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***WannabeFinn*** · 02-18-2025, 04:08 PM

Hello SHL!

I come to you bearing very exciting tidings! This is going to be on the shorter side of recent SOTU addresses, but we hope the nature of the content will make up for the brevity.

HEAD OFFICE CHANGES & HIRING

I am pleased to announce that we will be removing the interim tag from @Frenchie. Frenchie was tasked with stepping up into a major role when we needed him to, and he has surpassed expectations. It’s been a rather smooth adjustment and Jess and I look forward to working with Frenchie for the foreseeable future.

Next, we have expanded our regular Head Office by one seat this season, and will expand our regular HO seats by another seat next season (in order to keep the hiring/term split even). Our new/returning HO members this season are: bbjygm, SDCore, Juosu, Rojjter, and Kahri. Our new interns will be noxu, dude_man, and TomServo.

This is a lot of HO, you might be thinking, and you’d be correct, but we are bringing on extra hands for a couple of reasons.

UPGRADE TO FHM10

We have been in discussion for a while regarding the pros and cons of moving to a new version of FHM. This is always a matter of balancing potential benefits vs asking our entire league of GMs, simmers, and fileworkers to purchase a new version of the game - we’re cognizant of the fact that this is a hobby, and not everyone has the funds to throw money into it every time the game gets upgraded. After examining the benefits of upgrading, we’ve elected to upgrade to FHM10, targeting S82 as our first season. If we determine that more time is needed, we reserve the right to push that back an additional season, but at the moment, S82 is our target date. This version of the game provides a number of improvements we think will benefit the league, and as it isn’t the most recent release, it will also be more affordable for the large number of people who will need to purchase it.

We are aware that this is the first time we’ve made a change of this magnitude since the ban on test simming was enacted, and for that reason, we are committed to being as transparent with you all as possible as we do the work to ensure this goes as smoothly as possible. It would be reckless to change engines without testing, but we will be attempting to share as much of the data from this testing as possible with the site in order to maintain the level of trust we hope to have with the GMs of this league.

SDCore (who has extensive experience in this area from serving as Commissioner during the initial switch from STHS to FHM6, as well as Sim team head of a number of seasons) will be spearheading this transition process, and overseeing the filework/testing aspects of the transition as well as personnel deployment. If there are any questions regarding any of it, though, any member of HO will be happy to answer, and we will provide more information as we proceed.

SHL EXPANSION

With the recent influx of users dating all the way back to S74, Head Office has been monitoring how the population numbers affect the SHL and discussing the possibility of expansion periodically, especially in a post-SMJHL expansion environment. With that in mind, and with the sustained rhythm of recruitment, the increased retention rates, the sustained increase in activity checks, Head Office has determined that there is a need to expand the league.

At this stage, we are confirming that the league will in fact expand by a minimum of two teams, but due diligence requires us to reflect some more on whether a 4 team expansion makes more sense, which we aren’t able to say just yet.

The expected timeline for expansion is starting play in S83, which will give us the necessary amount of time to discuss expansion rules and procedure, as well as receive apps, select the expansion GM’s and set everything up. This timeline isn’t set in stone, and we may change it if we find it necessary to do so. We’re getting this information out to you as early as possible, because we know some of you are noticing the current state of activity between both leagues and feeling its effects, and deem it responsible to advise you on where the league is headed. Once we’re able to confirm the specifics of expansion, we'll announce them.

We will also be posting a hiring thread for expansion GM applications very soon, and will update this post with the link to that when that happens.

CHIRPER THREAD GUIDELINES - CRACKING DOWN ON LOW EFFORT

While this is something we’d have liked to do before, the content of this SOTU should justify why it wasn’t prioritized. That being said, our previously explicit intent of cracking down on low effort submissions in the chirper thread stays true. This isn’t necessarily a change in policy, but moreso reaffirming that they won’t be accepted.

What constitutes a low effort chirp? It’ll always be a subjective thing, but a rule of thumb to apply should be that a single coherent sentence qualifies as a good chirp, and anything below that very accessible threshold should be considered as a low effort. Single word posts, or few word posts, i.e. ‘’Chirp 1’’ or ‘’chirp chirp’’ or ‘’chirping for money’’ type things will not be accepted moving forward. Furthermore, keyboard mashing/gibberish should be considered low effort as well.

Really, we trust everyone in this community to do right by this minimal standard, and while we won’t be able to police 100% of the time, when we do spot problematic chirps, we will be sure to A) contact the user about it, and B) delete them to prevent being rewarded for them.

But seriously, we’ve mentioned in the past that low-effort chirps won’t get paid out. This is your official notice that continual low-effort chirps may get you a chirper ban.

SIM TEAM PROGRESS

Head Office has been working closely with Jimmysmo27 and Wally to make sure that the state of the sim team is stable and well staffed over the past few seasons. Currently, the sim team is incredibly healthy with simmers, interns learning, and backups. We’ve awarded Jimmy and Wally the opportunity to run the team together from here on out, with whatever support they might need being provided from Head Office, especially as we transition to FHM10 and beyond. This brings us to the conclusion of the “SHL HO Sim Team Stewardship” era, and will allow us to fully shift our focus to the other two massive projects we’ve announced today.

We understand that there may be concerns with allowing GMs to serve fully in this role, but after extensive discussion in HO, we have come to the conclusion that the benefits of having the right people in the position outweigh any cons. If there are any questions or concerns about this, please direct them to any member of SHL HO.

OTHER CONGRATULATIONS

We’d also like to belatedly say congratulations to Reno for being elevated to SMJHL Co-Commissioner - Reno has been doing awesome work both in J HO and SHL HO for a couple of seasons now, and we can’t imagine a better person for the role.

In addition, as announced in the hiring thread for the position, we would like to congratulate Frith on becoming our new IIHF Commissioner. We’re excited to see what fresh ideas and enthusiasm he will bring to this role!

OFF-SEASON (IN-SEASON) SURVEY

The long-awaited long-overdue off-season survey will be up this week, and will include some questions regarding the engine upgrade and expansion, so we hope everyone will take the time to participate in that. We’re putting the finishing touches on that now, so you should see it here in the next day or two.

THANK YOU

Finally, we would like to thank everyone in this community of ours for your activity and contributions, which are enabling us to make big exciting announcements like engine upgrades and expansion! This is truly a group effort - from the work of the recruitment team to bring in new users, to the rookie mentors who help new users find their footing, the SMJHL GMs who give them their first homes here on the site, the developers who continue to come up with exciting new features and quality of life improvements, and everyone who takes time out of their real life to contribute to this site in some way, even if it’s just with your presence. The SHL is and will always be first and foremost about the people, and we appreciate all of you so much for enabling this place to keep going, to keep thriving, for as long as it has!

***SDCore*** · 02-18-2025, 04:09 PM

HERE WE GO

***aleks*** · 02-18-2025, 04:11 PM

Mfs be like expansion ain't happening then it happens

*kahri* · 02-18-2025, 04:12 PM

THANK U DADDIES

***Reno*** · 02-18-2025, 04:12 PM

somewhere ACap felt a shudder run down his spine at the mention of expansion

***SchwarzNarr*** · 02-18-2025, 04:14 PM

02-18-2025, 04:12 PMReno Wrote: somewhere ACap felt a shudder run down his spine at the mention of expansion

@ACapitalChicago Remember when you officially instituted the vote and then retired.

I remember (and thank you for the trust you had in me)

Also this is great for the league and I'm so glad that we've been growing steadily enough for this.

TheOPSquid · 02-18-2025, 04:14 PM

Huge updates here, SHL is growing like crazy, 4 expansion teams would be huge, FHM 10 upgrade :eyes:

Excited for the future!

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