Hello Deano, thank you for a post. It's always nice to read posts where people let us know why they think how they think... That, to me, creates a stronger community, and also helps me to see (in this case) your views on things in clearer manner. Your response actually deserves a proper reply, so even though it's almost 4 AM, I'll try to write something hopefully meaningful.
For instance you mentioned you wouldn't want it to feel burdensome, and I share that wish (I guess it's just/also that what I'm trying to achieve with encouraging people to write about why they think how they think, as for instance burdensome', 'arduous', or 'onerous' to different people means different things, and is triggered by different things).
And like I mentioned earlier, I truly wouldn't mind everything happening automatically in the league, but this is where we stand, likely as long as it's not an official league of BB.
So in order to better be able to understand what is it exactly that people feel being difficult for instance in a rule set that I proposed, I have encouraged people to speak up their mind... This way we can find solutions.
There are multiple challenges within some parts of the rules, which will require us to take a look at them before deciding whether to apply such and such rule or not. I've made some thinking on penalties/rules, and can send some of the problematic scenarios here in the forum when/if you guys are ready, so we can then consider whether it's better to refrain from enforcing such and such penalty, for instance because in some cases it could be hard or impossible to prove who was the guilty part, especially without establishing certain arduous practices (such as demands for screen shots - again a thing that could divide opinions though, as for some it's next to nothing and other person doesn't like the added work that would create).
But we'll just have to try to find some middle ground I guess, or at the very least in the beginning try to learn to understand what is it actually that makes things feel burdensome to all of us, because all of us are different and see this thing from their own perspective.
I just wanted to send you a short message quickly (but it continued and continued after all, stretching again to 4000 character post), that I understand (and partly share, somewhat surprisingly maybe?) your concern - it is a good goal to make it something we feel we can be part of in a long run, and yet at the same time, I hope we can retain certain complexity in the rules.
Not for the sake of complexity and in order to be able to penalize people as much as possible, but because they serve some meaning. Whether all of them are necessary or not - maybe not, but I suspect enforcing some might be cancelled anyway (if using my proposition on penalties as a base line here) unless we can find a fair way to enforce them (and be sure about the fairness of each penalty delivered - but this is where I'm going to need your help to assess the situations - I just haven't sent them to the forum yet as you guys have had lot of reading to do without them already).
But few things that we can (and I think will) make to lessen the burdensome feeling are:
- arrange all regular season matches in one go, as then when you do it properly, it is all done and nothing can't be forgotten
- send a reminders to teams on official league forum thread about playoff time closing in, so that they remember to arrange matches each week. (If we feel necessary, it is possible to send reminders as BBMail too if we feel like it - not necessary to decide right now of course).
- keep working towards the same goal, and trying to listen and understand each other. There is no chance that we all would agree about everything, and there might be even big differences on views in some cases. But that doesn't mean it couldn't become fantastically working, the most interesting league in BB. To me, I believe it will. :)