Would it be possible to have a setting that one could select to have players in a set queue (or just at the top of the Watchlist) be auto-nominated by the system once that manager is up for nomination during an auction?
This could prevent managers from missing their nominations when they are browsing for players or on other tabs, or in some cases just away from the computer dealing with real life. Additionally, it could be helpful for managers who for one reason or another just cannot navigate or see the full auction screen. I know someone who is visually impaired and has had to skip the auctions because itās too hard for him to see everything happening at once / know when he is up to nominate, so he would miss his nominations most of the time.
Iāve given this a lot of thought and am sympathetic to the underlying problems being raised here. However, I am not sure auto-nomination would solve all these problems, and in fact would probably create more problems than its worth.
Iām concerned about what happens if a team does not have anyone in their nomination queue. Early in the draft, this isnāt a big deal, but also it isnāt really a big deal if they miss their turn to nominate - there are plenty of players that teams want to roster and missing your turn to nominate is a disadvantage early on. Automatically nominating one of the top 100 or so FAs automatically after 30 seconds instead of just going to the next team seems like almost no gain in terms of ākeeping things movingā and could result in players being nominated automatically that teams wanted to nominate themselves, which is negative for the teams that have prepared with a good watchlist and are ready to nominate players. At the end of drafts, forcing a team to take on a $1 player because they took slightly too long (either on purpose or by mistake) to nominate someone is a very imperfect solution to the larger point I bring up below.
Iāve worked closely with a visually impaired Ottoneu player who is a tech advocate for accessibility, and heās given me very positive feedback on the accessibility of the draft page. If someone is having issues using it, Iād like to hear about that feedback more directly rather than paper over any issues via automatically nominating players.
The draft watchlist exists precisely as a safety net for those who may panic as their nomination timer winds down. We talk about this in an upcoming episode of the Ottobot Podcast, but that watchlist exists independent of the regular watchlist precisely to give you a huge list of players to nominate at any time.
To address late-draft scenarios, if a team is consistently missing their nomination turn but continue to bid on other auctions, they should be marked as ādoneā by the commissioner. There is an advantage to not nominating for the requisite $1, especially when you get towards the end of your cap and roster limits, and the solution is to either require nominations (Commish Tools) or mark a team as done with the draft if they continue to not nominate players. If this is happening by mistake, well, this is what the watchlist is for - click on one of the top players lists, click the star next to all of the players who show up, and now you are ready to nominate someone if your turn gets under 5 seconds.
Auto-nomination as I understand it would still take the full 30 seconds of a teamās nomination timer, negatively impact teams that have prepared for the draft by automatically nominating players that prepared teams wanted to gain the advantage by nominating with an initial bid themselves, and would have more downside at the ādollar daysā portion of auction drafts than simply marking a team as done that misses their nomination turn. I am not sure it would save much time or directly address the underlying concerns (30s is a short time to pick someone to nominate and it is hard to find the player I want to nominate!) that I think is underlying this request.
I thought about this a lot but I still may have missed something, especially on the time-saving front, so if you have further thoughts please share them. Iām not by any means saying ānoā to this request, Iām just not sure auto-nominations in the auction draft are the right solution.
When a commissioner pauses an auction during the 30-second nomination period, it resets the timer for that nomination. This can be used judiciously by a commissioner to make sure everyone is locked in and give a little extra time when its needed - just pause the auction draft as the nomination timer gets close to 0. We do this in league 1 all the time, but a conversation in Slack made it clear to me that this isnāt obvious.
Hey Niv, I think youāre approaching this differently than Marc intended. The way you framed it in your response was a universal thing that would always be automatic. What Marc is looking for, I think, is a toggle of sorts that he can switch onāsay if the kids suddenly trip and he has to jump up, he switches the toggle and runs off, comes back to having won some dollar guy from his queue or at least isnāt locked out of the auction.
The second use case he mentioned, not to put words in his mouth, but this came up during a discussion of it before he made the post, seems to be presented because of the podcast you linked to in a small way. If a user with failing vision who doesnāt use screen readers (out of pride or ignorance of their utility or whatever), but can navigate a watch list, they could participate with this approach by setting the queue far in advance.
Personally, Iāve had occasion to run off immediately and not come back for a few minutes. Lots of commissioners arenāt proactive (and even hold auctions with multiple teams missing), and youāre just left asking to be reinstated (at worst). If this option was available, like it is on yahoo for instance (I was a very annoyed winner of Adam Eaton one year because of it!), Iād just make sure my queue/watch list reflects my preferences.
I am not sure if this has been brought up yet but a common problem with drafting is making sure everyone is able to pick a player. There are times where a manager will be distracted. I think that there should be a queue window on the auction page that consists of a separate list of players. In the event the manager does not nominate when it is their turn, the player from the top of the list will be automatically nominated, possibly along with a max bid. Managers do not have to use the window and can leave the window blank. However, having a good list of players and max bids set up will allow for people to take breaks during the draft and will avoid missing noms/players when distractions arise.