The evidence presented by gsimon is not 100% accurate.

I was the owner of ATL and AJ Bowen. I traded him away pretty late in the yr, but I did not notice that staind put him in AAA. I think that is a pretty clear case of tanking.

However, the Carlos Rodriguez move is incorrect.

Staind traded AWAY Rodriguez after 9 starts, along with a good defensive CF for James Matthews which is certainly an attempt to improve. Matthews then went on the 60day DL with a knee injury after only 22 game cycles.
 

I think most of us felt at the time "this poor guy is trying but he's having terrible luck".

I still think the fact that he put Bowen (who had posted a 1.36 WHIP at the bl lvl for me) in AAA AND did not ever call up Yearwood is evidence that he wasn't trying as hard as everyone may have thought, including myself.

After looking at everything more closely, I think the right decision is to boot them both.

I think the fact that he gave 32 starts to a guy with a 9.49 ERA, 2.13 WHIP speaks volumes about the "effort" being put forth.    That's just ridiculous.  One could argue that booger was only trying to compete with that for the 1st pick.

I tried to be removed and Site staff wouldn't let me. I submitted a ticket yesterday about it. I seriously don't know much about HBD. I just wanted to join a league with my friends and have fun. You all have taken the fun out of this game for me. I am trying to get a handle on the situation and trying to play but i doubt I will ever play again. I feel like I am being crucified when its obvious to me that Booger was the tanker, not me.  Mike, I might have messed up but it was my first time.  I gave starts to that guy because I didn't really have any other options at the Pitching position. Not only did I lose Matthews for the year, i lost multiple starting pitchers for 15 day dl injuries throughout the year.  

As I said before, I don't really care what you guys do in your world.  I just want to see how it plays out because it may one day pertain to me.   But, quite frankly, I don't buy "I didn't have any other options."   Just a quick glance at AAA tells me that you had several better options than O'Brien. Bigby wouldn't have even increased payroll if that was an issue.  Gonzales is no star either.  I'm sure you understand baseball.   Guys with 8+ ERA shouldn't get 65 starts.  If you knew you had to win 55, you should have tried something.   It appears that you were content to keep rolling two stinkers out there every 5th day.  Tanking or not, you weren't playing with any "urgency".

I agree they both need to be removed. 

Boogerlips gained more attention when he posted in the league chat "my last good ML player is on the block if you dont mind me falling even further below the win floor"

Posted by MikeT23 on 9/18/2010 3:19:00 PM (view original):
As I said before, I don't really care what you guys do in your world.  I just want to see how it plays out because it may one day pertain to me.   But, quite frankly, I don't buy "I didn't have any other options."   Just a quick glance at AAA tells me that you had several better options than O'Brien. Bigby wouldn't have even increased payroll if that was an issue.  Gonzales is no star either.  I'm sure you understand baseball.   Guys with 8+ ERA shouldn't get 65 starts.  If you knew you had to win 55, you should have tried something.   It appears that you were content to keep rolling two stinkers out there every 5th day.  Tanking or not, you weren't playing with any "urgency".

I think this is part of the problem though- that a lot of newbies just don't take to time to consider their other options.  He could have just signed somebody off the FA scrap heap to take those starts, post a 5.50 ERA, and finish with 56 wins.  Or he could have traded for somebody, or any number of things.

I'm actually going to make a thread about this, because a big part of the problem with win floors is a lot of well intentioned people don't understand how easy it is to win 70+ by investing a little bit here and there to have OK enough players on the field.

You go girl!

I'm not reading this whole thread at the moment, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I went back and forth on my vote with respect to Staind (and how it could impact my vote on Booger), but what it basically came down to was this - 

Staind was a new owner who - to be perfectly frank - didn't seem to have a great handle on the game right out of the gate. Player evaluation, roster moves, etc. - I think many of us who have been playing a while forget somewhat how overwhelming it can be for new owners. He could have done more, absolutely. As deanod mentioned, a few well-used FA dollars can go a low way when the difference only has to be from 49 to 55 wins. But, there was a reason we had a review for owners with under 55 wins, instead of automatic expulsion (which was considered at the outset), and that was largely because there were so many new owners in the World and we didn't want to cut someone off at the knees if they simply didn't know what they were doing at the outset. 

For me, Booger being in the World actually *helped* Staind's case in my mind - primarily because Booger went to the extreme and pulled every move someone would learn in Tanking 101. Had Staind been given the talent Booger had on his ML team - even without really understanding HBD yet - he'd have been at least a .500 team. The majority of posters in the forum could have won 100+ games with Booger's team rather easily. In was, overall, arguably the best SimGift team in the World... one that he has admitted he knew was championship caliber. Among other things, in a pitching starved World, he dealt away about 900 total IP of ~3.00 ERA.

Booger actively sought to lose; Staind did not do enough to win. For me, that contrast made it more apparent to me that - if there was ever a time to distinguish between one sub-55 win team and another (and we determined as a World before the start of the season that there was, that's why sub-55 put you up for a vote rather than just being the end of discussion) - this was that time.

It should also be noted (again) that support has not said anything about allowing boogerlips to remain because of the appeals process and the decision to allow staindman to return. In the world chat they stated a) they review each case independently and b) boogerlips was not tanking. Looking strictly at boogerlips' case (as support said they did)
• At the start of the season, he traded away good players from what would have been a competitive team and got little other than salary relief in return
• Used that salary relief to sign the world's most-expensive IFA, taking him from an owner who did follow the rules 
• He stated repeatedly that he had no intention of doing anything to meet the wins floor

Bottom line is that there is a significant portion of the league that will leave the world if the decision stands. Support will keep one person happy and drive away a dozen or more mostly new owners who would have been good to have around to fill other worlds.

I wonder if WIS ever thinks about all of the business they lose when existing customers and potential new customers read this public forum and learn how little WIS values their customers.

Letting customers form on-line communities and manage them by their own rules works for many billion dollar businesses.  They intervene when there are threats, abuse, or laws are being broken.

This world had user-defined rules. The rules seem to have been made clear.  Win a certain number of games. If you don't, 5 owners will hear your case and vote you in for one more season or out.

I don't see anything that violates any laws or civil rights.  If WIS didn't like these rules, the time to step in was when the world was setup and the rules were announced.  Not after someone who publicly flaunted the ruled decided to complain.

I was going to pitch 10-20 football buddies to sign up for HBD.  No way I'm going to do that now. Why would I bring friends to this company and set them up for being screwed by one bad owner in their world?

WIS could have resolved this in 5 minutes by allowing the world to enforce the simple rules that everyone in the world knew about.  Instead, they've decided create a pile of bad will that will probably cost them at least one current customer, probably 1 or 2 I would have signed up tomorrow, and who knows how many that read this forum before signing up and decide they want no part of this.

Technically, WIS has some pretty good games. Many of their business practices are hard to grasp.

Posted by zbrent716 on 9/18/2010 4:58:00 PM (view original):
I'm not reading this whole thread at the moment, so apologies if this has already been mentioned.

I went back and forth on my vote with respect to Staind (and how it could impact my vote on Booger), but what it basically came down to was this - 

Staind was a new owner who - to be perfectly frank - didn't seem to have a great handle on the game right out of the gate. Player evaluation, roster moves, etc. - I think many of us who have been playing a while forget somewhat how overwhelming it can be for new owners. He could have done more, absolutely. As deanod mentioned, a few well-used FA dollars can go a low way when the difference only has to be from 49 to 55 wins. But, there was a reason we had a review for owners with under 55 wins, instead of automatic expulsion (which was considered at the outset), and that was largely because there were so many new owners in the World and we didn't want to cut someone off at the knees if they simply didn't know what they were doing at the outset. 

For me, Booger being in the World actually *helped* Staind's case in my mind - primarily because Booger went to the extreme and pulled every move someone would learn in Tanking 101. Had Staind been given the talent Booger had on his ML team - even without really understanding HBD yet - he'd have been at least a .500 team. The majority of posters in the forum could have won 100+ games with Booger's team rather easily. In was, overall, arguably the best SimGift team in the World... one that he has admitted he knew was championship caliber. Among other things, in a pitching starved World, he dealt away about 900 total IP of ~3.00 ERA.

Booger actively sought to lose; Staind did not do enough to win. For me, that contrast made it more apparent to me that - if there was ever a time to distinguish between one sub-55 win team and another (and we determined as a World before the start of the season that there was, that's why sub-55 put you up for a vote rather than just being the end of discussion) - this was that time.

Well written.

I've been going back and forth with CS and just tagged this post for them.  My thought is how could you ever kick someone from a world if boogerlips is able to so blatantly tank and be allowed back by WIS.

Posted by joshkvt on 9/18/2010 12:17:00 PM (view original):
SiteStaff's post cited losing 36 1-ruin games as a prime reason for allowing boogerlips to return. Had he not traded away a SP who went 20-3 and a middle-of-the-order hitter for a 100+ win team (getting very little in return), perhaps he'd have won 6 of those 36 games? Instead, he dumped contracts to clear enough salary to allow him to make the most-expensive FA signing in the world, while other owners with marginal teams promoted players and signed FA to make sure they hit the wins floor.

If the reason for allowing him back in was because there is an appeals process that allowed one owner back and not the other, they should state that and we could decide that both have to go. Instead, they specifically said they consider such removals case-by-case, which indicates to me that it is boogerlips' whining, not the appeals process, that is the problem. It's going to cost them hundreds of dollars to keep one owner happy. Hope boogerlips spends a lot of money on the site in the future, because I sure won't if tanking rules cannot be enforced.

This is precisely the reason why subjectivity needs to be removed from the equation, and that rules should be enforced strictly in a black/white manner.

A guy misses the win minimums.  He goes up for review.  It's noted that he lost 36 one-run games, and that with a little more "luck" he would have/should have met the minimums.  That's a strong case in favor of keeping him.  But then it's also noted that he held back good prospects in AAA which could have helped him win some of those one-run games and put him over the threshhold.  That's also a strong case for booting him.

Like Mike said, given any particular case, one can sometimes make equally valid arguments either way.  Subjectivity becomes a coin flip.  If I'm part of the review committee, I might make a decision based on whether I like the guy or not, or if he's a pain in the ***.  Or maybe I've had a bad day at work and I'm in a pissy mood, so he's gone.  Or maybe I had a great round of golf, had a couple of cold ones in the clubhouse and came home in a happy mood, so he stays.

You either meet the requirements or you don't.  Shades of gray will bite you in the *** every time.

You go from "sometimes decisions are close" to "shades of gray will bite you in the *** every time".  Nice logic.

Almost nothing is B&W, why make decisions that way if you don't need to.

Did you miss the point of my post?

If you bring subjectivity into the decision making process, then you risk inconsistency in the decision making process.  if you have an inconsistent application of a rule, how do you expect ADMIN to back you up when you try to enforce that rule?  They're going to err on the side of caution and be unwilling to remove people against their will.

"Timmy was allowed to stay, so Jimmy will be allowed to stay as well"

The bottom line is, we all knew the rules when we signed up.. WIS, should just look and see that he did fall below the min and remove once the comish requests it. If any of us didnt agree with the rules and didnt like the 5 man panel rule, we had the opportunity not to join.