This league has never had an official rule regarding bye week starters. I know there are some leagues out there that require a weekly "legal line up", meaning every starter must be active and not on a bye week. However, this is not a standard fantasy rule and is not even an optional rule in the settings for ESPN.
I've been running the MR league for three years now and we have tried to keep the game as simple as possible with standard ESPN rules. I have not gone as far as to create a league constitution with extra rules and policies. So far, it has not been needed.
I hear your concern about "collusion" in terms of a team owner leaving in their bye week players purposefully to give the other owner an advantage. However, I don't think this is the case with
fireshot. Unfortunately, his team has not done well this year and I think he has just given up and is not paying close attention anymore. Sometimes that happens and when it does I keep that in mind the next year when it comes to sign ups for the league. If you will recall we heavily stress at the beginning of the year that we will only take active team owners.
The veterans of our league can tell you that I have not allowed previous coaches back after they failed to manage their team the previous year. Additionally, I have vetoed trades between teams where one was no longer paying attention and didn't care about his team.
That being said, my general outlook on bye weeks is that it is up the individual owner to manage how they see fit. Some owners pay close attention to bye's even in the draft and make sure not to cross over with their players. Others don't care and are willing to "take a hit" if some of their players end up with the same bye week. I don't see this as collusion, but as varying strategies for how to handle the season as a whole. Now, if you have proof or suspicion that a player is purposefully throwing a game by leaving their bye week players in then please let me know and I will further investigate.
It's funny you should bring up trades as a similar question came up in another league I manage. I ran four leagues this year all with the same rules. Here's what I put in my letter that went out in the other league.
It has come to my attention that there is some confusion about the trading of players in our league and thus, as Commissioner, it is my duty to provide some clarification and general education regarding the process.
THE RULES:
The trade rules for the league can be found on the league settings page at ESPN and are as follows:
Trade Limit – No Limit
Trade Deadline – Wednesday, November 23, 12 PM ET
Trade Review Period – 2 Days
Votes Required to Veto Trade – LM Only Vetos
ESPN further clarifies the Veto process:
“Votes Required to Veto a Trade - As the LM you have the option to select a trade veto policy, which is usually done to prevent collusion between two teams. The default setting is that only you as the LM can veto pending trades and you have the option to allow your fellow league members to vote on it. If you wish to allow your league owners to vote on pending trades, select the number of teams required to veto a trade.”
The standard policy for the league has been the same since it started three years ago and that policy is the ESPN default setting that the League Manager alone has the power to veto a trade. What that means is that when a trade is proposed the players involved have 48 hours to agree to the trade in order for it to process. Once it has been agreed upon the League Manger has to approve or veto the trade. The trade is processed once both players have agreed to the terms and the League Manager has approved the trade. 48 hours is allowed, but not required for the completion of the process.
I then went on to cite several online articles about trade policies that weigh the pros and cons of doing it various ways. The bottom line is I don't like allowing team owners to vote on trades. First, with an online league it's a time consuming process. Someone might not be able to vote or doesn't get to the vote in time. Second, I trust myself to be impartial more than I trust team owners to be impartial. For example, if a trade goes down that makes the team you are tied with for the division lead better, then why wouldn't you veto that trade? Evaluating trades is a difficult process, but from all the research I've done the commonly accepted reason for denying a trade is collusion and I think that the league commissioner is in the best position to judge that. If you would like for me to send you a copy of the complete letter I can as it goes into much more detail on the subject.