HOH Top Non-NHL Europeans: Rules Discussion thread (see post 205 for new rules draft)

[TheDevilMadeMe]

60. It's more consistent with our other lists.

This isn't part of the series of positional lists, so I'm okay with a different length, or any other different rules

Brings up another question - will we have a screening process like the other list projects had? Or is everyone just assuming we will have one, which is why nobody brought it up before?

 

[VMBM]

50 sounds good. 40 is too short and right now it feels that top 60* would be too ambitious, although maybe after the preliminary discussion I might have a different opinion. I'm also a little selfish here, since I know that the next autumn will be busy for me in any case.

I reckon the lists as well as the final result will de facto be the best non-NHL Russians and Czechs of all-time, with few Swedes and Slovaks thrown in the mix (and a 'mercy Finn'? ), so in a sense it's a pity that it is not simply the best Europeans of all-time, since then we would have more variety. But heck, I voted & still prefer this, since all those great players in history who have no NHL experience will finally be fairly judged without any talk along the lines of "hey, he never played in the NHL, so we don't know how good he was blah blah".

We should really tackle the difficult issue of the pre-1960s players and their worth in the preliminary discussion...

* maybe too many possible candidates in the 50-60 range who are extremely hard to compare to each other

 

[Theokritos]

50 seems the most reasonable too me as well all things considered.

will we have a screening process like the other list projects had? Or is everyone just assuming we will have one, which is why nobody brought it up before?

I was assuming we would have one and I think we should.

 

[Batis]

50 seems like a good number. I'm also voting for that.

 

[Theokritos]

I hope we manage to settle the 50 vs 60 question today so the actual project (preliminary discussion) can get under way today or tomorrow.

 

[Theokritos]

The list of eligible players is finished as far as I can tell (post 2 in this thread). If a qualified player we forgot to add happens to come to anybody's mind in the next weeks we can still discuss him as long as the Round 1 voting is not yet under way. Just post your case in that thread linked above.

 

[Theokritos]

Any arguments against the number being 50? If not we're going ahead with the preliminary discussion thread later today.

 

[Sturminator]

I think 50 is a good number.

 

[ted2019]

I haven't paid attention to this discussion, but what is considered European?

 

[Theokritos]

I haven't paid attention to this discussion, but what is considered European?

Could you please elaborate? Not sure what you're asking for.

 

[Theokritos]

So here is a draft of the official rules we would use. Input and discussion welcome. One issue to debate is whether we're strictly adding the top 5 vote getters every round or if we want to be a bit more flexible. Personally I'm in favour of consequently sticking with 5 per round, but another option would be to consider obvious point gaps ("natural breaks") between the players. Example: player A gets 15 points, player B 13 points, player C 5 points and player D 3 points. The "natural break" would be the 8 point gap between B and C. Let's say player B with his 13 points is 6th among the 10 players ranked by the voters. In this case we could decide to add the top 6 instead of just 5 due to the "natural break".

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Rules:

1. Eligibility and Ranking Criteria
   • Players should be ranked based on their overall accomplishments, including their time in the NHL (or WHA) if they played there. A "non-NHL player" is not to be understood as someone who didn't play in the NHL (or WHA) at all or whose resume there doesn't matter at all, but as a player who arguably spent the more significant part of his career outside of the NHL (or WHA).
   • All eligible players are listed here.
   • Players should be judged only on their accomplishments as hockey players.
   • Eligible players who are still active should be ranked based only on what they have already done.
2. Preliminary Discussion Thread
   • Anyone may participate in this thread, even if he does not take part in the voting.
   • Posters are encouraged to share information about players in this thread and to take information shared into account when constructing their own lists.
   • Brief comparisons between players are permitted, but detailed cases and debates should be saved for Round 2 of voting.
   • Please do not rank players outright in the preliminary thread. We don't want voters to just copy the lists or rankings of others.
3. Voting
   • Round 1
     • All participants submit a list of 70 players ranked in order. This is mandatory if you want to be eligible for Round 2. Lists may be submitted via PM to Theokritos.
     • All eras must be considered. There is some room for reasonable differences in weighting, but it's not acceptable to omit everybody who played in the 1950s or earlier, or to have only players from the 1980s and 1990s in your top 10.
     • Likewise all significant hockey nations in Europe should be taken into consideration. Lists with a national bias beyond reasonable justification are not acceptable.
     • The time frame for voting (both the date when we will start accepting lists and the voting deadline) will be posted here once it is determined.
     • Players will be assigned a point value on the list based on ranking. A 1st place vote is worth 70 points, a 2nd place vote 69 points and so on down to 1 point for a 70th place vote.
     • An aggregate list of the top players will be compiled ranking them in order of the most total points.
   • Round 2
     • The top ten (10) ranked players from the aggregate list will be posted in a thread.
     • Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias.
     • Player merits and rankings will be open for discussion and debate for a period of five (5) days. Administrators may extend the discussion period if it remains active.
     • Final voting will occur for two (2) days, via PM.
     • Voting: Participants submit a ranking of the 10 available candidates in every round. 1st place votes will be worth 10 points, 2nd place votes worth 9 points, etc.
     • The top 5 vote getters will be added to the final list after each voting.
     • Tiebreak procedure: If two players are tied in voting points after a round, the higher ranking will go to the player who was ahead on a greater number of ballots. If they are still tied, it will remain a tie on the final list.
4. Quality Assurance
   • Lists will be subject to an evaluation process.
   • The submitter of a questionable list will be given an opportunity to defend or justify any selection under question or to correct errors and resubmit.
   • The complete voting record of every participant will be released at the end of the project.
5. Participants Code of Conduct
   • Participants must recognize that this is a collaborative project and that we all share the same goals, no matter how much we disagree on individual ranking.
   • Participants should treat each other with respect and must not openly question the motivations of other participants.
   • Repeatedly violating these rules may result in ban from this project and possibly similar future projects on the History of Hockey board.

 

[Batis]

Era discussion

[*]All eras must be considered. There is some room for reasonable differences in weighting, but it's not acceptable to omit everybody who played in the 1950s or earlier, or to have only players from the 1980s and 1990s in your top 10.

I understand that the top 10 from only the 80´s and 90´s part only was an example but I just wanna point out that I personally don´t see how any Non-NHL Europeans who spent most of their primes during the 90´s or later should be relevant for the top 10 discussion in this project. From the 90´s and onwards pretty much all of the best European players has played most of their primes in North America. And to be relevant for the top 10 in this project the players who remained in Europe would have to compete with the equivalents of Jagr, Lidström, Hasek, Forsberg, Selänne, Fedorov, Bure, Ovechkin, Malkin, Datsyuk, Chara, Lundqvist and Karlsson from the earlier generations. I will personally put more weight on players who were among the very best European players during their primes which of course also includes players from the 50´s and earlier. Edit: This is not saying that I will ignore all modern Non-NHL Europeans for my top 70 list. Just that I dont see how any of them is anywhere close to the top 10 or even the top 25.

Sure it is entirely possible that a player like Ville Peltonen was closer in quality to the best player in the world during his prime than a player like Vladimir Zabrodsky was during his. But Zabrodsky was among the greatest European players for about a decade or so while Peltonen probably never even was among the top 10 European players during any season of his career. And to me that makes Zabrodsky a greater player than Peltonen. This is not to say that strenght of era considerations not should be taken into account. I personally think that my list will have a stronger representation from the mid/late 60´s, 70´s and 80´s than from the earlier decades simply because of European hockey being stronger on the world scene during that time than earlier on. Which means that I probably will put many of the primary stars from those decades (60´s-80´s) ahead of the primary stars of the earlier decades. But I will have no problem with ranking some of the the primary stars of the earlier eras like Bobrov or Zabrodsky ahead of secondary stars of the stronger decades. Even if it is possible or maybe even likely that those secondary stars were better players than Bobrov/Zabrodsky in comparison with the best players in the world during their respective primes. Just to be clear with primary stars I mean the 3-5 best European players of each generation and with secondary stars I mean the group that comes right behind the very best.

Edit: Sorry If I broke one of the rules "do not rank players in the preliminary discussion" but I just wanted to give some concrete examples.

 

[Theokritos]

Edit: Sorry If I broke one of the rules "do not rank players in the preliminary discussion" but I just wanted to give some concrete examples.

No worries, you didn't break the rule. We want to prevent participants from saying "okay, here's my top 10 in order: ...". And that's about it.

 

[seventieslord]

I am pretty sure I won't have any player who peaked in the last 20 years on my list. All the best Europeans were in the nhl, there were no "potential nhl stars" outside the nhl, or at least none with the stature of the ones from the 60s-80s. I'm considering all eras, it's just that after consideration I don't see anyone worth mentioning. I hope that's not a problem.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

As soon as the rules are finalized, we can start with a preliminary research and discussion thread.

So... any suggestions on revisions to the rules, or are we good to go?

 

[Theokritos]

One issue to debate is whether we're strictly adding the top 5 vote getters every round or if we want to be a bit more flexible. Personally I'm in favour of consequently sticking with 5 per round, but another option would be to consider obvious point gaps ("natural breaks") between the players.

No input on this question?

I am pretty sure I won't have any player who peaked in the last 20 years on my list. All the best Europeans were in the nhl, there were no "potential nhl stars" outside the nhl, or at least none with the stature of the ones from the 60s-80s. I'm considering all eras, it's just that after consideration I don't see anyone worth mentioning. I hope that's not a problem.

Don't see a problem with that. There is quite a bit of room for reasonably arguable differences in how one weights and values different decades. What we shouldn't accept however is lists with (for example) no players from the 60s or 80s on it IMO. It's going to be the screeners' job to filter out lists not reasonably justifiable as far as the purpose of the project is concerned.

 

[seventieslord]

No input on this question?

.

I think it makes much more sense to follow natural breaks. You'll understand what I mean even more if you are in charge of adding names from the aggregate list.

 

[steve141]

No input on this question?

I didn't say anything because I didn't want to prolong the rules discussion, but I'm in favour of whatever we did for the Wingers project. Also, adding four instead of five for the first few rounds only was a change we did after one of the projects because we noticed that there was so much more to debate for the first spots.

So, overall I would prefer to keep it the way we did last time, as the process has been perfected over the 5+ projects we've done. But it's not important enough for me to cause a further delay in the project.

I'm good to go.

 

[Theokritos]

Two voices in favour of the "natural breaks" procedure. Here's what the rules would look like (changes from draft in red):

• The top ten (10) ranked players from the aggregate list will be posted in a thread.
• Players will be listed in alphabetical order to avoid creating bias.
• Player merits and rankings will be open for discussion and debate for a period of five (5) days. Administrators may extend the discussion period if it remains active.
• Final voting will occur for two (2) days, via PM.
  [*]Participants rank their top 10 players every round. 1st place votes will be worth 10 points, 2nd place votes worth 9 points, etc.
  [*]Ordinarily the top 5 vote getters will be added to the final list after each voting. However, if there are major breaks in the voting totals, we will add more or less than then 5 in certain rounds.
  
• Tiebreak procedure: If two players are tied in voting points after a round, the higher ranking will go to the player who was ahead on a greater number of ballots. If they are still tied, it will remain a tie on the final list.

If no-one else has anything to add we're going to stick with this.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I think using natural breaks on the aggregate list created after Round 1 to help determine the number of candidates for each round of Round 2 voting is an easy no-brainer.

I think there are pros and cons for using natural breaks after round 2 voting to determine whether we add the full 5 or not to the final list, and I'm fine with either way.

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

I didn't say anything because I didn't want to prolong the rules discussion, but I'm in favour of whatever we did for the Wingers project. Also, adding four instead of five for the first few rounds only was a change we did after one of the projects because we noticed that there was so much more to debate for the first spots.

So, overall I would prefer to keep it the way we did last time, as the process has been perfected over the 5+ projects we've done. But it's not important enough for me to cause a further delay in the project.

I'm good to go.

I see three ways to get to 50.

1) 10 votes, adding 5 names each. (this is what we have in the rules draft)

2) 5 votes, adding 4 names each, followed by 6 votes, adding 5 names each, for 11 votes total.

3) 10 votes, adding 4 names each, followed by 2 votes of 5 names each, for 12 votes total.

The first way (5 names per round) is how we did it for the defenseman project. We moved to 4 names per round for the goalies project, since goalies are harder to compare and the final list was shorter (only 40 name list). For the more recent projects, we've used something like the second way.

One reason to just add 5 names across the board for the Europeans project is that a fair amount of research was already done on the first 20 or so guys (give or take) during the positional projects, so there will be a lot of copy/pasting, and any new discussion will probably be driven by posters who didn't participate in the positional projects.

 

[Sturminator]

Two voices in favour of the "natural breaks" procedure. Here's what the rules would look like (changes from draft in red):

If no-one else has anything to add we're going to stick with this.

I think the natural breaks method strikes a good balance between granular comparisons of similar players and moving the project forward. I'm in favor of sticking with it.

As far as methods of getting to fifty, I don't think the above are dissimilar enough to make much difference. Let's just stick with the second method, which has been used recently.

 

[Theokritos]

As far as methods of getting to fifty, I don't think the above are dissimilar enough to make much difference. Let's just stick with the second method, which has been used recently.

One reason to just add 5 names across the board for the Europeans project is that a fair amount of research was already done on the first 20 or so guys (give or take) during the positional projects

How about adding 5 per round after vote 1-4 (to get us 20 or so) and then 4 per round after each of the subsequent votes?

 

[TheDevilMadeMe]

How about adding 5 per round after vote 1-4 (to get us 20 or so) and then 4 per round after each of the subsequent votes?

i'm really not a fan of starting fast then slowing things down.

 

[seventieslord]

i'm really not a fan of starting fast then slowing things down.

Same. If anything it should be the reverse.