Moving On

Reviving this blog that has been dead for a year and a half, I realized that we didn't do much with Chad's blog when that was the link in our world chat.  A few team previews here and there, and the Potential Hall Of Fame write-up (now that I think of it, I wish I had kept that whole section somewhere), but that was about it.  I can't swear that I will post anything that often here, but I think we have enough volunteer contributors that we can keep the page fairly fresh.  Whether or not the writing is any good, that remains to be seen.

Since the last time this blog saw the light of day, I spent a few seasons as commish, hart spent about 24 hours as commish, AC spent a few seasons as commish, and now repsher takes over the role.  To say the last four or five seasons have been bumpy would be a bit of an understatement.  Only four original owners remain (bcalarco12, repsher, 2_black_dogs, and myself), with a few others (shiish, AC, MJ, Primetime and zedonk) spending a substantial amount of time within the world.  That means less than a third of the world has been in the world for more than half of its life.  Not a great stat.  Whether it is vocalized or not, our goal over the next few seasons should be to get to a point where half of the world has five or more seasons within the world.  Very doable.

One of the first steps towards achieving that goal is setting a rule or two.  Rules are tricky, as some people love them, while others love the "it's my team, I can do what I want" slogan.  The hard part is finding a middle-ground, where owners still have control over their teams, but not so much control that they are allowed to trash their team, and in turn trash the world.  The one rule that seems to have fairly universal acceptance is the idea of a win requirement.  Win X number of games, or you're gone.  Many worlds have a win minimum.  Hell, WIS has a win minimum.  The problem (as I see it) with a one season win minimum is that an owner can sit on that minimum for an indefinite amount of time (see reigny, and every team he has ever owned).  I spent some time in the Double Mendoza world, where you are required to hit something like 130 wins in any two seasons, otherwise you are up for dismissal from the world.  In Cooperstown and Moonlight Graham, you are required to hit a certain number of wins that progress from season to season.  So you can't play crappy ball for two or three seasons in a row, you have to show progress and that your team is improving.  That idea was met with somewhat mixed emotions, a few people loving the idea, a few people hating it, and quite a few with no opinion at all.  But I think everyone agrees that something needs to happen.  And whatever rule is put into place, it needs to have some teeth.  Loose women are one thing, loose rules are another.