International Hockey Discussion Thread (OOC, version II)

[The Royal Kingdom of Quebec]

Well, good news is that more time means that I have been able to come back to things I have been absent for most part. Hockey being one of them, of course.

Anyways, it has come into my particular attention as a returnee and the first president of the Federation, that we may need a possible opportunity for change in leadership. There hasn't been a proper World Cup of Hockey Federation election in more than three years, even longer if that one doesn't count due to only one candidate having enough nominations (of exactly 2) for the election.

As a result, this resulted into a particularly messy situation with the Federation for both President and ex-Vice President:

For the first time since 2015, I am sitting in my apartment on a computer, typing a Forum post....

Just wanted to make my first post back with full internet (not through my phone) here on the old Hockey thread. I cannot wait until the next WCoH comes around!

Welcome back!

First up, apologies for the lack of a World Cup of Hockey since *checks watch* January, though I'm hoping to open sign-ups for the next one sometime next week if I don't get beaten to it or if I don't get overruled. Because, to be honest, a six month gap between world cups of ice hockey is kind of ridiculous. I was hoping we'd have one in April/May but, sadly, we didn't; if we did then whoever posted the sign-ups should've put it here. So yeah, there's that to hopefully look forward to.

I'm also planning on opening elections for a new WCoH President and VP after it. Val said she wanted to stand down a couple of editions ago (but deleted my post announcing new elections) whereas I never wanted the job in the first place, so hopefully a couple of fresh new faces would put an end to this eternal president and eternal VP situation and bring this sport back to the glory it once was.

What we have seeing now is lot slower pacing of the tournament and the greater lethargy of RP level, which is also displayed as such in related tournaments, such as Hockey Champions League and the longtime stoppage of World Junior Hockey Championships (long considered de facto the major pre-WCoH competition in the early-late 20s). While former can also be explained with slower pacing of World Cup cycles and whatnot, it does not excuse ourselves from our nature of forgetfulness where the tournament is only hosted every 6 months. It is something that I, as a NSCF commissioner, had problems with on my conduct and therefore acknowledge that is to be solved during rest of my time. The latter, however, is also the product of our times with increased lethargy in WJHC and HCL.

Thus, I recommend that a new elections be run with ideal time, either before or after World Cup Qualification rounds. While I would like to thank ESF for their thankless task of running the WcoH for the last few years, and wish that they will take part in the upcoming elections, but it may not be a best idea for them to solely run the competition given the number of times recently it has seemed to be too much for them. At the same time, much of it is due to the lack of enough members interested in either nominations or even giving their own darn about voting. We've seen that in the previous election. Fortunately, many of our colleagues' interest seem to suggest that we do have a considerable number of members in the federation who have proposed that they will be interested in righting the ship. There is a practical guarantee that at least one, and even two candidates other than the incumbent will be found for enough number of nominations.

[Ontorisa]

Snip

Welcome back Quebec! Glad to see you here again

[Elejamie]

-SNIP, not going to do a jokey one because serious post-

First up, it's worth mentionining that I posted that message at the end of August last year. We didn't get a sign-ups for a new World Cup of Hockey until mid-October. We also didn't get another WCoH until February/March but now it's just a question of how long the wait will be.

Secondly, in all honesty, we kind of NEED elections. Because we haven't had any for the past few years, not since December TWENTY-SIXTEEN (and, before that, April the same year). We tried running some a couple of years ago but it ended up going nowhere, either because no one got nominated and/or the results were simply not posted. I tried running some sometime before that, because Valanora decided to step down and I simply did not want the Presidential job, but the announcement post was deleted and the whole thing was swept under the rug as if nothing happened. It's gotten to the point where I'm considering a coup just to make sure we get fresh elections with new candidates. In fact, it's the complete lack of elections, coupled with my general disenchantment of NS ice hockey, that has not only led to me stepping down as WCoH VP but also retiring from the sport, barring a potential tournament hosted by Neu Engollon.

I sincerely hope that someone decides to step up and nominate themselves, whether it be for President or Vice-President. Because chances are some of you have brilliant ideas on how to run the competition, how you'd change things, how you'd get more people involved and, most importantly, how you'd all make this whole thing more active. And hopefully the Vice-President does more than just update the sign-ups, which to be fair was the only thing I did because it was the only thing I felt comfortable doing.

[Valanora]

Uhh, when you declined to take the job, I retained my position and have been here the whole time?

[Delaclava]

I think what matters is only the fact that we haven't had elections in more than three years. Why that happened is less significant and we don't have to assign blame for it - nor do I think anyone is trying to do so. From the outside looking in, it sounds like the process just fell by the wayside and we now have the opportunity to take control of it again.

I'll admit that I'm not familiar with exactly how this process should start - and I'm not sure if I can even take part, given that I have not been around for several years - but I do think this should take place as soon as possible. If we're looking to reinstitute a consistent WCoH schedule, it would be best to have the governing structure set before WC qualification begins, and so we're then ready to start a new WCoH as the WC cycle is winding down. I look forward to seeing a healthy slate of potential candidates.

[Valanora]

There is usually a call for nominations, of which the last two saw uninspired turnout where one of them had two users nominated but one declined and the other time only a single user was nominated, iirc. As for the slow down, that's in part tied to the slow down of the forum as a whole, with our schedules usually aligning in the off time between World Cups, which have slowed from 4-6 a year to 2-4 a year, hence all other tournaments have also had a slow down.

[Fluvannia]

I would be interested in helping fill some role, but I don't know much about how the Federation is actually structured; probably not ideal to just take over at that point...

[Kita-Hinode]

Honestly, if there's enough demand to get things running again, that'd be grand. And I don't mean only returning users too.

[Ontorisa]

From my point of view, I can suggest the fact that we need some sort of centralized spreadsheet or document that allows us to maintain and organize the various aspects of the WCoH Federation.

This includes the rotation of President & Vice-President, various members of the Federation, links to official documents, etc.

Like, everything should be accessible for everyone. I can start working on this if you folks would like me to, but I'd need a general list of what needs to be on these documents.

EDIT: Additionally, a technical edit to the Hub is that I opened up the transactions history (as per NEG's request). Please enter in all the details required for that section, thanks. Also, I reviewed the protected sections of the Hub and made some adjustments.

If there are any issues, please let me know either by posting here or TGing me. Thanks guys!

EDIT2: Also, is there a way we could potentially centralize things via a real-time service such as Discord? We'd use the thread for mostly technical, formal things such as hosting bids, formal elections, etc., but we could use the discord for supporting questions, discussing changes, and informal business.

[Kelssek]

From my point of view, I can suggest the fact that we need some sort of centralized spreadsheet or document that allows us to maintain and organize the various aspects of the WCoH Federation...

EDIT2: Also, is there a way we could potentially centralize things via a real-time service such as Discord? We'd use the thread for mostly technical, formal things such as hosting bids, formal elections, etc., but we could use the discord for supporting questions, discussing changes, and informal business.

Do we really, though? The WCC, which is more complicated, runs three tournaments, and is much bigger, gets by just fine with a discussion and announcements thread. Surely the Federation execs can simply edit the opening post of this thread or use the account's dispatches/factbook, like with NSWC Signups does.

"Put things on Discord" and "make it accessible to everyone" are contradictory things. If you want to make it accessible to everyone, keep it on the forums. Discord has its uses but the tendency for things affecting all participants to get discussed and decided there is problematic because it's easy to make the wrong assumption that everyone is there. I am usually not, for one.

[Ontorisa]

From my point of view, I can suggest the fact that we need some sort of centralized spreadsheet or document that allows us to maintain and organize the various aspects of the WCoH Federation...

EDIT2: Also, is there a way we could potentially centralize things via a real-time service such as Discord? We'd use the thread for mostly technical, formal things such as hosting bids, formal elections, etc., but we could use the discord for supporting questions, discussing changes, and informal business.

Do we really, though? The WCC, which is more complicated, runs three tournaments, and is much bigger, gets by just fine with a discussion and announcements thread. Surely the Federation execs can simply edit the opening post of this thread or use the account's dispatches/factbook, like with NSWC Signups does.

We could do that, but we also run the risk of having inactivity with the federation members like we have experienced in the past. The issue with having an account like that is yes, it does give us an accessible and centralized location for our information, but it also poses the risk of going inactive if those who are running it lose their interest in NSSports/hockey, or have IRL issues emerge that forces them into inactivity.

I'm just proposing something that is much more flexible that would be open not just to the Federation higher-ups, but also to enthusiasts like myself who just want to see the Federation do well and stay active.

"Put things on Discord" and "make it accessible to everyone" are contradictory things. If you want to make it accessible to everyone, keep it on the forums. Discord has its uses but the tendency for things affecting all participants to get discussed and decided there is problematic because it's easy to make the wrong assumption that everyone is there. I am usually not, for one.

Hey, I never said to put things on Discord, I simply floated the idea of having one where we could have all of the informal discussions take place, as well as technical issues. All of the formalities would stay on the thread and be accessible to anyone. The discord would just mitigate the "clutter" from the thread as well as provide an outlet for the members of the WCoH.

EDIT: Ah, I see where the confusion came from. No, I was saying to help consolidate and centralize things such as technical issues and informal discussions onto a Discord. More formal and important aspects of the Internal Hockey discussion would stay on the thread for accessibility's sake.

[Kelssek]

We could do that, but we also run the risk of having inactivity with the federation members like we have experienced in the past. The issue with having an account like that is yes, it does give us an accessible and centralized location for our information, but it also poses the risk of going inactive if those who are running it lose their interest in NSSports/hockey, or have IRL issues emerge that forces them into inactivity.

Having more than one or two people, as long as they are trusted and committed people, with the password takes care of that issue.

Hey, I never said to put things on Discord, I simply floated the idea of having one where we could have all of the informal discussions take place, as well as technical issues. All of the formalities would stay on the thread and be accessible to anyone. The discord would just mitigate the "clutter" from the thread as well as provide an outlet for the members of the WCoH.

EDIT: Ah, I see where the confusion came from. No, I was saying to help consolidate and centralize things such as technical issues and informal discussions onto a Discord. More formal and important aspects of the Internal Hockey discussion would stay on the thread for accessibility's sake.

And I'm saying do that discussion here, in this thread, not on Discord. Because when discussions take place on Discord, they end up being limited to people who happen to be on Discord at the time. "This is just an informal discussion" quickly becomes "Great, now post this fait accompli on the thread since everyone seems to agree. Oh, we talked about that yesterday, you weren't there?" And people who are not frequent users, which is a large number of participants including myself, have no way of knowing that the discussion has even taken place. I have no problem that many people enjoy chatting on Discord but the forums have to remain the primary location because it is the common denominator.

[Neu Engollon]

And I'm saying do that discussion here, in this thread, not on Discord. Because when discussions take place on Discord, they end up being limited to people who happen to be on Discord at the time. "This is just an informal discussion" quickly becomes "Great, now post this fait accompli on the thread since everyone seems to agree. Oh, we talked about that yesterday, you weren't there?" And people who are not frequent users, which is a large number of participants including myself, have no way of knowing that the discussion has even taken place. I have no problem that many people enjoy chatting on Discord but the forums have to remain the primary location because it is the common denominator.

Great point. Happens to me enough when I'm at work and can't access Discord due to firewalls or off doing family stuff or...sleeping. I also have to constantly remind myself that there are some in my RP groups that don't have Discord for whatever reason and hold off on big decisions until we can send out a mass TG. Everyone has access to NS threads, or they are no longer or never have been an NS user/player.

[Sarzonia]

Yeah, I don't have Discord and I have no plans to download and use it in the future.

If I were to see a major decision take place that was only discussed on Discord, I would be extremely disappointed and disinclined to participate in future NS Sports endeavours.

[Ontorisa]

We could do that, but we also run the risk of having inactivity with the federation members like we have experienced in the past. The issue with having an account like that is yes, it does give us an accessible and centralized location for our information, but it also poses the risk of going inactive if those who are running it lose their interest in NSSports/hockey, or have IRL issues emerge that forces them into inactivity.

Having more than one or two people, as long as they are trusted and committed people, with the password takes care of that issue.

I don't see a reason why we should be so against moving our main documents onto something that we can have a technical team keep track of, rather than having some formality of having everything posted on an NS account. The main WCoH Federation account should only be really used for the OPs, and for keeping the thread up to date.

I'm just saying that we need to consider more flexible and less traditional options, particularly since we're trying to rebound from a few years of stagnation.

Hey, I never said to put things on Discord, I simply floated the idea of having one where we could have all of the informal discussions take place, as well as technical issues. All of the formalities would stay on the thread and be accessible to anyone. The discord would just mitigate the "clutter" from the thread as well as provide an outlet for the members of the WCoH.

EDIT: Ah, I see where the confusion came from. No, I was saying to help consolidate and centralize things such as technical issues and informal discussions onto a Discord. More formal and important aspects of the Internal Hockey discussion would stay on the thread for accessibility's sake.

And I'm saying do that discussion here, in this thread, not on Discord. Because when discussions take place on Discord, they end up being limited to people who happen to be on Discord at the time. "This is just an informal discussion" quickly becomes "Great, now post this fait accompli on the thread since everyone seems to agree. Oh, we talked about that yesterday, you weren't there?" And people who are not frequent users, which is a large number of participants including myself, have no way of knowing that the discussion has even taken place. I have no problem that many people enjoy chatting on Discord but the forums have to remain the primary location because it is the common denominator.

Fair enough. I would've said that any casual discussion that would turn serious would obviously have to be further discussed on the thread.

EDIT: Just to clear things up:

- I was suggesting the use of discord or some sort of real-time chat service, but since there is strong opposition against it and fair points are being made, I see that the use of it would hinder the progress of the Federation.

- I'm proposing we use documents and so forth to further organize the Federation, and to potentially look into a more public system to keep track of the various aspects of the Federation, such as WCoH hosts, the Federation board, etc. onto one spreadsheet. I know there is already multiple tracking spreadsheets, but we need a central one that has all of the information.

[Ko-oren]

I'm afraid that there's too much to establish at one point right now, and all we need to get the sport rolling again is to get a president, vice-president, committee for voting on proposals and bids (RP and roster in the last two WCoHs?), a failsafe should the president and VP not respond for a few months, and everything beyond that (such as running elections) will follow. I think the only other things to get in writing asap is how often we want a WCoH (and the other tournaments) to happen per year?

So, basically, what everyone else is saying, but without the immediate election part.

[Ontorisa]

I'm afraid that there's too much to establish at one point right now, and all we need to get the sport rolling again is to get a president, vice-president, committee for voting on proposals and bids (RP and roster in the last two WCoHs?), a failsafe should the president and VP not respond for a few months, and everything beyond that (such as running elections) will follow. I think the only other things to get in writing asap is how often we want a WCoH (and the other tournaments) to happen per year?

So, basically, what everyone else is saying, but without the immediate election part.

I can go back and put together a list of people from the past two WCoHs with an RP and Roster if y'all would like.

[Valanora]

With Elejamie's retirement, the VP position is currently vacant. I am not sure when the next election cycle was supposed to be, but in effort to get the Federation and tournament moving more cohesively again, there will be nominations being taken at the start of the next signup phase. This gives us time to figure out who wants to be considered and who does not.

Additionally, in regards to the HCL, that is somewhere where I do need a bit of help to have it be run more often. The scorination of the tournament is easy enough to do, but I lack the time to update the coefficients on a routine basis. If there are any volunteers willing to pursue that position, I would ask to please TG me here and/or direct message me on discord. As that is something that has been on my mind for a good few months now.

[Ontorisa]

Can someone send me the links to the past two WCoHs please? I'm gonna be going through this week and compiling a list.

[Fluvannia]

From my point of view, I can suggest the fact that we need some sort of centralized spreadsheet or document that allows us to maintain and organize the various aspects of the WCoH Federation.

This includes the rotation of President & Vice-President, various members of the Federation, links to official documents, etc.

Like, everything should be accessible for everyone. I can start working on this if you folks would like me to, but I'd need a general list of what needs to be on these documents.

EDIT: Additionally, a technical edit to the Hub is that I opened up the transactions history (as per NEG's request). Please enter in all the details required for that section, thanks. Also, I reviewed the protected sections of the Hub and made some adjustments.

Now the technical and paperwork stuff, that I can help with.

[Ontorisa]

Findings from the 38th & 39th WCoHs.

If anyone has any questions about anything, please let me know.

The qualification for Federation membership I used was if the individual had posted either/both a roster or an RP post.

EDIT: For record's management sake, I've also created a spreadsheet that will be detailing all of the previous WCoH sessions here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

That's a massive WIP tho.

[The Royal Kingdom of Quebec]

Findings from the 38th & 39th WCoHs.

If anyone has any questions about anything, please let me know.

The qualification for Federation membership I used was if the individual had posted either/both a roster or an RP post.

EDIT: For record's management sake, I've also created a spreadsheet that will be detailing all of the previous WCoH sessions here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

That's a massive WIP tho.

Please read the constitution before making anything.

1.1.1. Entry
[blocktext]i) Nations are admitted via participating (by posting a roster and a RP) in the previous two World Cups of Hockey. This must then renewed to maintain their membership.

[Ontorisa]

Snip

Oh I'm not saying that I'm going to be dictating who should be on the federation and who shouldn't be.

I'm just posting my findings and everyone who I found qualified. Think of it like an audit and recommendation.

But I'll go back and make the appropriate changes later today. Thanks for letting me know

[Kelssek]

Ontorisa, before you spend more time on this, perhaps you should be aware of this.

Something you could contribute would be to make wiki pages for previous tournaments. Or maybe you could make an entry for the Hockey Champions League, or do some worldbuilding to give your teams backstory. You could decide who you want to nominate.

I understand and appreciate the enthusiasm but... chill. There's no problem here that needs fixing.

[Ontorisa]

Ontorisa, before you spend more time on this, perhaps you should be aware of this.

Something you could contribute would be to make wiki pages for previous tournaments. Or maybe you could make an entry for the Hockey Champions League, or do some worldbuilding to give your teams backstory. You could decide who you want to nominate.

I understand and appreciate the enthusiasm but... chill. There's no problem here that needs fixing.

Appreciate the link. Never knew it existed.

As per the rest of your message, my issue isn't that we're broken and need a ton of time, and frantic measures to fix this, my issue is that all of these resources are available and yet they're not visible and a click away.

I don't want to have to scour NSWiki (because first of all, I really dislike editing on there as a somewhat casual player, and secondly, I never go on there personally) for our past winners. It should be on the OP. That's my issue.