I am strongly in favor.  MSWL is the only other league I am in, and I really like how it runs there.  That is, a Participation Czar (the esteemed Phil) looks things over on a regular basis, then issues rewards at his own discretion.  There are no hard and fast rules as to X posts = Y rewards, as far as I know, but there's an inherent trust that the Czar knows what he is doing and is fair. 

It all seems to run very smoothly.  Everyone seems appropriately rewarded, yet the rewards are never so great (max appears to be 25 per period) that they don't really sway things a whole lot.  This is my first season, but I haven't seen a single complaint yet (that wasn't obviously a joke).  I am busy as the next guy (3 kids, busy job, etc), but I also think the rewards, and the participation they promote, are a valauble part of the game.

(b)(iii) Yes we should definitely have Participation Bonus. There are plenty of PBM/PBEM games that have minimal or NO interaction/participation via press & blogs.This is an online interactive 24/7 version of United & the blogs/journals etc are an intricate part of the game. If you have time to enter your orders & view matches & stats then surely you have an extra few minutes to just post a few lines about your teams performance or have a dig at a rival. It does not have to be an in depth report or study of the stats (Rob or Kevin).

I would like to make a  proposal of 10k for 1 post. 20k for two posts & 30k for 3 posts or more. (not just 1 liners though)

I have volunteered to be Als press officer.

Mostly in agreement with Dave (by saying that ,can I be credited with saying all the stuff Dave said - for participation purposes?)    

I don't like the hard and fast 10k per insertion - sometimes a response to an article could be minimal, yet both the inserter and responder get the same money - no!  Prefer an elected member to view and use discretion at the end of a week - there are only 10/11 sessions in the game - basically pocket money and should not be enough to buy a player with! 

I would second Dave - he has the time! 

Right now, the only way to get money in this league is through playing matches and end of season rewards.  Every team gets 80k per session.  For most teams, that is all we are going to see.  Al's proposal of 10k per session (or perhaps 20k every other session) over the course of the 10 sessions will net a team 100k if they get max press points.  Very few, if any, of us will tally that simply due to life's constant intrusions into our rec time.  Realistically, most people getting a press bonus will see around 70-80k, or the equivalent of just one session.

Those managers that do not want to contribute press can easily earn 4-5 times that much through placing bonuses in Cups and League finishes.  See the rules for exact award bonuses as I won't re-list them here.  When there are a dozen ways to get more cash than press can generate, I do not see a small bonus creating a noticeable competitive disadvantage for any teams.

So having stated my reasoning, I am in favor of the press bonus.  I like Al's original suggestion of 10k per session for a monetary cap.  Since we're taking suggestions here I'd move that total to 20k per fortnight, with a 2-post minimum on the blogs and forums to get 10k for the two weeks.  Quality matters over quantity, so any more than two only gets more at the discretion of the press editor for insightful or analytical posts, or for posts that are scathingly taunting and/or just plain funny to keep that "enjoyable" part at the front of everyone's minds as we play a GAME together.  Showing up weekly to input things in a computer and butt heads against people I don't particularly care for with as little conversation as possible sounds an awful lot like... hide your eyes, Robin! Dirty word ahead.................. work.

If the league as a majority votes against the bonus, that won't stop me from posting.  So if the real reason for a "no" vote is to get me to shut up and go away you'll be disappointed!

Spot on Kevin (round of applause)

Kevin, shut up and go away.

Darn, he wasn't bluffing :-)

Only kidding, Kevin. Please don't take that comment seriously.

Now the more serious (slightly) stuff.

I play in several leagues now and, since the-manager has made its' transition, they are all run under Olmec goodness and I try and make some sort of contribution to all of them.

I know I don't manage an exactly equal amount of press/journals in each league but part of that is due to having less other managers to react with in some leagues. It seems to tie in a little bit with season length. The shorter the season, the less press I seem to manage. I'm guessing it's sometimes a little bit harder to put together friendly rivalries and so on when the league has finished before you really get started.

Even though I may not participate as much as some people, I get genuine enjoyment from redin other managers' comments and theories and often complexes as to why Olmec doesn't ever give their own particular team an even break.

It does contribute to the leagues and I wouldn't enjoy them as much without some sort of press and parti.

As to the cash incentive? I would keep it fairly low.

We had a slight problem in one league where the average cash at end of season was about 1700k or so. For those managers who had done press all season though, they had a consistently higher amount to the tune of an additional 800k which had a slight unbalancing effect on the game.

I hope all the managers involved here will be happy to write in a couple of comments every so often to help with the atmosphere.

Some of you may be happily surprised at how much accidental participation you find yourself involved in when you get caught up in a discussion where you KNOW that you've got the correct strategy/opinion/stats/information.

The season is relatively short for this game and perhaps an agreement to put in betwen 3 and 5 bits of press for the season might be a compromise for those of us who have a lot on our plates??

You realise this comprises my entire output for the season now?

You won't hear from me again. Nope, no sir, no way.

:-)

Hmm, looks like this game isn't going to be for me.

Contributing towards a game already confers an advantage - you're far less likely to miss things in the rules if you are active in the game, as well as picking up hints and tips.

When I signed up for the game I knew that I wasn't going to have much time to spend on it other than submitting orders.  I accepted that I could miss out on some of the finer details of the rules by doing so.

Now it appears that my team is to be penalised monetarily for my not having time to participate in the community element of the game.  Sorry, count me out of that.  I could go on and post crap each week, ignoring everyone else's posts entirely, and apparently that would make me a good citizen and earn my team some money.  What rot!

The way I see it, is that I will post something when I feel I need to. Not to get the bonus of 10k. I will probably won't make a 100% score and will be happy to get a score of 50%. I am also a stats freak like Kevin and Rob, but I don't post them. I've got some ideas about them and if that get's me a bonus, that's fine with me, if not it's no problem. Concerning other posts I will try to be as active as I can.

Hi All,

I think we'll just postpone doing any participation bonus for this season.  We'll re-evaluate it in seasons 2 or 3. 

Al

Sorry, count me out of that.  I could go on and post crap each week, ignoring everyone else's posts entirely, and apparently that would make me a good citizen and earn my team some money.  What rot!     (Andy)    

I just feel with only 100k being at stake for a whole season's postings (10 sessions @ 10k) - and you would need to be pretty busy to earn all that, I perhaps think Andy is right - this game is not for him.

A pity the majority of us who enjoy contributing - and earning a bit of bread to be honest - won't get a chance now. 

OOppss!!  I just noticed this subject is closed - sorry!