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**RomanesEuntDomus** · 11-16-2017, 01:48 PM

Hey everyone, I wanted to make a few suggestions about reforming not so much the HO itself, but about the way it communicates with the league. As someone who has been a member of the HO, but now has been watching things from the outside for a good while. I'd argue that I have seen and can somewhat understand both sides of this.

Back when I was in the HO about half a year ago, things feÃ¶t pretty bleak and morale among Head Office members was very low for a variety of reasons. High turnover at the commish position and a loss of direction and higher workload as a result, constant harsh and very vocal opposition from parts of the league, and a bunch of mistakes made by individual HO members including myself. When I left, the current members of the HO seemed to have been completely grinded down by all of this and nobody was really willing or able to put much work in to improve the league anymore or to throw themselves to the wolves by getting involved in the public discussions.

Now since then a lot of things have changed. We have had stability at the Commish position for a good while now and a bunch of new HO members as well, most of the people who seemed completely defeated at the time I was there are out now and have been replaced with people that seem more motivated. And yet from the outside, it seems like very little has changed. Heck I would argue that when it comes to HO-league communication, things have gotten even worse, not so much in that there are constant fights, but in that there barely is any change or communication at all. Now maybe the atmosphere is actually great internally and you are getting a lot of work done behind closed doors, but if that's the case then you aren't getting this communicated to the rest of the league properly.

What exactly has the HO accomplished over the last few seasons aside from having to dish out suspensions and hiring some GMs? I can't think of a single thing to be quite honest be it in terms of rule changes or exciting new additions to the league. This isn't as harsh of a criticism as it may sound because maybe there simply aren't any things that needs to be changed at the moment, that's a perfectly fine scenario. But if this were the case then there should still be more and better communication to either get the league out of the rut that many perceive it to be in right now, or to explain why in your opinion this rut doesn't actually exist.

Now to get to the actual specifics of my proposal, there are basically two main points to it that I think would be pretty easy to implement, as well as 1-2 smaller additions:

1. HO-reports
This isn't a new idea at all, it has been proposed a bunch of times before by different people and has even been tried only to quickly be abandoned again. I do think it is worth revisiting though and in order to make it work, we just have to reduce the frequency and the workload that comes with it. It doesn't have to be a weekly thing for example, having it bi-weekly would be more than enough I'd say.

So every two weeks, the HO would write up a quick report on what has been going on in the Head Office. The report doesn't have to be very formalized nor does it have to be very long. If there has been very little going on in these two weeks then that's fine, if you have been talking about stuff but don't think that it would be a good idea to talk about it in public yet then that's fine too, just say so in the report. You can be vague or say that you are working on a secret project that is to be revealed in the future, you can say that you've had very preliminary talks about topic x or y and that it is very likely that nothing will come off it at this point.

Just give the league a general sense of what is going on because right now, from the outside it looks like you guys are doing absolutely nothing. And I know that that's not actually true, I'm sure you are actually working on stuff all the time, it just needs to be communicated to the league. And a bi-weekly HO-report that can be written by a different member of the HO each time and can also be very short would be a good way to accomplish that with minimal work involved. Also as an added bonus, when I was on the HO I noticed how easily discussions could fizzle out when something else came up and people forgot about it for a day or two. By forcing ourselves to do a quick round-up of everything that happened over the last few weeks and by regularly informing the public about issues at hand, we can make sure that this doesn't happen nearly as often anymore.

2. Formalizing the suggestion process
This is the part of my suggestion that I think is actually the most important. One of the most frustrating things in this league is making a suggestion that a lof of people agree with or that gets followed by a long and controversial discussion, but the HO just never gets involved. It is something that the HO that I was on did an absolutely terrible job at and while things have gotten slightly better back then, I still think that HO-communication is massively lacking in this regard. When someone takes the time two write up a long proposal or if multiple league members deem a topic important enough to have a multi-page discussion over it then at the very least they deserve answer, even if that answer is just "Nah, we don't think this is a good idea because x.".

As someone who tends to get bogged down in pointless discussions against his better judgement, I can only say how important I think it is to have a voice of authority present in these situations because otherwise, people just run in circles and get more and more frustrated and on edge which can poison a discussion that started out as a very fruitful. Obviously the HO can't be everywhere and actively participate in every discussion that is going on around the boards, but we can try to look for ways to make it easier for you guys to get involved and for people to get a hold of you. This basically includes two components, an informal and a formal one.

The informal one is: Just try to be more involved, simple as that. Try to make a conscious effort to be more active in discussions or, if you don't think the discussion is going anywhere, make it clear that you aren't planning to get involved further because you think it is pointless. Just make an effort to be more active and engaged.

Now that is much easier said than done of course, which is why the second part of this suggestion includes a more formal aspect. Basically what I'm suggesting is to implement a sort of petition system. Nobody can expect that you guys are aware of everything that is going on at all time but when there is something that multiple people agree that you should be aware of, then there should be a way to get you to respond to this in an organized fashion.

This is how I think it could work: Set up some general guidelines for the suggestion box and if all these requirements are met then the HO has to reply to the suggestion. These guidelines can include things like "A member is only entitled to a reply once a month" and "The HO is only required to adress a topic that they haven't already replied to in the last month", so basically just some way to make sure that people can't spam and abuse the system. Now the HO reply doesn't have to be anything super elaborate and it doesn't have to happen right away either. A 48-hour window is fine and if it's only one or two sentences, that's fine too. What's most important about this is that people know you care and that you have actually read the suggestion.

It would be great if these things would be required to be brought up internally as well, but I know that's not always realistic. Still, having a quick post in the HO along the lines of "What are your thoughts on [link here]?" and then two or three other HO members replying "Bad idea, this would never work" would already enough. But as I said, I know that's not always realistic or worth the effort, so it's not a crucial part of the proposal.

Now I also think that this process should be able to be applied to discussions outside of the Suggestions subforum. Obviously the rules would have to be even more strict in these cases in order for you guys to not constantly get dragged into all kinds of bullshit. I haven't really found a way how this could work yet but I think similar, yet slightly adjusted guidelines than in the Suggestion Box could work. Maybe something along the lines of "Discussion has to be at least 5 pages long", "Petition has to be signed by at least 3-5 different members on both sides of the issue", "Discussion has to be about league rules and procedures, not about personal conduct, suspensions etc", stuff like that.

Okay I realize that I have rambled on about this for long enough now Smile

. As you can see, my suggestions are all about improving communication between the HO and the league, as I think this is by far the most important aspect at work here. There are other aspects like the election system that some people think are even more important, but I personally think that that is secondary to the communication aspect and therefore haven't included it. With that being said... Weren't we supposed to have an HO election or two over the last few months? Did we get rid of them or did I miss something? I can't find any election results in the announcements section since July, I think there was one other one since then but it feels like there should've been more by now...

Anyway, thanks to everyone who read through this wall of text!

Cheers, RED Cheers

tweedledunn · 11-21-2017, 09:58 PM

step 1: have HO votes

White Cornerback · 11-21-2017, 10:02 PM

head office sucks except formx and eggy, i dont know anybody else but they are also all cool guys too if they can hang with formx. kinda like a high school clique

sash · 11-21-2017, 10:03 PM

ho votes are basically popularity votes

Clint Eastwood · 11-21-2017, 10:11 PM

Quote:Originally posted by Samee@Nov 21 2017, 09:03 PM
ho votes are basically popularity votes

Pretty much

Eggy216 · 11-21-2017, 10:14 PM

Quote:Originally posted by Samee@Nov 21 2017, 10:03 PM
ho votes are basically popularity votes

Yep.

crutch · 11-21-2017, 10:58 PM

Quote:Originally posted by Samee@Nov 21 2017, 07:03 PM
ho votes are basically popularity votes

basically yeah

unfortunately

MyLittleHexx · 11-21-2017, 11:32 PM

We should be able to trade HO members. If we don't like one, we put them on a trade block, and try to trade for a new HO member to take their place.

Phobospwns · 11-22-2017, 10:35 AM

Better response to the suggestions would be a welcome change.

As for HO Reports, I can see why that'd suck. I think more general communication would suffice, without a schedule attached to it.

**RomanesEuntDomus** · 11-22-2017, 12:31 PM

Quote:Originally posted by Phobospwns@Nov 22 2017, 03:35 PM
As for HO Reports,  I can see why that'd suck.  I think more general communication would suffice, without a schedule attached to it.

True but that's what's been said time and time again, pretty much every new HO promises more communication and then it never happens for a variety of reasons. That's why I think giving it a schedule and some consistency could really be helpful and as I said, it doesn't need to be overly strict. A bi-weekly thing with a few bullet points would already be enough.

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