, there are always people you can reach out and talk to if you are feeling down. HO is not just the head moderators of this site, but leaders and pillars within the community who you can always reach out to talk to, including run-ins with mental health issues. As an online league, we are mostly anonymous and unknown to the person we are talking to on the other side of the screen, and as a result, you can never know just what has been happening in their life at that moment. Words can convey powerful messages and anonymity can make people feel like they can say far worse things than they can in person, and really cause distress to the other person. We as HO urge you to take this time, whether you are in Mental Health Awareness month or not, to not only reflect on your own mental well-being but that of others and the impact you could be having on those. We want this league to be inclusive to all and function as a support network to one another in times of need.

Below is a list of sites that contain either phone numbers or websites for people suffering with mental health anywhere in the world to seek help to increase their well-being and happiness or to educate yourself further on the area:

https://checkpointorg.com/global/ - List of websites on different mental health illnesses and emergency phone numbers for numerous countries.
https://www.therapyroute.com/article/hel...-the-world - Help-lines and suicide-lines for almost every country in the world.
https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-fami...al-illness - Information on what is mental illness and information on the different types of mental illnesses.

Charity Milestones

With the conclusion of the amazing charity drive, charity stream, and everything else involved, with the milestones in place being absolutely crushed, it's time to get out to you some of the milestones that were put up.

At the start of next week, there will be a thread in player transactions called “S28 Charity drive free weekly training” where you can post in to claim your weekly training for this week at absolutely no cost. There will also be a thread posted in the charity section for the free 3 TPE claim, where you will just have to type in your player name like an activity check, and can insta-claim that sweet sweet TPE! Make sure you do this, as there will be a 2-week deadline to get this done!

Create a Player Tool

One big area of focus for us going forward is to help streamline the onboarding process for new users. A big part of this experience is making your first thread and allocating TPE for the first time. We're happy to announce that we now have a form-based solution that incorporates the existing player builder functionality to the forums and spits out your player's roster page ready for approval.

The Create a Player tool can be found here. Be warned that if you hit submit, it will create a new player thread, so be careful unless you really are ready to recreate!

The next steps are to work with the Rookie Mentor team to incorporate this tool into the new user process, but for any of you league vets looking to recreate, feel free to use it for your next player!

HO Explainer

GM Bot Rule! Let's talk about it. 
We’ve seen some concerns about the new GM Bot Rule passing and wanted to take this opportunity to address some of those. For those who don’t know, the rule that passed and is going into effect immediately is as follows:

Code:

Depending on how many 200+ TPE call-ups an organization has a season, they are given additional GM bots to help alleviate the penalty of losing a bunch of their players. The proposed scale is this:
2-4 Call ups is 1 additional GM Bot
5-8 Call ups is another additional GM Bot
9+ Call ups is one last additional GM Bot
This would mean it is possible for a team to have the normal 2 GM Bots, plus an additional 3 for a total of 5 GM Bots maximum.
This rule change would go into effect in S29 if passed. With the declining numbers in the DSFL right now, the extra roster help in the form of these extra GM bots is necessary immediately to provide the best experience for rookies.

For a frame of reference of exactly how that impacts each team this season, these are the numbers for this season:
Bondi Beach - 4, +1 GM bot
Brandon Prince - RB - 264
Mongo - DE - 475
Tre’ Mendus Johnson - LB - 291
Chevy Bronko - TE - 296

Dallas - 4, +1 GM bots
Cole Maxwell - S - 458
Bayley Cowabunga - WR - 479
Joliet Christ Jr - QB - 635
Dallas Dole - K/P - 219

Kansas City - 2, +1 GM bot
Quinton Crash - WR - 253
Eleven Kendrick-Watts - WR - 704

London - 7, +2 GM bots
Taipan Pete - RB - 248
Manhattan Project - RB - 490
CJ Sonjack - CB - 471
Glenn Smart - DE - 532
Fergus Callaghan Jr - DT - 450
Willie Miller - CB - 381
Red Arrow Jr. - QB - 333

Minnesota - 1, +0 GM bots
Anton Bruckner - CB - 498

Norfolk - 3, +1 GM bot
Jay Cue Jr. - RB - 330
Dante King - RB - 348
Freddy Bly - K/P - 248

Portland - 4, +1 GM bot
Saleem Spence - WR - 547
Remus Roman - RB - 416
Xavier Walls - LB - 506
Cade York - K/P - 385

Tijuana - 4, +1 GM bots
Cade Williams - OL - 430
Lux Opal - S - 313
Lonnie Jackson - RB - 413
Romulus Roman - S - 445


Anyone who aged out of DSFL eligibility is not counted as a call up for this list, as they would not be on the DSFL roster this season regardless of if they were called up or not. As you can see, the only team who now has more than 3 total GM bots is London, who developed an incredibly impressive 7 players to ISFL readiness for this season. All other teams have 3 or the usual 2 GM bots.

First off, this somewhat rewards teams for developing their players successfully as they will have a slight benefit the following season (although not as much of a benefit as if they had a send down in that position, so this will not hurt the cyclical nature of the DSFL). People have mentioned that losing is part of the DSFL, and it absolutely is. As was mentioned on the charity stream, the team with the most average wins in the DSFL since expansion has 8 wins, and the team with the least has 6. Parity is crucial and the fact that teams become successful and then have to rebuild is how the league works. However, if a team gets decimated by call ups because they were good GMs, developed their players to ISFL readiness and then get absolutely smashed by teams filled with send downs who haven’t been developed yet, that doesn’t create a fun environment for the fresh rookies on the team. These additional GM bots won’t change a team’s season, but they can help make the DSFL experience more competitive and exciting for new users on a team with GMs who successfully develop players. Creating a fun environment for new creates is one of the leading purposes of the DSFL, and this rule was passed in an effort to do just that.

Regarding the concern that the rule rewards teams for developing players slowly as it only impacts 200+ TPE call ups, the current system without this rule passing does that, and in my opinion this rule does the opposite. Prior to the rule passing, if a player was developed slowly and stayed below 200 TPE, they would stay on the team and continue to be dominant in the DSFL. With the rule passing, a player getting called up because they were developed successfully prior to their DSFL eligibility running out doesn’t hurt a team quite as much, so teams have less incentive (and it’s important to note none of the current DSFL GMs would do this) to try to have players stay as send downs for a longer period of time.

To address the concerns about waivers being impacted, between the way position skill is calculated for bots vs humans, the possibility of getting another voice in the locker room, and the possibility to develop a player well past 100 TPE, DSFL GMs would be foolish to prioritize a GM bot over a waiver add.

The DSFL has been shrinking roster size wise for a while now, and teams with send downs smashing teams with a handful of active players absolutely impacts the retention of those players. A DSFL LR should be the lifeblood of the team, and you can create a great environment during a losing season. However, people just don’t enjoy getting demolished week in and week out. Having a sliver of more support in the form of a couple of extra GM bots, which only go to teams who develop players well already, can prevent that and help improve retention.




Around the League

From the HOF Committee:
Thanks to approval from Head Office, we will now be allowing users to nominate players, users, and GMs for consideration in future HOF Ballots! Users can go HERE to submit WITH REASONING a player/user/GM they believe is deserving of enshrinement in the Hall of Fame. These nominees can be new or re-nominations.

In the ensuing ballot voting, the list of nominations and reasoning will be presented to the committee, and as long as 1 committee member sponsors them, the player/GM/User will be added to the next Hall of Fame Ballot. For Players, they can only be nominated via this method if and only if they have failed to be inducted previously.

Example timeline:
-S29 Results released - general user base can nominate someone via form posted in the thread.
-S30 Ballot voting - committee members can sponsor nominee(s) from general user base
-S31 Ballot voting - nominees sponsored by committee members are eligible on the ballot.

This season, we will be working with an exception so that nominees from the general user base can be considered in the S29 ballot instead of the S30 ballot as described above. Nominations for the S29 ballot will close on Friday May 28 at 11:59 PM ET. Any submissions after that time will be put on the example timeline as listed above.

From the Casino:
Don’t forget to redeem your $1.5M free bet through the casino. This Charity Prize is only available in S29. Read more on it here!  


TL;DR
-abh89 and .simo are new full members of HO in their respective HO.
-HO intern apps are open!
-Mental Health is important! Don’t hesitate to utilize resources available to you!
- Charity Milestone stuff is happening soon! Don’t miss your free TPE!
-New Create-A-Player tool to play with!
-DSFL GM Bot Rule passes, HO explains the impact
-HOF taking nominations from the community!
-Casino’s got free bet money from charity event, go get yours!


As I said, we had a lot for you! Thanks for reading and staying engaged with what’s happening in the league! We’re excited to continue to improve the league and provide the best experience that we can! If you have comments, suggestions, questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to me or any other member of Head Office!


Best,


ISFL Commissioner
       

[Frostbite]

abHO

[qWest]

New creation tool looks excellent! Excited to see if we can get to the point of having automated systems for updating and banking as well!