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The Rules of Pacers Digest

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Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

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Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

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  • #1

    Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

    This was published a more than a month ago, but I found it interesting. Sorry if it has been already posted.


    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/10/opinion/10berri.html

    The N.B.A.'s Secret Superstars

    By DAVID J. BERRI
    Published: June 10, 2006
    Bakersfield, Calif.

    THE N.B.A. finals tipped off Thursday night, and while most reports of the Dallas Mavericks' victory over the Miami Heat focused on the stars — Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O'Neal of the Heat and Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Terry of the Mavericks — few mentioned two players who were arguably just as important to the result: Antoine Walker and Erick Dampier.

    To understand why these two gentlemen mattered, one has to look beyond the standard focus on points scored and consider a new way of judging athletic performance: whether a player's actions — both scoring and non-scoring — help his team win or not.

    For several years now, baseball professionals (and rotisserie-league wannabes) have used so-called sabermetrics to judge a player's objective value based on his individual statistics. Of course, because one bats or pitches in baseball without the help of teammates, it is easy to separate a player from his team. Plus, the numbers in baseball are easy to understand: a home run clearly creates more wins than a single.

    Basketball, however, is a true team sport, and thus the numbers are not as obvious. Which is more valuable, a basket scored or the assist that made it possible? Is a rebound more valuable than a blocked shot?

    This is not such a mystery if we are judging the individual impact of, say, Michael Jordan, a player who excelled at every facet of the game. Most N.B.A. players, though, are not "Like Mike." Rather, they contribute in only one or two aspects of basketball, and ascertaining the relative value of such diverse talents is difficult.

    To make it possible to compare the apples and oranges, it helps to look at each statistic in terms of how it contributes to wins. So, along with two other economists, Martin Schmidt of the College of William and Mary and Stacey Brook of the University of Sioux Falls, I developed an algorithm that measures a player's "wins produced" for his team.

    The algorithm begins with the factors tracked for individual players: points, field goal attempts, free throw attempts, turnovers and so on. Then, through a fairly standard statistical analysis, it links these factors to team victories. What we find is that each point, rebound and steal has relatively the same positive impact on wins. Each field goal attempt and turnover has an equal negative effect. The other statistics — like free throw attempts, blocked shots, assists and personal fouls — do matter, but to a lesser degree.

    After an entire 82-game season, we take all these numbers and decipher how many wins every player in the league produced for his team. How accurate is this system? Well, when we add up the wins of each team's players, the results are shockingly close to the official standings. By our measure, Dallas should have won 57.4 games this regular season, and the Heat 51.2 games. In actuality, they won 60 and 52, respectively. For the past 10 seasons, the average difference between our projection and the actual number of games won by each of the league's teams is only 2.3 wins.

    So what does this tell us about individual players? Well, one result is obvious. The players who excel at many aspects of the game produce a lot of wins. In the six years Michael Jordan led the Chicago Bulls to the N.B.A. title, he averaged 23.4 wins per season. Versatile players like LeBron James, who produced 20.4 wins for Cleveland this year, and Kevin Garnett, who produced 26 for Minnesota, also dominate.

    But there are players who score a lot but also have a significant deficiency or two, like poor shooting efficiency or lots of turnovers. These players often have a level of win productivity far below expectations. This group includes supposed superstars like Allen Iverson of the Philadelphia 76ers and Carmelo Anthony of the Denver Nuggets, who this season combined to produce only 13 wins for their teams. Among players in the finals, the Heat's Walker, a three-time All-Star, produced only 1.7 wins; and Jerry Stackhouse of Dallas, who has averaged 20 points a game in his career, actually cost his team a third of a win overall this year.

    Our system also shows that it is possible for a non-scorer to produce high numbers of wins. For example, extreme rebounders like Ben Wallace and Marcus Camby have produced much higher win totals than fans might expect. Wallace led the Detroit Pistons with 20.1 wins produced this season while Camby, despite missing a third of the games because of injury, produced 13.7 wins to lead Denver.

    So, who are the "best" — or most productive players — on the teams vying for the title? Each team has at least one player who does many things well. On Dallas it's Nowitzki, who produced 18 wins this season; the multitalented Wade led the Heat by creating 18.2 victories. O'Neal played in just 59 games this year, so his 8.5 wins produced was low by his standards; but in his career he has averaged 21.3 wins produced per 82 games played.

    Certainly, saying those three players are great is hardly a shock. What might be surprising, however, is the importance of some non-stars. After Nowitzki, Dallas is led in wins produced by Dampier, a low-profile center, and starting forward Josh Howard, who each accounted for 7.8 wins. For the Heat, Wade and O'Neal are primarily assisted by the workmanlike forward Udonis Haslem (7.0 wins produced) and O'Neal's backup, Alonzo Mourning (5.7 wins produced). Of these role players, only Howard averages more than 15 points per game.

    So why do I think Dampier and Walker were vital to Thursday's outcome? Dampier scored only eight points, but he was efficient: making three of four shots and adding seven rebounds. Walker, on the other hand, scored an impressive-seeming 17 points, but he took 19 shots and turned the ball over an astounding six times in the loss.

    What should you watch for in the N.B.A. finals? When looking at the scorers, think about efficiency. And keep an eye on role players like Dampier and Haslem. What the non-scorers do matters, and in fact, it is those players who might ultimately decide who gets to be crowned N.B.A. champions.

    --
    David J. Berri, an economist at California State University at Bakersfield, is a co-author of "The Wages of Wins: Taking Measure of the Many Myths in Modern Sports."
    The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).
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  • #2
    Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

    Of course the role players matter but its the superstars of the team that are called upon to win the game at crunch moments. Role players could be 'efficient' the whole game but with the game on the line you go to your superstar and thats why they are looked at highly and remembered more then the role players.

    I dont really understand his point in the article.
    My Dream Team

    PG - A.Iverson
    SG - K.Bryant
    SF - R.Artest
    PF - J.O'Neal
    C - D.Howard

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    • #3
      Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

      If you ask anyone in Denver around the time when Melo was hitting about 10 game winning shots this year, I don't think they'd say Camby lead them to most wins.

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      • #4
        Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

        Can't hit a game winning shot if you are down by 8. Don't need a game winning shot if you are up by 8.

        Clutch shooting/performing is one part of a huge equation.
        The Miller Time Podcast on 8 Points, 9 Seconds:
        http://www.eightpointsnineseconds.com/tag/miller-time-podcast/
        RSS Feed
        Subscribe via iTunes

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        • #5
          Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false supersta

          Originally posted by FlavaDave
          Can't hit a game winning shot if you are down by 8. Don't need a game winning shot if you are up by 8.

          Clutch shooting/performing is one part of a huge equation.
          Denver won a lot of games last season that they shouldn't have...Melo was the reason.

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          • #6
            Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false supersta

            Originally posted by rexnom
            Denver won a lot of games last season that they shouldn't have...Melo was the reason.

            I didn't watch the Nuggets much, but (if this theory is spot on) I'm guessing that there were several games in which his actions (or lack of actions) hurt the ability of his team to win.

            There are two types of failures in basketball.

            a) failures that are perfectly normal in the flow of a basketball game (missing a jumper when a play is called for you, having the ball stolen from you by a great defensive play)

            and

            b) failures that go outside the normal flow of play (taking shots you cannot hit, throwing passes away).

            The inability to understand the differences between these two is the reason why the Knicks suck so bad.

            Like I said, I don't know Carmello's game very well, and this might be an anomally in the data. But there is a possibility that for every great game he has he follows with a stinker, and they cancel each other out.

            The Nuggets seem especially prone to long losing streaks and early playoff exits, so I wouldn't be shocked if that was the case.
            The Miller Time Podcast on 8 Points, 9 Seconds:
            http://www.eightpointsnineseconds.com/tag/miller-time-podcast/
            RSS Feed
            Subscribe via iTunes

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Interesting but somewhat geeky NY Times opinion piece/analysis on "false superstars"

              Shoot! I would be really interested in seeing the Pacers player ratings for the past few seasons.

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