I've been noticing a lack of participation not only in our league, but across all of MFN. I know I'm sick and tired of the staleness of this current version, so I figure a lot of you feel the same way. I totally understand, and I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad, guilty, or whatever, just stating my opinions.

That being said, we are going to need more participation in our voting polls, as 17 votes (18 if you count me, who plans to vote last) for the Hall of Fame isn't enough. We have All Pro voting coming soon as well, and if we're only going to have half the league vote, I'll need to figure out a new way to decide it.

Yes, I've been slacking on writing the blog but the view counts mirror the Hall voting percentage. That leads me to believe a good portion of our league is simply punching in/punching out.

Any ideas to get participation/voting up are welcome.

Not, sure. I vote in the polls.

That said, I'm not nearly as interested in MFN as I'd like to be due to the lack of improvement to the game. It seems like I'm probably more interested in it than JDB though.

I vote in the polls, but the time I spend on the game is going toward game planning and I haven't been reading the boards in most leagues right now.

I still skim through the blog though. Good stuff.

I'm not necessarily seeking more message board content, but my hope is everyone at least checks in and reads the important stuff. I would hope that game planning and roster management take precedence.

My main concern at the moment is the trend toward lower vote totals for HOF and All Pro. Those vote totals have been declining, and I'd like to see them go back up. If they don't, I'm considering a smaller HOF committee that decides everything.

I'm going to do one more voting poll, for the 1992 All Pro Team and if we don't have at least 20 votes, I'll probably stop doing them and find another way.

I'm probably the a good representative of what you are talking about. I find it overwhelming to select players from the whole league. I don't feel I have a good sense of the conference that I am not in.

While it would be more work - I wonder if we would get a better turnout, and more attentive voting if we had 2 All-Conference teams and you vote on the players in your conference. Then we could have a select group of owners select the All-Pro team from the 2 conference teams.

I know that is easy for me to suggest - as I am not the one creating and tracking the surveys. I appreciate the efforts it takes to do that.

I'm assuming those that do vote don't just randomly make their selections, so what's the difference?

You would assume wrong, I've seen many votes that were obviously just picking names at random, but that's not even the issue. As with any election/poll, the more people that vote, the truer the representation of opinions are.

The Hall of Fame and All Pro Teams are here to celebrate our league's best players and I guess I mistakenly thought most would be eager to participate. The ones who do vote, do so quickly, but that's only about half the league.

I had help on the HOF list from tribewriter, and creating the lists takes time. Just trying to figure out which OL to include on the All Pro Ballot is tedious enough, that's my least favorite part of this whole process. Then I have to create the ballot, which isn't easy for a guy like me with virtually no typing skills. Then I have to make a post or 2 in the main forum to facilitate the voting and send 31 PMs.

All of that takes time to do, time I would much rather spend doing anything else, but I do it for you guys. If all I get in return is 50% begrudging participation, then I need to find another way.

That's the difference.