The rule really has no place. It makes discussing players very difficult. Bios tend to drop names all the time, and if bios are forced to have undrafted players X'd out, it makes editing them later difficult to put those names back in. It just doesn't make sense.. nobody is going to steal your guy that you hope nobody mentions. Everyone knows who is available at any time. The draft lists for every ATD are publicly available. Any newbie GM worth their salt would go through them and learn about players they don't know about, at least briefly.
We already lifted the rule for the bios thread for the exact reason you said.
During lineup assassinations and playoffs, you can say whatever you want.
The rule is just there during the drafting phase.
If the rule is lifted for bios, then that means names are being dropped left, right and center. OBVIOUSLY, have someone say something like "XXX should be drafted right about now, it's a pretty good spot for him" shouldn't be allowed, more so because it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion, but when discussing a player, especially when trying to defend him, and more often than not needing to drop a name to make your case, it just becomes so difficult.
I'd only be against mentioning undrafteds if it's at a point where said player could conceivably go in the next round or so. Otherwise, have at it if they're being used as a comparison for a players output/abilities (IE: Dale Hawerchuk vs Joe Thornton or something along those lines).
I would say next 4-5 rounds minimum. Nothing like seeing your long term plans shot because people tell other people who they should draft.
yeah but you can't make rules who depend on common sense , which is why the rules should be there.People would eventually talk about players that would be drafted soon.
I always figured the rule was limited to players that will reasonably be picked within say, the next 100 picks.
When I came in, I was told the rule was "don't mention anyone who has a chance of getting picked in the ATD, MLD, at any level."
I guess we've loosened up since then.
And it's a slippery slope from allowing names to be mentioned in the draft thread to strongly suggesting that someone should be drafted soon or that a specific undrafted player is better than a guy just drafted
I believe this rule had a place during the ATD's infancy, but now... I agree with jarek. All anyone has to do is move down two or three places on the main page to the all-time undrafted or AA Draft thread and they'd see every single player we've ever drafted.
Besides, I think even if we made it a free-for-all, GMs wouldn't blatantly discuss guys because they might still want to keep them on the down-low. As a result, you'd only get the comparative discussions, and their name would be part of a table or a chart or something and not bolded with flashing lights around it.
I disagree. I can see someone no longer looking for a right wing (for example) listing RWs that he thinks are better than the RW just drafted
I disagree. I can see someone no longer looking for a right wing (for example) listing RWs that he thinks are better than the RW just drafted
Wouldn't this help the overall goal of the ATD, though? ie the goal of research and learning? It's one of the reasons why the Top 60 Defense/Top 100 Players projects are so helpful to our understanding of the game's history- we can debate the entire pool of players at one time, and make tweaks to their relative worth and order.
The ATD is a team-building exercise, yes, but I think if we were to allow undrafteds, it wouldn't take three/four years to figure out the place of a Tommy Dunderdale (to use an older player) or a Pavel Datsyuk (modern-day). We would have had a better idea from Day 1.