Media Outlines and Rules

[AngryBanana]

Here is the beginning of the revamp, of sorts related to media for this year. This is after consulting with Wig, and reviewing my prior problems with this position, what I felt was the best way forward. While this is mainly written by Wig, as can be clearly seen in the first sentence, I also reviewed and edited where desired for this year.

1. STATEMENT OF PURPOSE

The ultimate reason that league points are given for Media entries is that high-quality media entries drive owner engagement with the league, making it a richer experience for everyone and helping us attract and retain owners. Simply put, the league should value high-quality media contributions and reward those contributions appropriately. This is the "WHY" of giving points for media content.

2. WHAT MAKES A CONTRIBUTION HIGH-QUALITY

Now that we have established a "why" we need to establish a "what."

To some degree, the value of a contribution comes in "how long does that contribution engage the average reader" - in other words, "what is the potential engagement time added to others?" This portion of the contribution is actually somewhat quantifiable - it's generally a function of "word count" or "podcast length" or similar (depending on the medium used). So while length needs to be a consideration, but it can't be our ONLY consideration.

The secondary value of a contribution comes form "how long did this contribution take to produce?" - this is hard to quantify. For example, a podcast generally takes about the same time to produce as the run-length of the podcast (might be a little mixing or upload time, but in general, a one hour podcast takes about one hour to produce), while an article that summarizes a lot of heavy statistical analysis (where most of the math is done on the back end and fed into programs that create visually appealing charts where hours of analysis is conveyed by a few seconds looking at the screen) might take several hours to produce, but only a few minutes to read.

Finally, it can be argued that low-quality entries are WORSE for the league than no entries at all.

So what our "rewards" system for media contribution needs to balance are the needs of the contributor to be assured of some sort of minimum reward for the effort they will put forth to produce the piece with the need of the league to be assured of high-quality entries that drive engagement for long periods of time.

3. HOW CONTRIBUTIONS WILL BE REWARDED

To ensure contributors know what the minimum they can expect for their contributions, we will base the "minimum reward" off of an objective, quantifiable "floor" (baseline) as follows. Note that there are diminishing returns for really long contributions as it's hard to expect people to wade through a really long article - yes, the effort to make a 1,800 word article is twice the effort to make a 900 word article, but it also doesn't guarantee twice as much engagement. As before, media contributions may be awarded up to 10 total points per contribution.

Written Articles	Podcasts	Points
Under 250 words	Under 15 minutes	0
250-499 words		1
500-749 words	15-29 minutes	2
750-999 words		3
1,000-1,499 words	30-59 minutes	4
1,500-1,999 words		5
2,000 words or more	60 minutes or more	6

On top of the floor, which is "objective," the media coordinator has the latitude to award up to 5 additional points based on their intuition as to (a) whether a lot of unseen work must have been required to create the media - for example, whether the article is a summary of a deep mathematical analysis, (b) the "applicability" of the media (more on that in a moment), and (c) the "entertainment value" of the media. As this is SUBJECTIVE it should not be argued, and something that scores highly on any single axis here could be worth the entire five points - for instance, a math-centered deep dive on point guards may not be as widely applicable as the same deep dive on the whole league would be, but if the dive is super-in-depth, it could receive all 5 subjective points on that basis alone; similarly, an article light on analysis that is narrowly applicable but highly entertaining to the media coordinator - for example, a satire documentary detailing the childhood trauma that created the deep-seated anger management issues of the league leader in personal fouls is not widely applicable and doesn't require a lot of analysis... but if it had the media coordinator doubled over in laughter while reading it, it could receive 5 subjective points based on "entertainment value."

To expand on "applicability" consider the following levels in increased order of applicability (and as you go down the list, you are likely eligible for more points at the discretion of the media coordinator):

• "Grade the Trade" - Not really applicable except to the teams already involved in the trade, doesn't drive much engagement overall
• "Division Power Rankings" - Applicable to a quarter of the league, better at driving engagement
• "Conference Power Rankings" or "Playoff Preview"- Applicable to half the league, good at driving engagement
• "League Power Rankings" - Applies to the whole league, good at driving engagement

For contributions submitted "by committee" (e.g., joint podcasts, 5-on-5 articles, etc.), the media coordinator has discretion to either award points "per contributor" as through each contributor had submitted separately (e.g., for a lengthy 5-on-5, each contributor might receive 4 points so the total points awarded for the article is 20 instead of the normal limit of 10 per submission) or simply grade the submission as a single entry (10 point maximum) and distribute points on that basis.

Basically, when you submit a media contribution, you should know the "minimum" points you can expect based on objective length, and be pleasantly surprised if you get awarded additional subjective points by the media coordinator.

Note the media coordinator has the power to say, "no more of X kinds of media please" and award 0 objective and subjective points, regardless of the length of the media, following that injunction.

4. WHAT KINDS OF THINGS WE ARE LOOKING FOR AND WILL BE AWARDED POINTS

1. Analysis/Advice - Power rankings, draft previews, team-building philosophy, etc.
2. Reactions - To trades, draft, playoffs, etc.
3. Satire/League Expanded Universe (label as such) - tell a compelling narrative about a team/player. JNR's PTI during the creation draft is a combination of "Satire/Expanded Universe" and "Reactions" - running storylines (especially across multiple seasons) will have points awarded periodically but can be kept in the same thread to make them easy to find.
4. Anything else you think would be engaging related to NPBSL - Give things a try, your first good faith attempt will always be rewarded, though the media coordinator may say, "no more of this sort of stuff, please" and future attempts may be denied points, though never without a warning first.

5. WHAT WE ARE NOT LOOKING FOR

1. This one's easy. We're not looking for complaints about the media coordinator's subjective preferences. Remember, the media coordinator has the thankless job of having to read/listen to all the stuff we post

AND the coordinator has to take the time to award points for it... and they're only getting 5 points for doing this for a whole season.
2. Something that is not deemed by the coordinator to not be NPBSL related

Also, if the media coordinator shuts down something you think is engaging, please don't challenge it in the open. Send a Private Message to the coordinator if you have questions or concerns about the article's point allotment. Or, run for media coordinator yourself the next season and bring it back then.

6. MAXIMUM MEDIA POINTS PER SEASON

I am reverting the point distribution that each owner may receive back to 25 points per season for media contributions. Contributions after you have hit your cap are of course encouraged. I will review this year how written media article's are done compared to audio, and I may update next season if applicable.