The Brewster

I'm not a big slack user. I see it's utility, but I'm never going to be someone who is chatting up the other GMs during the day. I do like it for trade talks, etc. I also see how the forums are necessary in a writing league. Having both is a bit difficult for me to keep up with. Whenever something happens that might need an announcement, I find myself browsing through the titles of the most recent 100 team newses looking for the most recent sim chatter or any other announcement. THEN I have to go see if anything is being talked about it the sprawling, meandering #general thread on slack and dig relevant info out of the banter. I find this cumbersome. In the less than one full season I've been here, at least 3 hiccups (not complaining, they happen) have occurred that impacted me, and it took me half an hour or more to figure out where the discussion was occurring.

I suggest an alternative. Move all announcements to a #leagueannoucements on slack. This is only to have announcements and updates on wonky shit that might have happened from the league office. No discussion, nothing else. Second, make a #questions (struggling to think of a good title) thread on slack that is only to be used for "hey all my FPL players got released, what are we doing about it" or "all my FA offers are gone, is everyone else the same"?" Again, no lengthy discussion or friendly ribbing here. Just Q and A. This way, there is a know spot to look for these concerns.

I think Slack is better than the forums because its too easy to lose an announcement or concern amidst the hundreds of articles, most of which I'm never going to even look at. There are just too many. I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff, but I just don't have time to read everything.

Lastly, I made a private #UMEBAtradeblock thread on slack because we get largely ignored in the regular one, but with the GM turnover, it would be nice to have an official one. Mine is already 3 GMs out of date.

Thanks.

League announcements are posted here: viewforum.php?f=18

So that you don't have to scroll through team news articles to find them.

That said, I think it's a good idea to have an official announcements channel in Slack, and I'll get on that. I'll also do the UMEBA block channel.

Thank you for your suggestion!

Like Stephen said...

At issue though is that we should probably announce more.

Lane wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 01, 2020 10:47 am

League announcements are posted here: viewforum.php?f=18

So that you don't have to scroll through team news articles to find them.

That said, I think it's a good idea to have an official announcements channel in Slack, and I'll get on that. I'll also do the UMEBA block channel.

Thank you for your suggestion!

So yes, that's the league announcements, but there's no way to know if there is anything new, other than checking that forum periodically. No notification function persay. Whereas sorting by active topics gets you new stuff, but it's inundated with team news. That's why I think the slack channel is easy. Just put all the announcements there. Or at least a "Hey, new announcements are up in the forums. Go look."

Also, I'd note that there was nothing in league announcements about what happened with Hawaii's FA's. Nothing in announcements about the decision on FA offers, etc. So just checking the announcement forum doesn't work for knowing what it going on.

If you want to find the decision or an ongoing league hiccup, you first have to find the place the hiccup is being talked about, then follow that spot for details. It's cumbersome. Maybe the idea of an announcements thread isn't as much of an issue as a #questions/ongoing concerns/bugs thread.

You can subscribe to the announcements forum to get a notification of new topics.

Lane wrote: ↑

Mon Jun 01, 2020 2:16 pm

You can subscribe to the announcements forum to get a notification of new topics.

We're getting big enough and active enough that I should probably include that idea in the New Guy User guide. Of course, we still need to announce more things. There's a fine line between the things Matt does in Ping Commish and a League-wide announcement, though.

I just updated the Newb's FAQ document to include both this, and the idea that you can send Matt specific requests in PIng Commish.

Another thought: Improvements are well and good, but please don't make "slack" the official channel for announcements and the like.

Cue the "why not?" comments from the slack fanbois.

Slack is officially not the official place for announcements. Feel free to continue to ignore it.

Piggybacking on this. I have zero issues finding announcements when they are made. It’s the fact that they don’t get made at all. For instance the rule 6/7 drafts being cancelled. Would have been nice to have some notice on that so I didn’t make any plans to snatch an UMEBA guy. These snap decisions with no warning aren’t cool

In a perfect world I agree.

Sorry man.