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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

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.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

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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MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

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  • #1

    MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

    I did a search and didn't find anything on this.

    http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/walsh...on_050128.html

    MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH
    "I Think This Will All Come Together"

    Walsh
    The Pacers reached the midway point of the season with a 20-21 record, an achievement in some ways but a disappointment in others. Franchise President Donnie Walsh offered his perspective on what has happened in the first half and what needs to happen in the second in a wide-ranging Q&A session with Conrad Brunner of Pacers.com.

    Q. Though your eligible suspended players have returned and the team is now relatively healthy, it seems the team has had trouble moving forward and climbing out of the circumstances created by adversity. Why is that?

    A. A lot of what's happened to us in the last couple of games is a culmination of everything that happened before. You've got a combination of players that seem to be kind of stretched thin because they played more time than they were used to playing when they were carrying the load for a while – and they looked whipped. And then you've got players who are coming back to the team that aren't in shape and even if they play well right away, there is going to be a period where that conditioning starts to kick out for a while; you start to get tired because you went from playing not at all to playing 35 minutes a game. You can do it on adrenaline for so long, and then all of a sudden the bottom drops out. For us, those two elements seem to have come together and we need a rejuvenation.

    Right now, I think we're at the bottom of the pit, as far as the mental outlook if the team seeming to be down right now. As bad as it may seem, that will get better, but you have to pull yourself out of it and that's easier said than done. We really haven't had consistent rotations where we know who's going to be there. There seems to be somebody getting hurt every now and then that disrupts everything. But I think this will all come together and we'll have a chance to be the team we're going to be this year. I think that can be a good team and if we really click, it's a team that could do well in the playoffs. But all things have to happen in the right way.

    Q. What is your level of confidence that the team will regain its stride?

    A. I'm confident that can happen. The only thing you can't discount is that, if you start losing games, no matter who's there or not there, a confidence level kicks in and it starts bringing you down and you must get yourself out of that. There are certain teams that will get out of it, and some teams fight but can't get out of it. You're always afraid that can happen.

    Q. Given the number of combinations of lineups and rotations that have been forced by the team's never-ending wave of adversity thus far, has it been particularly difficult to evaluate the players?

    A. If you start judging players today on how they're playing, you're going to be too harsh on them because when you're missing key elements, there are a lot of players on this team who are going to function at a high level if we have our core players in the game. But if they're not, then you're expecting more out of them than they can deliver. Nobody has a team of 12 stars. Everybody's built around two or three guys that you've got to have and then the other guys fit with that. We've been missing our star players, and obviously may miss one of them for the whole year, and that does have an impact with the other players on the team because they fit with those guys. That's what I see happening right now to a lot of players. They're not going to be in a position to look good.

    Q. Do the circumstances that have arisen in the first half of the season make you more likely, or less likely, to take an aggressive approach to the February trading deadline?

    A. I like to think that we're active all year long and that we're always talking to people and listening to people. The majority of trades should be viewed over a three- or four-year basis, not just on if it's going to make us better for this year. We won't make a trade like that. But if there's a trade out there that will make us better over the course of three years, even if it's a reduction of salary that allows us to do something in the summer, then we should look to do that.

    Q. Given his continued injury problems, do you believe Jonathan Bender can still have an impact this season?

    A. I wish there was an easy answer with that. I did not expect him to be out this length of time this year. I think the doctors are correctly trying to bring him along in a way that he won't step back again. I'm going with their advice on that because I think they're right. And so I think we have to look at Jonathan and if he keeps getting stronger then obviously what they told him to do was right with the idea that he could play at some point in the season and be injury-free, so to speak. But that's what we've got to determine how: where is he physically? When a player's hurt that isn't the time to judge what his future is. You've got to make sure that you're doing the right thing so that he has a career, and that's what we're doing with Bender.

    Q. As well as Jermaine O'Neal has played, he appears to be carrying a lot of the weight of the team's inconsistency on his shoulders. How do you view his evolution as both a player and a leader this season?

    A. It makes it harder on Jermaine when you're missing pieces around him and you put the pressure on him to win the games by himself. There aren't many players that can do that; there are no players, in fact, who can do that. He feels that pressure of trying to win the game without the necessary pieces being out there. But he's doing every single thing he can do. His level of play this year has been the highest it has ever been, but you could have a tendency to wear him down if you keep going to him like this, and we know that. We've been waiting to see if we can get pieces back so we can give him the help that he needs. Take Shaq: if you just put him out there and don't have the right pieces around him, it's going to be very difficult on him, as great as he is. Obviously, Kobe (Bryant) is finding that out.

    Q. For this team to achieve its potential, is the bigger obstacle physical or mental?

    A. It starts with the physical. Now, the suspensions are not going to stop Stephen (Jackson) or Jermaine from playing. They're back. We need to get all the other guys back healthy. It seems like there have been at least two or three guys out every single game. We need to get all of our players back and we need to start in a direction where the players know what their roles are, the players coming in off the bench know when they're coming in, and we get a set rotation. It's been impossible to do that when every night there are two or three guys in and out of the lineup. I don't know how Rick (Carlisle) has done as well as he's done, but the coaching staff has done a great job of trying to piece that together each night. It's caught up with us recently, but I think if we can get our 12 players back and start moving in that direction, we can be a good team. But until that happens it's going to be hard.

    When you get everyone back, you're going to go through a period where you think you should win and you may not be able to right away. But if you can keep the team together, keep their confidence and you start playing good basketball, you will end up winning.
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  • #2
    Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

    We did have a thread on this, I forget the name of it though

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

      As a matter of fact, I called it, "Pacers.com > DW, "I think this will all come together" ". Sorry for disguising the true contents.

      In your defense, it's back on page #3 already.
      Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
      Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
      Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
      Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
      And life itself, rushing over me
      Life itself, the wind in black elms,
      Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

        Originally posted by Jay@Section204
        As a matter of fact, I called it, "Pacers.com > DW, "I think this will all come together" ". Sorry for disguising the true contents.

        In your defense, it's back on page #3 already.

        I missed it. Somebody delete this.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

          No problem... since it didn't generate much discussion, there are probably other people that missed it last week, too...
          Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
          Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
          Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
          Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
          And life itself, rushing over me
          Life itself, the wind in black elms,
          Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

            I'm sure others missed it too... There's been a lot of activity lately.

            -bball
            Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

            ------

            "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

            -John Wooden

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

              What was it Donnie said? "Jonathan Bender will now be seated in a wheel chair so we can use the seat he was using for a player."

              Seemed kind of harsh.
              The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up.

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: MIDSEASON Q&A WITH DONNIE WALSH

                "We've been missing our star players, and obviously may miss one of them for the whole year . . . "

                Interesting that he said "may miss one of them." Obviously he hasn't given up hope of getting Artest back this year. Pure speculation I know, but maybe Stern has told him that he would revalue Artest's punishment after 50 games or so. That would be a more than fit punishment.


                "But if there's a trade out there that will make us better over the course of three years, even if it's a reduction of salary that allows us to do something in the summer, then we should look to do that."


                I'm reading that the front office is not allowed to go higher in spending. In other words the Simon's don't mind going over the salary cap, but they don't want to pay the luxury tax.


                "I don't know how Rick (Carlisle) has done as well as he's done, but the coaching staff has done a great job of trying to piece that together each night."

                So much for the speculation last week about the Pacers getting rid of RC.

                Comment

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