Our Conversation about Projects (continued)

[penbeast0]

Truth be told, if you are doing decades, do them starting in 5-6 and ending in 4-5. That way you end at 2024-2025 and it's actually a better shorthand playstyle wise than doing 0-9. Far from perfect of course, but better.

[penbeast0]

...
Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I still think this would be an interesting way to build participation up along the way and de-incentivize any possible PBPs from trying to make any trouble until the end.

This won't work well. Start now, who is your choice for the 100th best career in the NBA? It's just really hard to think that way; you have to plan out your 0-99 and what if the guy you think is around 75 would have been 95-100 but other people push his out. Conceptually, it just doesn't work.

[LA Bird]

This is a rough idea of what I came up with for the reverse order concept

1. Automatically include top 80 from last project
2. Voters list their top 20 players not already included
3. The 20 who receive the most mentions are added to make 100

Now we have our list of top 100 players but it is unordered.

4. The 5 players with fewest mentions from before are in the first voting pool.
5. Voters rank these players in order. The lowest vote getter "wins" the round and is #100.
6. Voters also list their 3 worst players to add to the voting pool next (no reasoning needed).
7. The player with most mention gets added to the voting pool and the process continues for #99.

It's a two stage system like Doctor MJ's but just in reverse. There is an extra initial list of 20 players but it's no different than an honorable mentions list at the end of the project (like this from the 2017 top 100).

Pros:
- Redistributes interest to later rounds whereas most voters would currently quit once their GOATs are voted in
- Opportunity to assess new posters and remove trolls/PBPs before they can vote in the top rounds
- Eliminates ghost votes because we have a complete list of players from the beginning
- Possible reward (tiebreakers?) to incentive participation in the bottom rounds

Cons:
- Like eminence said, there is a negative slant with a reverse order list. But by splitting into two stages for nominating and voting, I don't think the voting round that actually matters would be any different from past projects. The nomination round would be negative but it's just a list of names. Voters even now can go above and beyond that by trashing players they hate anytime.

[Owly]

...
Maybe instead of starting a project at #1, start at the end point and count down, ending with #1/#2. This could have the effect of increasing participation as a project goes on, with a climactic event at the end. It could also enable the project runner and/or mods to say, if you haven't been participating regularly, you don't get to vote for #1/#2.

I still think this would be an interesting way to build participation up along the way and de-incentivize any possible PBPs from trying to make any trouble until the end.

This won't work well. Start now, who is your choice for the 100th best career in the NBA? It's just really hard to think that way; you have to plan out your 0-99 and what if the guy you think is around 75 would have been 95-100 but other people push his out. Conceptually, it just doesn't work.

Some of this will repeat what others have said. But it wouldn't have to be gamed as you suggest - depending on the structure.

To avoid this would require a fixed 100 (as LA Bird notes - post 15). And you effectively vote "out" your perceived worst player. Which could be interesting (though not necessarily something to take the "heat" out of debates - as Eminence notes - post 16). And you could be restrictive on late entries so those who care enough to argue 80-100 don't get their voices drowned out in the top 5/10/20 [as OldSchoolNoBull alludes to - post 3].

But that structure gives a lot of power at the back end to the system (or person) crafting the "shortlist". One way of doing it might be by asking for a 120 list (I say beyond 100 because you lose a lot of info for ranking those around 100 if component lists stop at 100) from participants/"informed" or "respected" posters. Aggregate the lists (possibly allowing for some discussion or not) and you have your 100. That would be, as JalenGreen notes, asking a lot of people in a sense if "you're expecting them to have an entire list ready" ... and I agree ... which is why I haven't ever really settled on a firm list but ...

... if you're wanting to have the argument and you have a consistent criteria - even granting that applying it is unlikely to be a purely numerical exercise and different data is available in different eras - having thought it through and applied it that deep in advance would arguably be beneficial. You probably wouldn't require participants to put in such a list, I wouldn't have thought.

If the project runner is trusted - and this caveat could have been said before recent issues - the lists wouldn't necessarily have to be public if there is a fear that a desire for perceived consistency would close minds and lock in rankings. Though at the margin having prior knowledge/sight of lists that either seem deeply inconsistent and/or latterly seem to change greatly without coherent justification could allow for more oversight of manipulation if deemed necessary/desirable.

This isn't to advocate for the method, just clarify the possibility (though as I'm posting I think this has just been done - at least one version has been outlined) and note positives and negatives. For me I'd guess forcing a negative slant on voting would be a bad thing though as I noted I think it interesting and gives different input from the traditional voting system.

The other thing to note is the back end tends to peter out anyway, from memory, so that aspect wouldn't change much in terms of putting a lot of influence in fewer hands. The bigger things would be the tone, how it changes the project (including participation - quantity and more importantly quality) and whether such an angle is beneficial or not.

[Owly]

...

2. When should we restart it? Some say immediately once we have our new project runner, some say 2 months, some say wait until after we do the next RealGM 100.

(My guess it will probably start up pretty soon unless this thread shows many people wanting to wait.)

3. Project runners need to be more heavy handed moderating Jordan/LeBron-style off-topic capture of a thread, as well as dealing with deliberate baiting/disrespect/anti-social behavior.

5. There's also been suggestions along these lines for who can run a project, but posters can start their own small-scale projects at any time by just starting a thread.

(My own recommendation is that for projects that are new iterations of giant old projects - RPOY, RealGM100, Peaks, etc - need permission from the moderator team except when the new project runner did it previously. Here, as someone who had previously ran the two Scandalized projects, I'll say I didn't feel comfortable stopping the projects before, but I had major concerns that if I'd acted on immediately, would have kept us from being in this position now.)

6. Project runners should be purposeful about setting project vision. This doesn't necessarily mean super-restrictive, but we're trying to avoid people using completely different criteria and talking past each other. Beginning a project by emphasizing it will be era-relative or emphasizing it will be based on the modern league or whatever, can save us some frustration.

8. Use ranked lists with sophisticated techniques rather than one-at-a-time voting.

(This is a thing we've done in the past and can continue to do, but it's not a true replacement for the many-months of discussion in something like the Peaks project - even if it can be incorporated in partially with things like Condorcet voting.)

9. Ranking by ranges rather than exact spots.

(I'm not really sure how this works in a group project. If someone wants to get more specific, they can.)

11. "Book club" like projects, such as watching a historical game and discussing.

(So I love this and think we should look to do something like this. parsnips33 was the one mentioning it in the previous thread, but I know others have mentioned it in the past as well. I think we should have some folks look to develop this, and I'd say if you're someone who someone who done a ton of historical watching - 70sFan comes to mind - I'd like you to be involved in the brainstorming. For right now the discussion will happen here in this thread, but it might move to a separate thread or to a PM conversation from there until it's ready to be presented.)

Subjective random thoughts on the [clipped] points above.

2) Some thinking space on why, how "we" want to do things might not be bad.

3 ... and 5) More the latter than the former, for me. Off topic one can kind of ignore (though maybe a case for mods running things if it drowns out a core conversation), lack of civility, decorum is harder to do (especially when by those allowed power to run things - granting mods can't really stop it but this is at least implied in "official" status etc, and recent events confirm projects being of some importance).

6) Agree that discussing the same thing matters. To the extent that it isn't merely a less precise means of aggregating prior lists and is means to facilitate discussion ... reading from the same text (or whatever analogy) matters. That could allow for different projects (and/or re-naming projects) but agree that a prior agreement (for instance) "it will be era-relative or emphasizing it will be based on the modern league" (or we are talking peaks, best X years, careers ... or whatever) makes for a better discussion (and a more coherent list fwiw).

8) Personally I kind of like getting/using more than one bit of information at a time from voters and getting the same amount of info from each voter so like ranked-choice stuff and points. But then I'm not dealing with logistics or Arrow and the least worst voting solution or potential gaming (though I personally think there's less incentive to do so when allowed to offer deeper preference) or how it might change discussion so ... take that with a pinch of salt.

9) Ranges is probably harder to do as a group. Can't see it logistically, myself. Rambling here: there's an appeal to rankings not being locked in so you can undo bad actors actions ... hard to see how without changing the nature of the project (except ad hoc consensus adjustments after the fact? not great) - even running it reverse order ... people could try to put player X too deep.

11) Could be fun. Game watching could be interesting. Actual books too, perhaps? A combination of the above even ... (Forty-Eight Minutes by Pluto and Ryan about an 80s Cleveland Boston game; 6.4.76 Phoenix Suns Vs. Boston Celtics by Roger Gordon about G5 of the 76 finals?

[PistolPeteJR]

I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I’m absolutely a fan of splitting this between eras. I’m not sure if 10 years is the answer, or if the standard needs to take into consideration league rules and league-wide “style”, but this would facilitate mitigation of all of the variables that are just impossible to account for when we’re comparing across league history.

[babyjax13]

I like the decades idea because I feel like there are several decades I can comment on, and several I can't. The broader top-100 projects are really interesting and I've seen some historical games, I just don't feel like I have the ability to rank, say, Walt Bellamy versus Dwight Howard.

[70sFan]

Alright, I will wait for Doctor MJ to comment the idea of era peaks project. If there is no objections, we can start the thread on specifying eras.

[penbeast0]

I like the decades idea because I feel like there are several decades I can comment on, and several I can't. The broader top-100 projects are really interesting and I've seen some historical games, I just don't feel like I have the ability to rank, say, Walt Bellamy versus Dwight Howard.

Again, if we do decades, make them year x6 to x5 so we can finish with 2025 (and because it matches up better to NBA eras).

Similar type deal would be redoing our recreating the Hall of Fame project which puts us in eras but without such rigid limits. (every 5 years, 5 people into Hall?).

[70sFan]

I like the decades idea because I feel like there are several decades I can comment on, and several I can't. The broader top-100 projects are really interesting and I've seen some historical games, I just don't feel like I have the ability to rank, say, Walt Bellamy versus Dwight Howard.

Again, if we do decades, make them year x6 to x5 so we can finish with 2025 (and because it matches up better to NBA eras).

Similar type deal would be redoing our recreating the Hall of Fame project which puts us in eras but without such rigid limits. (every 5 years, 5 people into Hall?).

I am all for this format, especially because it ends nicely for shotclock era (missing only one year).

[OldSchoolNoBull]

I like the decades idea because I feel like there are several decades I can comment on, and several I can't. The broader top-100 projects are really interesting and I've seen some historical games, I just don't feel like I have the ability to rank, say, Walt Bellamy versus Dwight Howard.

Again, if we do decades, make them year x6 to x5 so we can finish with 2025 (and because it matches up better to NBA eras).

Similar type deal would be redoing our recreating the Hall of Fame project which puts us in eras but without such rigid limits. (every 5 years, 5 people into Hall?).

I am all for this format, especially because it ends nicely for shotclock era (missing only one year).

I will repost my post from earlier in this thread, as I think doing it by player birth year makes more sense, as it eliminates any chance of crossover where players appear on more than one list. I also think 5-6 years is too short.

I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I've been working on an individual/personal project along these lines, except I'm using birth year ranges so there is no crossover - a player can only appear once. So I have seven different 11-12 year generations and I'm ranking players within those generations, probably about 35 deep for the earlier generations(mostly 50s/60s guys) and maybe 50 deep after that. I'm quite enjoying it. Was planning on sharing it eventually.

[70sFan]

Again, if we do decades, make them year x6 to x5 so we can finish with 2025 (and because it matches up better to NBA eras).

Similar type deal would be redoing our recreating the Hall of Fame project which puts us in eras but without such rigid limits. (every 5 years, 5 people into Hall?).

I am all for this format, especially because it ends nicely for shotclock era (missing only one year).

I will repost my post from earlier in this thread, as I think doing it by player birth year makes more sense, as it eliminates any chance of crossover where players appear on more than one list. I also think 5-6 years is too short.

I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

I've been working on an individual/personal project along these lines, except I'm using birth year ranges so there is no crossover - a player can only appear once. So I have seven different 11-12 year generations and I'm ranking players within those generations, probably about 35 deep for the earlier generations(mostly 50s/60s guys) and maybe 50 deep after that. I'm quite enjoying it. Was planning on sharing it eventually.

It's 10 years: 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.

Birth year also makes sense, I guess it depends what people prefer.

[penbeast0]

Like playing years better than birth years because we are comparing them as players. It's also a more natural way of thinking about players as we generally don't think about them by birth year unless we are comparing draft prospects.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

Like playing years better than birth years because we are comparing them as players. It's also a more natural way of thinking about players as we generally don't think about them by birth year unless we are comparing draft prospects.

If you do playing years, you end up with players on multiple lists - for example, LeBron would no doubt be on both 2006-2015 and 2015-2026, Shaq would no doubt be on both 1996-2005 and 1986-1995(since he led a team to the Finals in 1995), Jordan would no doubt be on both 1986-1995 and 1996-2005, Kareem on both 1966-1975 and 1976-1985, and so forth. By using birth years, you eliminate this issue. Each player appears on only one list, and this has the added benefit of opening more total spots across the lists for more players to be acknowledged, since you wouldn't have guys taking spots on multiple lists.

I think it also results in groupings of players that are more tightly/closely linked together. Like, for example, in a 2015-2026 list, both SGA/Luka and LeBron/Steph would be on it, and that's two different generations, IMO.

It'll be whatever the consensus is, but this feels cleaner to me, personally.

[penbeast0]

That's a good point. I can always adjust my thinking. If it's birth years, where are the best break points?

[lessthanjake]

Like playing years better than birth years because we are comparing them as players. It's also a more natural way of thinking about players as we generally don't think about them by birth year unless we are comparing draft prospects.

If you do playing years, you end up with players on multiple lists - for example, LeBron would no doubt be on both 2006-2015 and 2015-2026, Shaq would no doubt be on both 1996-2005 and 1986-1995(since he led a team to the Finals in 1995), Jordan would no doubt be on both 1986-1995 and 1996-2005, Kareem on both 1966-1975 and 1976-1985, and so forth. By using birth years, you eliminate this issue. Each player appears on only one list, and this has the added benefit of opening more total spots across the lists for more players to be acknowledged, since you wouldn't have guys taking spots on multiple lists.

I think it also results in groupings of players that are more tightly/closely linked together. Like, for example, in a 2015-2026 list, both SGA/Luka and LeBron/Steph would be on it, and that's two different generations, IMO.

It'll be whatever the consensus is, but this feels cleaner to me, personally.

I think a significant problem with using birth years is that it requires a good bit of legwork from each voter, in order to actually determine who is eligible for each list. I don’t think any of us really know the birth years of many players, but we do know who was playing in what year. So each voter would probably have to basically backwards engineer their list by thinking about who was playing in a certain set of years that’s roughly 27ish years after the birth-year range being used and then check each player to ensure that their birth year actually makes them eligible. That feels a bit messy/frustrating in practice IMO, and could also lead to people forgetting to consider players that they’d otherwise not forget about.

I think I’d be in favor of doing it either (1) by decade, or (2) coming to some way of defining different eras of the league’s history (i.e. something like the eras that penbeast mentioned, such as pre-shot-clock, pre-ABA-with-shot-clock, etc.). If doing it by decade, it seems fine to me to have it end at 2025 (so, 2016-2025, 2006-2015, etc.), but using actual decades (so, 2000s, 2010s, etc.) also seems fine.

Personally, I kind of like the idea of using different eras the most, since it inherently minimizes comparisons between players who played in very different league contexts. The downside of it is just that it requires a lot more adjudication on the front end about exactly what those eras should be, and people probably won’t entirely agree on the era demarcation lines. But I think if the goal of the endeavor is in part to minimize discussion of era differences, then parsing things by era is the most appropriate IMO.

I’m personally not all that concerned about the fact that some players will show up in different eras. There are actually players who excelled in very different league contexts! For instance, LeBron’s 2009 and his 2020 are great years that genuinely came in different league contexts, and I don’t mind them showing up in different lists.

[OldSchoolNoBull]

That's a good point. I can always adjust my thinking. If it's birth years, where are the best break points?

Well, I can just tell you how I'm doing it in my personal project.

(Acknowledging there's a whole generation of professional basketball players before this one that never played in the NBA, and for whom there isn't IMO enough data to do a meaningful ranking. Bobby McDermott and LeRoy Edwards seem like an easy 1-2 for that one, but I wouldn't really know where to go after that).

First generation is 1917-1929 - so this includes, Mikan, Arizin, Schayes, Cousy, Davies, et al. I stretched it back to 1917 really just to include Buddy Jeanette and Al Cervi towards the back of my list, as they were born that year. By stopping at 1929, it basically ensures that everyone in this generation(or at least those good enough to make a list) played at least part, if not most, of their career with no shot clock, while everyone in the following generation played all of their careers with a shot clock.

Second generation is 1930-1941. Pettit is one of the oldest in this group, but it's the generation of Russell, Wilt, West, Oscar, Baylor, etc. I stop at 1941 because I wanted to fit as many ABA guys as possible in the third group(so there's only few ABA guys - Zelmo, Hagen, maybe one or two others - in this group), and there are two many guys born in 42 that IMO didn't fit.

Third generation is 1942-1955. Connie Hawkins and Roger Brown(as well as Willis Reed) were born in 42. Stretched to 55 because that's when Moses was born.

Fourth generation is 1956-1968. Dream Teamers basically. Bird and Bernard King were born 56, Divac in 68.

Fifth generation if 1969-1980. Shawn Kemp and Larry Johnson born in 69, Pau Gasol and Yao born in 80. The generation of Shaq/Duncan/Kobe/Garnett/etc. Went back and forth on Kemp and Johnson but they were members of that 1994 Dream Team II where a lot of those guys were thought of as the beginning of a new gen.

Sixth generation is 1981-1993. Joe Johnson and Kirilenko born in 81, AD and Beal in 93. The generation of LeBron, Steph, etc.

Seventh generation if 1994-2005 or 2006(undecided). Basically, Giannis/Embiid/Randle were all born in 94(and Jokic in 95), so that seemed like a logical line. Undecided if Flagg represents the very end of this generation and the very beginning of a new, eighth gen.

[PistolPeteJR]

Like playing years better than birth years because we are comparing them as players. It's also a more natural way of thinking about players as we generally don't think about them by birth year unless we are comparing draft prospects.

If you do playing years, you end up with players on multiple lists - for example, LeBron would no doubt be on both 2006-2015 and 2015-2026, Shaq would no doubt be on both 1996-2005 and 1986-1995(since he led a team to the Finals in 1995), Jordan would no doubt be on both 1986-1995 and 1996-2005, Kareem on both 1966-1975 and 1976-1985, and so forth. By using birth years, you eliminate this issue. Each player appears on only one list, and this has the added benefit of opening more total spots across the lists for more players to be acknowledged, since you wouldn't have guys taking spots on multiple lists.

I think it also results in groupings of players that are more tightly/closely linked together. Like, for example, in a 2015-2026 list, both SGA/Luka and LeBron/Steph would be on it, and that's two different generations, IMO.

It'll be whatever the consensus is, but this feels cleaner to me, personally.

What’s the problem with a player appearing on more than one list though? If the player rightfully played “long enough” across multiple legitimate “eras” of basketball at a high level, that simply means they’ve earned the right to be a part of the discussion across multiple “eras”.

[TheGOATRises007]

I would also be in favor in doing a peaks project with separate eras.

This lets us avoid the Jordan vs LeBron discourse and makes the comparisons between players easier to do since they're from the same era then.

I think this would be great.

[Top10alltime]

I thought about it today and I may have one suggestion - what do people think about the peaks project that would be splitted into smaller eras?

For example, we could do the top 10-15 peaks of each decade (I'd prefer 10 years period from 2025 down, so 2016-25, 2006-15 etc.). That would change our focus from the typical Jordan vs James and era strength debates to the granular discussions about the specific years choices, in-era rivals and lesser known players. I think it could be more interesting even for people with modernist view like One_and_Done, because they could finally talk about players they believe are actually good, without the need to show the clear disagreement about era evaluations.

Of course you may think 10 years is too short period, everything could be adjusted for the overall perception. What are your thoughts about it? I think I'd be far more interested in something like that vs repetition of the same debates. Just a quick idea, please let me know if you like it.

Like most people (because there are some debates that are just repetitive and some that are.....), so it'd be the best way to do the peaks project.