I am not sure if this is posted elsewhere, I am sure it is in some way, shape, or forum (bah dum che).

If not then I believe a great thread would be for learning and understanding the finer parts of Dobber Hockey in regards to all things in the Forums - making a new thread, giving/receiving rep, proper etiquette, and understanding the little green squares in the top right of a person's post/reply.

I am still getting my grounds on this website, and didn't truly understand (well, I probably still don't) the rep system until rather recently.

This thread may be redundant (well I am sure it is), but I figured hey, if I can provide an assistance to the vehicle that makes this community so great (the Forums), might as well give it a try. And at the very least, I will learn a bit more myself.

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" You said you don't give a f*ck about hockey. I've never heard anyone say that before."

Great idea man.

Well the first thing and probably the most important thing is to always list out all details when asking for advice

1. League type (Dynasty vs. Limited Keeper vs. One -year, Roto vs. H2H vs. Points only) Note: A points league that gives point values to categories does not equal points only.
2. Salary or non-salary (also follow NHL salary cap hit or another type of salary setting)
3. Scoring categories
4. Full team Roster - Gives perspective when discussing trades
5. Forward position differentiation (i.e. C/LW/RW, or simply F) - Important when discussing trades.
6. Daily starts vs. Weekly starts
7. How many players at each position iced per night. (i.e. 2G - That is a big one that makes a huge difference when discussing advice). Minimum goalie starts (i.e. 1 per week, 2 per week)
8. Number of teams in the league - Important when talking goalies. There are 30 teams in the NHL meaning 30 starters in the NHL. If you're in a league with 16 teams that ices 2G per night..etc.
9. League Provider -Don't assume that everybody uses the same league provider as you as some providers have different position eligibility among other things.

Another thing I'd like to mention (after seeing Jeff's post below) is to take advantage of the boards
- Don't be afraid to ask questions or give your opinion.
- Don't assume that because you have a low post count or rep power that your input is any less appreciated or regarded. There's hundreds of people on these boards with tons of knowledge, but just don't have the time or feel like posting a whole lot.

PS: Feel free to shoot me a PM if you would like an extra opinion. Just don't take whatever I tell you to be gospel or anything...I'm just a regular guy who gets extremely bored in class during the school year and extremely bored at work during the summer.

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@B0ndon

Goalies: If I'm pickin em you best be sittin em!

#1 Respect I think overall, there is a great amount of respect given and shared on this forum, I think its the lifeline of these forums

#2 Etiquette When members come on and make posts, questions, etc. Most of the members here truly do a great job of seeking out all info on OP's questions, follow up questions, qualifying questions, etc to be able to return the best possible advice to the OP.

#3 Sense of Community In the past 2 years ( for me anyway) I feel I have made some very good fantasy hockey friends and interactions and I think the same goes for others, which culminates into a sense of community.

#4 Great knowledge The knowlege that flies around here from various members is just insanely good. I mean, there are alot of forums, and alot of those forums have just alot of chatter, but here at Dobber, guys back up the talk with stats, and other outlets of great accuracy

#5 Profile Info For each member wishing to contribute with posts in the forums and such, It's vital or at least recommended that if you are gonna be asking about a trade or roster setup, moves, add/drops, keepers, etc that you put your team roster in your sig this action will save the OP time of not having to keep updating the question and it saves the members responding time by not having to ask about the roster size, players, etc etc

#6 Sourcing When you wish to make a thread in regard to a team signing a player, trade, coach, fired, hired, injury, et all - its pretty much a mandatory thing to always put the source of said info inside your post.

#7 Recognition No matter who you are, everyone likes recognition. So if you read something that a member wrote, throw him some rep to show the gratitude and the same will come back to you by someone else when you write something of good value to someone.

#8 Milestones One of my favorite things about this site to be honest. Members work hard all the time trying to give great feedback or interaction and when a member hits a 1,000, 2,000 and every thousand posts after that, its a great feeling when peers in the forums recognize that feat and show gratitude towards that. Again, another example of great respect.




Anyway, just some topics that I feel make Dobberhockey the greatest forum on the internet.

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I've noticed most people lurk before posting so they kinda see for themselves how things are supposed to go down.

Making new threads: click the search button and search for the player that you are asking about, chances are he's already been talked about. If your question is not a general question, but more towards your league than provide as many details in the first post as you can in order for everyone to fully grasp what the situation is.

Giving/receiving rep: I know most users don't give out negative rep, so try to refrain from that if you are just in disagreement with someone's opinion. A reason to give positive rep is if someone answered your post informatively, or someone obviously put a lot of thought and effort into forming their post with statistics/analysis. A third reason is their post made you laugh, or whatever they posted was cool/brought up a good topic of discussion.

Post étiquette: try to be objective and notice that most people are posting their opinions, and some users will disagree with you. Don't take it personally unless they are attacking you personally in which I would say just ignore their posts as they are probably only trolls looking to get a response out of you.

edit: wow some quick posts today, I started typing when there were no responses lol.

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The Ultimate Fantasy Hockey League. (Keep 17)
3C 3LW 3RW 6D 2G 6BE.
G,A,+-,PIM,PPP,SHP,GWG,SOG,FW,HIT; GS,W,L,GAA,SA,SV, SV%,SO
(C) Bergeron, Spezza, Ribeiro, R. O'Reilly
(LW) Ovechkin(RW), Clowe(RW), Hagelin
(RW) Eberle, Stewart
(D) Subban, Pietrangelo, Green, Byfuglien(RW), Bogosian
(G) Crawford, Varlamov, Neuvirth

8 Person Farm:
(C), Couturier, Teravainen
(LW) Kreider
(RW) Etem
(D) Dumba
(G) Holtby, Ramo, Subban

Just to add a thought on giving Rep... it's always nice to sign the rep afterwards so recievers know who it's comming from.

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11 Team 1yr. daily update Yahoo Roto League (drafted 6th)
Roster: 2C, 2L, 2R, 4D, 1U, 2G, 10 B, 1IR (NO max games played)
Stats: G, A, P, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, BS, W, GAA, SV%, SHO

C: J. Thornton, N. Backstrom, P. Stastny, D. Desharnais, Z. Konopka
L: J. Benn (C/L), Jo. Staal (C/L), D. Perron (C/L), S. Kostitsyn, A. McDonald (C/L), B. Prust
R: M. St.Louis, B. wheeler, J. Voracek, T. Purcell
D: S. Weber, A. Goligoski, J. Carlson, D. Seidenberg, J. Gorges
G: J. Quick, M. Smith, J. Hiller
IR: --

This is great info! I still don't understand the little green squares though hahaha.

When I put my cursor over them it says "Ross The Boss Palmer will become famous soon enough"!

Why thank you little green squares, you are too kind. I just hope these fortune cookie squares mean I will be famous for something good and not pull a Casey Anthony or a Charlie Sheen... well, perhaps a Charlie Sheen


And for the newbies who don't know how to give rep, there is a weight scale icon in the top right corner of each person's post. It took me a loooong time to figure that out for myself.

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" You said you don't give a f*ck about hockey. I've never heard anyone say that before."

The green bars as I understand it are a rep indicator. Positive rep = green bar. Negative rep = red bar. The more rep you have your bar goes up and the little saying changes. Mine says "has a spectacular aura about" :P

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The Ultimate Fantasy Hockey League. (Keep 17)
3C 3LW 3RW 6D 2G 6BE.
G,A,+-,PIM,PPP,SHP,GWG,SOG,FW,HIT; GS,W,L,GAA,SA,SV, SV%,SO
(C) Bergeron, Spezza, Ribeiro, R. O'Reilly
(LW) Ovechkin(RW), Clowe(RW), Hagelin
(RW) Eberle, Stewart
(D) Subban, Pietrangelo, Green, Byfuglien(RW), Bogosian
(G) Crawford, Varlamov, Neuvirth

8 Person Farm:
(C), Couturier, Teravainen
(LW) Kreider
(RW) Etem
(D) Dumba
(G) Holtby, Ramo, Subban

I'm not 100% sure if I understand the rep system but I'll take a shot at explaining it in this post.

So if I understand Reputation correctly, when you first begin posting on the site you begin with 5 reputation points. You are not able to "give rep" until you have at least 15 Rep Points AND 100 posts. This is to prevent people from making new accounts or docking rep/pumping rep to certain users. Before you reach 15 points + 100 posts, you are able to give rep, but the recipient does not receive any rep points. (some appreciate being acknowledged for their good posts though so don't let that stop you from giving someone rep if you liked their post).

From there you then are given a rep power of "1", and that rep power goes up under any of the following circumstances:

1. Every 100 rep points that are given to you
2. Every 1000 posts that you get to
3. Every 1 year anniversary of you first joining the site.

With regards to the little green bars, you get one of those dark green bars for each 100 rep points that you receive...until a certain point when you get those bright green bars which are given out for every 200 rep points you receive after you pass 500 rep points or something. (this part I don't quite understand). A mod can feel free to edit this post to include whatever I forgot or don't understand well enough...or simply delete it if its wrong lol.

Edit: this thread will help you get a better grasp of the rep system. Just realized everything that I said in this post is on there...might have even been that thread that I read that explained it to me lol.

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@B0ndon

Goalies: If I'm pickin em you best be sittin em!

Must be all that sun in Cali-forn-i-a!

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" You said you don't give a f*ck about hockey. I've never heard anyone say that before."

In reading that it is crazy to look at your rep power and posts count in comparison to mine, when you joined the site in November of 2010, while I joined the site in October, 2010.... You win this round Trebek.... But in all seriousness, that is rather amazing. Well done kind sir!

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" You said you don't give a f*ck about hockey. I've never heard anyone say that before."