I’m interested in hearing about who other people find to be really useful contributors here on CD. Since the rep system is gone, maybe people can look here as an alternative to the troll-heavy most likes list to find out whose thoughts are highly valued by the community. I can hope at least.
I myself am most interested in hearing about users that are still active, but if some of you old-timers want to reference even older-timers then be my guest. The criteria for who to mention are pretty loose, it’s just whoever you think has had the most positive impact on you, be that through their work, their team, their personality, or their teaching style. Feel free to mention someone again even if they have already been brought up and explain how they impacted you personally.
Feel free to add as many as you want, but I’ll kick things off with my top 3:
#1 is @Ether: His capacity to analytically approach problems has had a huge impact on me. His ability to ask pointed and leading questions really helped me learn many things, and I’ve tried (with varying levels of success) to implement this teaching style when working with others. He also posted tons and tons of useful whitepapers on both robot design and game data, the latter of which was the foundation for some of my earliest analysis work and the backbone of my first scouting database.
#2 is @Karthik: I remember hearing Karthik’s strategic design presentation many years ago, and it has really impacted how I approach game analysis and match strategy ever since. Additionally, his work developing metrics like calculated contributions and the 1114 scouting database was a direct inspiration for my metrics and scouting databases. Also, I still unabashedly believe 1114 is the GOAT, 254 would have to be dominant for another few years even to have a chance at catching up.
#3 is @JVN: I read his Engineering Design Process guide way back as a student, and it has been a spectacular reference for me ever since. I don’t personally use it much since I usually work more with programming, but the JVN design calculator has also been nothing but helpful to teams I’ve been on.