Record Books

Part of the problem with automating it would be theme leagues would skew the records (ie., themes where max pitcher allowed is $1M, for instance).

Part of the problem with automating it would be theme leagues would skew the records (ie., themes where max pitcher allowed is $1M, for instance).

I agree that would cause skewed numbers but that is what * are for

You wouldn't believe how many teams are created, bordering on the HUNDREDS just to go after records. TSN (SOM) knew exactly how much extra having a records section brought them in revenue. It's a healthy thing to do and great fun for the player to follow his team over the season as he tries to approach the record. I've even seen ENTIRE THEME LEAGUES created where each manager in the league is creating his team to go after a DIFFERENT RECORD and declares it beforehand so there is no competition for specific players with potential for a specific area.

At one point, I did have a fellow ATG vet that had a screen scraping program that he developed who found a way to get me the baseline of the records. It was a huge help for me. But I doubt he wants to get back into that. As for me, I just dont have that kind of knowledge or experience to do that. Plus, we no longer have access to anything that happened once everything moved to the SOM site. So all those old seasons we can not get records from. Everything has to come from SOM forward.

And yeah, player pool limited themes does throw a wrench into the system when trying to use automated methods to get records from. I always made sure to mention that in my posting rules. Something like this has been self policing so far. But if someone points out a record I posted which comes from a theme, I do remove it.

A lot of obstacles to overcome to get a good set of records to post, I hope someone has this on their list.

You wouldn't believe how many teams are created, bordering on the HUNDREDS just to go after records. TSN (SOM) knew exactly how much extra having a records section brought them in revenue. It's a healthy thing to do and great fun for the player to follow his team over the season as he tries to approach the record. I've even seen ENTIRE THEME LEAGUES created where each manager in the league is creating his team to go after a DIFFERENT RECORD and declares it beforehand so there is no competition for specific players with potential for a specific area.

At one point, I did have a fellow ATG vet that had a screen scraping program that he developed who found a way to get me the baseline of the records. It was a huge help for me. But I doubt he wants to get back into that. As for me, I just dont have that kind of knowledge or experience to do that. Plus, we no longer have access to anything that happened once everything moved to the SOM site. So all those old seasons we can not get records from. Everything has to come from SOM forward.

And yeah, player pool limited themes does throw a wrench into the system when trying to use automated methods to get records from. I always made sure to mention that in my posting rules. Something like this has been self policing so far. But if someone points out a record I posted which comes from a theme, I do remove it.

A lot of obstacles to overcome to get a good set of records to post, I hope someone has this on their list.

People are making great points about the obstacles and the legitimacy of records. I simply ask what provides a better experience: a simple automated system that keeps records from the time of the change to this site and into the future for each player set, or no records at all. I realize that some records would be skewed by theme leagues but I consider that the equivalent of Strato steroids. People that set records that way would simply have to mention that they pissed dirty and it could be swiped from the books, or the record could just count. I would rather have records than no records. All online gaming that does record keeping gets a little skewed because people will do anything to get a record. I think to some extent that is true with SOM but I think for the most part the types of gamers here aren't the norm and it would be great to have records.

I just think like the post I quoted many people are like me and are motivated to chase records or come as close as they can. I know I'm a sucker for something like this and if it is in place SOM ends up getting more of my money.

Fully automated just doesnt seem to work when it comes to legitimate records. You want a top ten list for hitting home runs dominated by a theme league of all pitchers under 2 mil ? That's what you will get until someone's MANUAL EFFORT goes in and wipes them. If SOM were to do it at all they would need it to be with little to no ongoing cleanup maintenance.

Your records section needs to be the average non-skewered leagues so that things that get pulled there are truly the exceptional accomplishment.

For those of you who havent seen the ATG Wiki, here you go - take a look.

http://somonline.wikia.com/wiki/Record_books:_All-Time_Greats_V/VI

I think that what's being recorded in this are what most people want to see. If we can just get the baseline, it's not hard for myself or some other volunteer (per type of game maybe) to keep them up to date. I dont mind doing it and other volunteers may step forward and take the same pride in it that I do, but pouring over all of the leagues one at a time and moving stuff to a spreadsheet in order to get the baseline, well - that's the tedious stuff that none of us want to do.

NOTE: About the WIKI. This has been maintained since it was back on the TSN site, so a huge majority of those links will no longer work and will take you back to a standard shell page. I HOPE that there will be a time when the link will actually go somewhere to see those old records. - NEW records that occured while it was a SOM team - those links WILL WORK. It's easy enough to hover your mouse over a link to see if the link will work or not. Again, fixing our links to allow you to actually see a TSN based record are not likely to be a huge SOM priority.

Before online strat came around in 2002, I used to play a bit of What If Sports. I just went back and logged in again to see what they have for records. There they have three categories: open leagues (HR recod is 187!), theme leagues (HR record 1057!!!) and champions leagues (HR record a very reasonable 77).

I think this is a great solution. We could have it here so that when the league is started there's a button to check whether it's a regular, advanced or theme league, all of them with different record books. This way, folks can still have fun contriving ways to push the envelope with what's possible in theme leagues, while the standard records are kept safe. With a link provided to the team for each record it would be self-policing, since people would be checking to see what kind of team beat their record and make sure it was in the right category.

To put the cherry on top, how about a record category for each salary cap and league size? Now we're talking.

Before online strat came around in 2002, I used to play a bit of What If Sports. I just went back and logged in again to see what they have for records. There they have three categories: open leagues (HR recod is 187!), theme leagues (HR record 1057!!!) and champions leagues (HR record a very reasonable 77).

I think this is a great solution. We could have it here so that when the league is started there's a button to check whether it's a regular, advanced or theme league, all of them with different record books. This way, folks can still have fun contriving ways to push the envelope with what's possible in theme leagues, while the standard records are kept safe. With a link provided to the team for each record it would be self-policing, since people would be checking to see what kind of team beat their record and make sure it was in the right category.

To put the cherry on top, how about a record category for each salary cap and league size? Now we're talking.

That's an easy fix to automatic record keeping. Any private league created will not be included in the record books, only open leagues.

Not a good solution, all of the Barnstormers Leagues are private leagues and loads of other normal cap themes that aren't considered skewered. I would say some 30-40% of leagues are private. There are a ton of long running keeper leagues that exist simply because the participants like to hang out with the same group of people and vets like to use private leagues to keep out the Kriffs of the world.

There would be no need to exclude private leagues, only theme leagues that skew results. Someone starting such a league would check off that category. It would be infinitely easier to check to see that no theme leagues sneak into the regular records than it would be to recruit volunteers to compile and post - anybody could follow the link and see what the league looked like.

359 Homers! http://onlinegames.strat-o-matic.com/team/809709 Might be a record for this set!