10/18/2008

Announcing important change to archiving of Auto Leagues

I had to make a big decision for the ongoing support and extensibility of the site, and I think the good far outweighs the bad in this case.

The process of archiving and advancing each and every Auto League from season to season was becoming far too much of a burden on me and the servers, especially since most owners did not remain in the same Auto League anyway. It was also adding a wasted week between seasons, because we'd have to wait for existing owners to re-draft, then open the league back to the public.

While I think it's cool to see the history of a league evolve, the burden simply wasn't worth the benefit in this case. Plus, with more types of Auto Leagues on the horizon (the recent '80s league as an example) I think owners will be jumping from league to league far more often. Hence the history of the leagues doesn't really mean much from season to season. In addition, some leagues will eventually be phased out anyway (such as Best of 2007, which will eventually be replaced with Best of 2008).

Starting today, when an Auto League ends, I'll save league champs and award winners in the user's records, and the database will be wiped clean for a new league to start. All owners will be removed from the league and can join a new league of their choice.

I still want league champs and award winners to be recognized beyond the life of the league, so I've started adding this info to individual User Detail pages. (If you won a title prior to today, let me know which team/league and I can get it added to your records.)

For those dedicated users who want the experience of keeping a team and seeing stats from season to season, I hope to eventually offer more extensive leagues for this purpose... and, I think we'll eventually start to see other commissioners create leagues of their own which can get far more creative. But the Auto Leagues are really meant for a quick, fun experience.

I realize this means you'll have to re-create your team and logo everytime you join a league, so if you have a logo you really like, you should save it to your local drive so you can re-use it in new leagues.

This decision really gives me more freedom to create new types of Auto Leagues without worrying about maintaining the existing leagues. I hope everyone continues to enjoy the site as much as I have!
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