Since joining as part of the giant Season 25 Reddit class, the International Simulation Football League (ISFL) has gained a special place in my heart as the best online community I have ever been a part of. While I've been active on internet message boards before, I have almost always been content to take the part of a lurker who reads the news and ideas that other people share. However, I have rarely felt comfortable putting myself and my thoughts out there to be judged by the anonymous readers who I don't know very well.
When I signed up to participate in this league after clicking through on the Reddit post, I thought I would likely play the same role in this league. I was excited to have my own player and see how well they could perform, but I wasn't sure to what extent I would interact with other users or participate myself in the discussion around the league. Honestly, if I didn't already have a Discord account that I barely used at the time, I might not have even opted to join the league Discord server. Fortunately, I did, and while I was overwhelmed by the chaos happening in gen chat, I was messaged by a very friendly Rookie Mentor who invited me to the DSFL server. In that much calmer space, the positivity and friendliness of the community immediately made it hard to stand back on the sidelines.
As I was still figuring things out, it was great to get help from the wonderful Rookie Mentor team about how to earn TPE for my player and just use the site functionality in general. Then, once I had figured out how to make my player's wiki page and posted it for the 10 TPE, I felt like I should share it back to the server to give back in some way to the people who had helped me figure it out. Talking about my wiki page got me noticed by Maglubiyet, one of the scouts for the London Royals, and before I knew it I had DMs scouting me for the upcoming DSFL draft. While I was very unsure about myself and how I might come across to teams, it was really exciting to be involved in an active way in the league and talking to other users extensively about my player, how I might fit on a team, what kind of things I wanted to accomplish, etc. At that point, I was hooked.
Since then, I have obviously gotten more and more comfortable participating to the point where now a significant chunk of my online time is spent hanging out on Discord with many leaguemates who I would consider good friends. So, a huge thanks to all of the wonderful people who make this such a great community to be a part of and such a welcoming place that made me feel comfortable putting myself out there virtually.
When I signed up to participate in this league after clicking through on the Reddit post, I thought I would likely play the same role in this league. I was excited to have my own player and see how well they could perform, but I wasn't sure to what extent I would interact with other users or participate myself in the discussion around the league. Honestly, if I didn't already have a Discord account that I barely used at the time, I might not have even opted to join the league Discord server. Fortunately, I did, and while I was overwhelmed by the chaos happening in gen chat, I was messaged by a very friendly Rookie Mentor who invited me to the DSFL server. In that much calmer space, the positivity and friendliness of the community immediately made it hard to stand back on the sidelines.
As I was still figuring things out, it was great to get help from the wonderful Rookie Mentor team about how to earn TPE for my player and just use the site functionality in general. Then, once I had figured out how to make my player's wiki page and posted it for the 10 TPE, I felt like I should share it back to the server to give back in some way to the people who had helped me figure it out. Talking about my wiki page got me noticed by Maglubiyet, one of the scouts for the London Royals, and before I knew it I had DMs scouting me for the upcoming DSFL draft. While I was very unsure about myself and how I might come across to teams, it was really exciting to be involved in an active way in the league and talking to other users extensively about my player, how I might fit on a team, what kind of things I wanted to accomplish, etc. At that point, I was hooked.
Since then, I have obviously gotten more and more comfortable participating to the point where now a significant chunk of my online time is spent hanging out on Discord with many leaguemates who I would consider good friends. So, a huge thanks to all of the wonderful people who make this such a great community to be a part of and such a welcoming place that made me feel comfortable putting myself out there virtually.
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