Panda Express League A fantasy football group

Amendments & Bylaws

13 Jul 2024

Last Updated: July 18, 2024

Summary

The league can vote in new rules & vote to update preexisting rules. The process is:

  1. Create a “Proposal” (Darren can write the long-form for you).
  2. Everyone votes on the Proposal.
  3. If it passes by a simple majority, it goes into the Constitution.

There is an expectation of accountability on Teams and how voting is conducted.

Goal

To establish a stable process that integrates new rules & changes into the league.

Proposal

The process for making changes to the league will go through the phases of “creating a proposal”, “voting”, and “installing the Amendment”. A Proposal will only be submitted for a vote if the owner requests for it.

Failing to be accepted into the Constitution doesn’t disqualify the Proposal from being accepted. If the owner wishes, the same Proposal can be submitted every season. It is worth highlighting that spamming a Proposal every year may incite Teams to vote against it out of malice.

Creating a Proposal

Not every person has the stomach to write long-form articles. If an owner is willing to be patient, the Commissioner will work on transforming their idea into a formal Proposal.

Once a document is created, it will be saved until the league is polled for a new Draft Day.

The survey for finding the best Draft time will also have references to all the submitted Proposals. This keeps it as convenient as possible for everyone.

Voting

A Proposal requires a simple majority to pass.

Each Team will be able to cast a vote for each submitted Proposal. A Team with multiple owners (i.e., co-managers) will still be limited to 1 vote on behalf of all managers in that Team. The Commissioner may cast a vote, but it will only be accepted as a tie-breaker.

Teams has 4 options for casting a vote:

  1. “Yes” — The Team approves of the change and is voting to integrate the changes into the league.
  2. “No” — The Team disapproves of the change and is voting against it.
  3. “Abstain” — The Team is ambivalent and is explicitly not voting.
  4. The Team didn’t vote.

(Options 3 & 4 are further explained under the heading “Appendix C - Lack of Participation”.)

Votes amongst options 1, 2, & 3 will be counted. If there are more than 50.0% approvals in that pool of votes, the Proposal is declared as “accepted” and will be installed in the Constitution. With all 11 Teams voting (12 minus the Commissioner), that is a minimum of 6 “yes” votes.

In the event of a tie, the Commissioner’s vote will be used as the tie-breaker. If the Commissioner did not cast a vote, then the Proposal fails to get a simple majority.

All votes will be publicly visible at the conclusion of the voting period.

Voting - During the Off-Season

The majority of the voting is anticipated to occur during the off-season. The previous heading “Voting” sufficiently covers this process.

Voting - During the Season

Any changes implemented during the season must be unanimous.

Teams build year-long plans based on the rules at the beginning of the season: PPR settings, roster positions, etc. With Keepers, those plans can expand to encompass multiple years. Based on this premise, changes to the league rules & settings in the middle of the fantasy football season would be catastrophic.

Without having off-season trading, this means that the Draft is the only significant where a Team can take drastic actions to adapt to new rules.

The Teams can be respected by setting an incredibly high standard for mid-season changes. By making these decisions unanimous, we can guarantee that every Team has an opportunity to evaluate the changes and use their vote to signal that their long-term plans will not be negatively impacted.

Mid-season votes are likely the result of an emergency situtation that cannot wait for the off-season. This may imply that there is a time-sensitive nature to the vote, which puts social pressure on Teams. To ensure that the rule is truly what the league wants to include, the Amendment must be re-proposed the following season.

Installing

After a successful vote, The Commissioner will codify the Proposal into the Constitution.

The Amendment will also have a dedicated section in the Constitution to ensure that all the relevant information is in the same document.

Dissolving the Amendment Process

Unforeseen circumstances can arise where the amendment process has proven to be insufficient.

An Executive Decision can be implemented to dissolve the amendment process. This will revert the responsibility of changing rules solely on the Commissioner through Executive Decisions.

Executive Decisions

Historically, changes in the league have been unilaterally implemented by the Commissioner. Defining “Executive Decisions” is simply restating the current process.

Liberties were taken to define how the use of Executive Decisions are done with the utmost care. The Commission must not implement an Executive Decision that jeopardizes the league and its existence.

With an Executive Decision, the Commissioner is able to bootstrap the procedure for Teams to curate the Constitution to their liking.

Document History

Date Description
2024-07-18 Final Draft
2024-07-13 Initial Draft

Appendix A - Background

Since the beginning of the league, numerous people have been vocalizing how they want the league to operate. Amongst all the opinions and feedback, there were very narrow solutions that exist where it was impossible to have everyone satisfied.

In addition to the Commissioner maintaining the power to enact change, giving the rest of the league a similar power would provide the Teams the agency to shape the league to their liking.

Appendix B - Written Records

Creating a written record of all of the league rules is fundamental. Once we understand how the league works, we can then move forward with how to integrate changes. The document of all the rules is called “The Constitution”.

Just as importantly, having a written record of each Amendment is crucial.

  • It records what “problem” the change was trying to solve.
    • If the league grows to the point where the Amendment does more harm than good, and the problem the Amendment solved doesn’t exist, voting to repeal the Amendment is a more obvious action to take.
  • It centralizes the information in a designation place.
    • When a conversation is repeated with different people, it is easy to forget certain details or misremember statements.Similarly, different conversations can add new information to an idea, which needs to be relayed to everyone else again.
  • It can be referenced to settle disputes.
    • If the Amendment isn’t specific enough, “put it to a vote” is a firm resolution.
    • Amendments should strive to cover the obvious cases, but do not need to solve every case imaginable. The voting process is self-correcting: if an important detail was overlooked, a new vote will put the matter to rest.

Not only should Amendments have a document focused on their changes, but the Constitution should have a reference to it as well.

Appendix C - Lack of Participation

Teams can choose to not submit a vote on a Proposal. It is unclear whether the Team is too lazy or is saying “I don’t mind either way”.

By specifically having the “abstain” option, this action is much more obvious.

Choosing “abstain” makes it very clear that the Team has acknowledged the Proposal, but does not mind what the result it.

A Team that chooses to not cast a vote is not invested enough in the Proposal, the league, or its outcome. Therefore, their opinion should not affect the progress of the league’s desire for change. Similarly, dissenting opinions on the subject from this Team must and will be ignored, as their opportunity to have a voice in the matter was squandered.