I want to propose some changes for future First Year Player Drafts. The proposals will be individually considered for a referendum.
1) Change the draft clock to 12 hours for all rounds.
Reasoning: 1) This is easier to keep the draft running. I'm not staying on all hours to make sure the draft keeps moving, so it gives people more time. 2) I feel like there is lower GM involvement, especially once a GMs missed their pick and were placed on autodraft.
2) Skip instead of auto draft from the 3rd round on. If a GM misses their pick, they are skipped instead of placed on autodraft starting in the 3rd round. If a team does not make their pick within the clock time in the first 2 rounds, the team receives an auto pick just as they do now. This prevents teams with inactive GMs from missing out on good players at the beginning of the draft. Teams would be allowed to make up their pick, if desired. They could also request to be placed on auto draft. Of course, teams without GMs would be placed on auto pick throughout the draft.
Reasoning: This should eliminate the extra work of updating excess picks by GMs who have checked out of the draft, but not made it known. It also prevents the draft dragging on in the latter rounds with GMs who were automatically placed on autodraft. With only 60 total spots in FGM, many of these later picks will just end up being released, which will be additional work too.
Please reply to this thread. If there are at least 8 GMs who support either of these items, it will be turned into a referendum and put up for a vote.