I agree with BigLen.  Trades are allowed.  If you can find someone willing to trade with you, go for it.  Blocking the trade because you think it is unethical when the commish and the rules say it is legal...would be like the Giants being able to block the Hanley Ramirez trade.  Not really a strategy I'm interested in attempting - to be frank it's a little too much work, but there is certainly nothing illegal about it.

I now realize this is about the theme league I am commissioner of. I missed this issue frankly, due to inexperience on my part. If biglenr explicitly discussed the possibility of trades being used strategically in this way before the league got going, I misunderstood his point, or did not see that this is what he was driving at - I don't entirely recall that discussion to be honest. 

Since I did not know this was a strategy used to avoid fatigue, it was not intentional on my part to leave this loophole open. I don't think a coalition of owners to veto all trades is called for since there are many legitimate trades to be engaged in and trades were intentionally allowed, as was WW on condition that players obtained meet the individual requirements (100-500 PA and 60-220 IP) of the theme. I had not thought through that it would be possible to burn a player's PA/IP and then trade them, say halfway through the season thus allowing for the player to have more than the RL PA/IP but more seriously opening the door to collusion which is unethical and banned by WIS rules. 

THEREFORE, I have no choice as commissioner but to rule the following: before any subsequent trades will be allowed, owners involved in trading players must make public on the owner's message board the PA/IP already used by that player and their RL IP/PA so that the owners in the league can make an informed judgement on whether to allow a trade to go through or not. 

I cannot recall having vetoed a trade ever in any kind of league. But even contrarian23 who is on record as opposing vetoes in almost every situation in these forums over the years has said here he would veto trades of this sort. Collusion between owners may not even be involved but I would suggest that anytime we see  players both well over their proportional PA/IP up to that point in the season involved in a trade in our league we veto it to avoid any trouble. 

My fault for missing this, but even in re-reading the forums back years I had not stumbled on this problem. And it has been a bad couple of weeks for me so my attention was not focused on it, so I had not intervened previously in this forum. 

Posted by biglenr on 7/28/2012 9:57:00 PM (view original):

 My wording may have been a beet strong... Sorry about that.  I took this thread as an attack on my integrity as I (1) pointed out the loophole and (2) explained why I didn't think it was cheating in the league forum (when he called it cheating).

Your apology is accepted.  Expecially since: I never spoke about you personally. If you feel guilty then it is what it is. I never said the WW  was a bad thing. Expecially since everyone here knows I use it more than anyone. And three I never mentioned anything about ALL trades being bad.  So basically either you are trying to mislead people or twist the facts. If you READ my intial post you will see none of this.  You have the power to trade and I have the power to veto enough said. Your notion that I am upset because I didn't think of it (trades) first is ridiculous.  I think everyone knows what a trade is. I also think everyone knows, I know what a trade is and thankfully there are people who have spoken about the wrongness of what I mentioned in my intial post.  It is absolutely something you made up to say I ever used the word cheating. "It is against the spirit and it is unethical" was my EXACT and only quote.   Where are you getting this nonsense. hmmmmm

Please let's keep the discussion civil on all sides and points of view. I don't see that anyone has acted in bad faith here. Merely that a problem has arisen - again I have taken responsibility for not having fully understood the implications earlier - and we are discussing the ramifications. 

In general, two good rules to follow in a debate, argument, even a knock-down drag out fight are:

1) assume your opponent has acted in good faith or from reasonably good motives or a point of view of their own and are either misguided, mistaken or wrong at worst, not evil. 

2) try not to take a principled stand on something either way because it benefits or hurts you at the moment, since in the near future you could find yourself on the opposite side of that equation (this is something Democrats and Republicans seem not to notice or understand). 

I have taken action - see my post above, as commissioner (better late than never), that I consider proportionate, balanced and that addresses the main problem - not unbalanced trades or people gaming the system - both of which are somewhat inevitable, but the risk that there is a loophole that could enable collusion or else that the league could be damaged by suspicion of collusion, accusations of collusion and so on. 

I consider this sufficient to close the matter. That does not preclude freedom of speech, but again I would like it kept civil on all sides, and proportionate. 

The main problem that arises from such a controversy is that it mars any trade, and impugns the reputation of any manager who makes a trade, either tacitly, or overtly. I have played this game a long time, and I understand both sides of this discussion. Every time I have been in a league where trades are vetoed, or commented negatively about, an argument erupts. There have even been a few which I, myself, started. I regret every one of them. The bottom line, IMO, is that we choose to play this game, we have the opportunity to pore over the league summary before we join, and if there are issues we don't like, we shouldn't join. No one enjoys this bickering after the fact. Just my $.02.
   Ultimately, what matters, other than God, and the people we love? We will all be much happier if we live by the "Golden Rule."

much ado about nothing. we are informed. how we act now is on us.  thanks italyprof.