CB Draft Finals: Q&A, Video, and Trash Talk Thread!

[nickagneta]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I can understand that. I defended my team and critiqued others but did no lobbying for votes this year. Still though there are some that like to know where their team stands during voting and which people they need to attempt to influence. I think that's why some like the public vote and prefer it over the private vote.

[ChampKind]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I disagree. Even though I'm terrible at it, responding to questions about strategy and matchup is what I find to be the most intersting.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I consider lobbying to be sending out mass PMs to get votes, setting up threads to advertise your team, inundating the draft thread to pump up your own players with pics and scrolling text, etc. We didn't see as much of that this year, but it's still annoying.

The argument phase I am all in favor of, and as long as you are making a pertinent case in the right place for it, it's great. But if you are showing up every 30 posts in the draft thread to show pictures of your players and say how great they are, or starting your own thread to tell people to vote for your team, that's annoying and it makes me want to vote for your team less. Not enough to discount the talent of the team you've drafted, but in a coin flip situation it could be a factor.

[nickagneta]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I disagree. Even though I'm terrible at it, responding to questions about strategy and matchup is what I find to be the most intersting.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I consider lobbying to be sending out mass PMs to get votes, setting up threads to advertise your team, inundating the draft thread to pump up your own players with pics and scrolling text, etc. We didn't see as much of that this year, but it's still annoying.

The argument phase I am all in favor of, and as long as you are making a pertinent case in the right place for it, it's great. But if you are showing up every 30 posts in the draft thread to show pictures of your players and say how great they are, or starting your own thread to tell people to vote for your team, that's annoying and it makes me want to vote for your team less. Not enough to discount the talent of the team you've drafted, but in a coin flip situation it could be a factor.

I definitely see what you're saying. It can get annoying.

[Donoghus]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I disagree. Even though I'm terrible at it, responding to questions about strategy and matchup is what I find to be the most intersting.

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I consider lobbying to be sending out mass PMs to get votes, setting up threads to advertise your team, inundating the draft thread to pump up your own players with pics and scrolling text, etc. We didn't see as much of that this year, but it's still annoying.

The argument phase I am all in favor of, and as long as you are making a pertinent case in the right place for it, it's great. But if you are showing up every 30 posts in the draft thread to show pictures of your players and say how great they are, or starting your own thread to tell people to vote for your team, that's annoying and it makes me want to vote for your team less. Not enough to discount the talent of the team you've drafted, but in a coin flip situation it could be a factor.

I definitely see what you're saying. It can get annoying.

It annoys the heck out of me and tends to rub me negatively. 

[indeedproceed]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I can understand that. I defended my team and critiqued others but did no lobbying for votes this year. Still though there are some that like to know where their team stands during voting and which people they need to attempt to influence. I think that's why some like the public vote and prefer it over the private vote.

I'm very much for lobbying for votes...as in getting people to actually vote, regardless of team.

I do like to know where I stand with people. If there was one reservation about my team that someone had that I thought I could change, I'd like to try.

But that is the magic of the private vote. Even as a Mod, I had no access to the voting totals (which you can bet your butt if I would have, I would not have lost by one stinking vote when only 11 people voted), and honestly if I had the choice I'd rather not know if my own matchup is close or not.

People do weird desperate things in games like this when they start to take them seriously. I'm as competitive as the next guy, maybe more so, and knowing that I know that I (among others) would be religiously checking vote totals, etc...and just kind of ruining the fun of it all.

Its better not knowing. If you do lose, you don't lose over the course of hours while others are watching to squirm, and beg for votes like the guy from Menace 2 Society (I got these cheeseburgers, mann.....).

Like I said, its more dignified.

[Edgar]

I can almost guarantee next year comish will be a Stud.

[indeedproceed]

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I consider lobbying to be sending out mass PMs to get votes, setting up threads to advertise your team, inundating the draft thread to pump up your own players with pics and scrolling text, etc. We didn't see as much of that this year, but it's still annoying.

The argument phase I am all in favor of, and as long as you are making a pertinent case in the right place for it, it's great. But if you are showing up every 30 posts in the draft thread to show pictures of your players and say how great they are, or starting your own thread to tell people to vote for your team, that's annoying and it makes me want to vote for your team less. Not enough to discount the talent of the team you've drafted, but in a coin flip situation it could be a factor.

I definitely see what you're saying. It can get annoying.

**cough, http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=31160.0 , cough**

[Donoghus]

I liked the uncertainty of the private vote but the extra step has to be considered as being a reason for the low turnout. If there was a hybrid way of doing it in which, I don't know just throwing stuff off the wall, people would vote privately but every 2-3 hours the commish posts the score of the vote and which members voted, though not necessarily their vote, it would give owners an idea where they stand and who they need to lobby for votes with.

See, I think lobbying is the least fun part of this game. People should vote based on how they feel and their connection to the game, and for the most part they do, and I'm not sure hype posts do much to change that. I tend to negatively connect teams with owners who are egregiously lobbying for their teams.

I can understand that. I defended my team and critiqued others but did no lobbying for votes this year. Still though there are some that like to know where their team stands during voting and which people they need to attempt to influence. I think that's why some like the public vote and prefer it over the private vote.

I'm very much for lobbying for votes...as in getting people to actually vote, regardless of team.

I do like to know where I stand with people. If there was one reservation about my team that someone had that I thought I could change, I'd like to try.

But that is the magic of the private vote. Even as a Mod, I had no access to the voting totals (which you can bet your butt if I would have, I would not have lost by one stinking vote when only 11 people voted), and honestly if I had the choice I'd rather not know if my own matchup is close or not.

People do weird desperate things in games like this when they start to take them seriously. I'm as competitive as the next guy, maybe more so, and knowing that I know that I (among others) would be religiously checking vote totals, etc...and just kind of ruining the fun of it all.

Its better not knowing. If you do lose, you don't lose over the course of hours while others are watching to squirm, and beg for votes like the guy from Menace 2 Society (I got these cheeseburgers, mann.....).

Like I said, its more dignified.

Thats my line of thinking with the vote counts also.  Knowing where things stand changes the complexity of things and some people will do things differently if they know where they stand when voting is still open.  That bothers me. 

The voting should be unknown until the results are posted. 

[Roy H.]

Since we're near the end, class it up haters. I hear so many people now complain "I can't believe these two are in the finals." Get over yourselves... The #1 seed in the East is taking on the #1 seed in the West.

You might not be able to believe it, but democracy does.

Quoted without comment:

I'm disapointed that these are these are the two teams left in the west. Not to be rude, cuz I think both of these teams were constructed better than mine, but I think there were teams in the West that were SIGNIFICANTLY better than those still standingins....

[Roy H.]

Here's a comparison between last year's draft and this one:

Last year:  42 Finals votes, 29 WCF votes, 27 ECF votes

This year:  11 Finals votes, 14 WCF votes, 14 WCF votes

It's all well and good to be dignified, or whatever word we want to use, but we saw less than half the turnout we did last year, and approximately 30% of the turnout in the Finals.

As a participant, I was very disappointed that only 14 people bothered to weigh in in the WCF.  It's a lot easier to understand a loss when 15 - 20 people are telling you your team is inferior, rather than 6 or 8.  Also, when there are 42 votes, a couple of biased voters don't make a huge difference.  With 11 or 14, they certainly do, and can tilt the entire result.

My thought, then, is that we should do what we can to increase voting.  If that means a public thread, then what's the harm?

[ChampKind]

To be fair, I do think that this year's draft was one of the smoothest running of all time, so Faf and the rest of the mod crew that assisted, awesome job. Unfortunately, that also robbed me of time wasting flamewars, which last year had in spades (SPADES, says I!). A tough trade-off for me, as I had to resist the constant urge of calling GC out for being the smelly Hawaiian that he is, or hold back on other non-related, slightly-bigoted insults.

[Roy H.]

Also, of course, we're now getting opinions for the 14 or so people who did make it until the end.  Obviously, those 14 people didn't have a huge problem with the private ballots, because they voted in the majority, if not all, of the rounds.  What we're not getting is the opinion of those who lost interest, and whether they would have voted if something had been done differently.

[Donoghus]

Here's a comparison between last year's draft and this one:

Last year:  42 Finals votes, 29 WCF votes, 27 ECF votes

This year:  11 Finals votes, 14 WCF votes, 14 WCF votes

It's all well and good to be dignified, or whatever word we want to use, but we saw less than half the turnout we did last year, and approximately 30% of the turnout in the Finals.

As a participant, I was very disappointed that only 14 people bothered to weigh in in the WCF.  It's a lot easier to understand a loss when 15 - 20 people are telling you your team is inferior, rather than 6 or 8.  Also, when there are 42 votes, a couple of biased voters don't make a huge difference.  With 11 or 14, they certainly do, and can tilt the entire result.

My thought, then, is that we should do what we can to increase voting.  If that means a public thread, then what's the harm?

I think part of the low turnout this year was due to the delayed timing of things.  If we go back to the July/Aug schedule of years past and have this thing wrapped up before Labor Day, I think we'll have more activity again.

The experience of losing the Finals just sorta knocked the wind out of everyone's sails and caused the ball to get rolling later than usual this year.

[indeedproceed]

I'm telling you, confirmed email address to start contest, mass PM's to all owners.

If we can get 30 owners to vote in every round that would be solid. Owners think we don't notice when they're not showing up, fading to the backround.

What you need is a checklist of all owners and you need to get those emails out. Keep hammering it in, "please vote, you're being a tool". "We know you didn't vote, Orart Srien. Please vote.".."Vote or we'll kill your dog. If you don't have a dog we'll put peanut butter in your xbox360....Vote!"

[nickagneta]

Perhaps I should have been more specific. I consider lobbying to be sending out mass PMs to get votes, setting up threads to advertise your team, inundating the draft thread to pump up your own players with pics and scrolling text, etc. We didn't see as much of that this year, but it's still annoying.

The argument phase I am all in favor of, and as long as you are making a pertinent case in the right place for it, it's great. But if you are showing up every 30 posts in the draft thread to show pictures of your players and say how great they are, or starting your own thread to tell people to vote for your team, that's annoying and it makes me want to vote for your team less. Not enough to discount the talent of the team you've drafted, but in a coin flip situation it could be a factor.

I definitely see what you're saying. It can get annoying.

**cough, http://forums.celticsblog.com/index.php?topic=31160.0 , cough**

Yeah, I know that rubbed people the wrong way last year and why I didn't do it this year. I did say I didn't lobby this year.