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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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An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

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  • #1

    An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

    There is a link to this message on the top of the main page.

    Sounds like there might not be a next season. Maybe someone with a little more tech knowledge can tell me just how bad this is but to me it looks like their sending up flares & the ship is going down.



    Sports.ws in 2006-2007



    It's no secret Sports.ws focuses almost all of its effort on its basketball game. We've always wanted to offer a great game for one sport rather than a bunch of mediocre games for a bunch of sports. We always hoped for more resources to expand to more sports. Unfortunately, at this point, we can barely accommodate basketball and are concerned about next season (2006-2007). Our primary goal is to have the service up and running as well as, or better, than ever. To do this, we are going to need to recruit part-time tech help, or perhaps hand the reins over to new management entirely.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    If you are interested in applying for part-time work, see the options below. We do not have a pay rate in mind yet, and are open to the idea of offering premium services in exchange for some of the work (if that interests you). All work can be done remotely from anywhere in the world.

    Job: Developer / Database Administrator

    Responsibilities: Work periodically to iron out bugs and maintain database integrity. During peak times (draft time, early season), certain data mining and mass organization may be required (triggered mostly by custom requests, old imports). Work shouldn't exceed 10 hrs / week (except perhaps in October or November) and coding new and upgrading existing features will fill any time bug-fixing and data-mining don't consume.

    Requirements: Extensively knowledge of PHP, Perl, and MySQL required; familiarity with *nix shell languages, C, and Sybase a bonus. Experience with Linux and Solaris administrator is an especially nice advantage. It is necessary for you to be able to read and understand code and code references, even if you are not familiar with every command. We are looking for both junior and senior level people at this position and are most interested in those willing and able to learn fast and adapt to current platforms quickly. Many hours may not be required, but consistent communication and check-ins are important.


    Job: Customer Service Representative

    Responsibilities: Primarily respond to requests and e-mails initiated by users. A majority (95%) of problems and requests can be handled through our custom web admin interface. The remaining might require the help of a tech specialist (bug fixes, etc). You need not be versed in low-level computer programming, but you will need to be able to identify which problems can be solved with our web tools, and which require more assistance (the less help you need, the better). Much of this you can pick up during remote training. Hours are flexible and off-hour work or work done in non-US time zones is encouraged to maintain a quick CS response. Exceptional candidates may be asked to conduct polls, communicate with users, and propose and design new features and upgrades.

    Requirements: You should have exceptional communication skills and be able to navigate the web as an expert. Experience with Excel or any database or programming is a big plus. Hours are very flexible.



    If you are interested in either job, e-mail hr@sports.ws and include the title of the job you are interested in, a current resume, hours and availibility between August 2006 and May 2007, and (optional) any salary or hourly pay requests. Please also indicate why the part-time work interests you, and why you want to work with the site.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    For the more adventurous spirits, we are considering handing over part or all of the physical, technical, and creative resources owned and acquired by Sports.ws. We would love to sell all intellectual property, servers, even the domain name, at heavily discounted rates. Sports.ws has been around as 94feet.com and Gametime.ws since 1997, and the gameplay has been in use since 1995. A massive userbase, premier .WS domain name, automated gameplay and scoring, a profitable business model, code to integrate financial transactions, multiple servers and hosting, and a finely tuned administrative interface to manage the entire site are just some of the assets we possess.

    Why would we come out and advertise this in a not-so-subtle manner? The truth is we want to plan ahead and if a party interested in acquisition were to surface, we would want to allow plenty of time to make a smooth hand-off in time for next season. Why advertise to the average user? With resources already thinning, we honestly don't have the ability to target larger companies with the perfect sales pitch and don't have much to lose advertising here.

    Our game has always been the alternative to mainstream large-site games much like our .WS name is an alternative to mainstream .COM. We're different, but proud of it. We don't take our situation likely and will be flexible in considering any serious inquiries made. If you have an interest in acquiring Sports.ws in part or as a whole, send an e-mail to sports_sales@sports.ws and be sure to include your intentions and ideas for compensation. We can respond to serious requests with plenty of information and answers to any questions. Please, legitimate inquiries only.


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Thank you for your continued participation in our games.


    Regards,

    P.C. Butler
    Owner, Sports.ws LLC




    We may not be able to answer all correspondence sent to hr@sports.ws or sports_sales@sports.ws. We will consider all e-mail carefully and contact you if interested.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

    hmmm..

    sounds like we need a backup plan.

    are there any other sites have leagues like this based upon head-to-head play and not average stats?
    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!).

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

      What about yahoo?

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

        Originally posted by pacertom
        hmmm..

        sounds like we need a backup plan.

        are there any other sites have leagues like this based upon head-to-head play and not average stats?
        I looked real hard a couple seasons ago but found absolutly nothing close to how this game is played.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

          I know of nothing similar. But I can't say I've looked real hard.

          I can't see myself having any time to help them out, nor do I have the funds to buy their site or the time to run the site.

          And I really don't want to write fantasy basketball software. Once, about 15 years ago, I took a couple days off of work and wrote software to run the fantasy football league I was in. This was before these programs took off. I should have commericalized and "web enabled" the dang thing. Probably would have ended up selling it to Yahoo or Sportsline or somebody during the bubble.

          Then buying a boat and living in the islands and drinking rum all day long.

          !@#$!@#$@!$ hindsight is painful sometimes.
          You're caught up in the Internet / you think it's such a great asset / but you're wrong, wrong, wrong
          All that fiber optic gear / still cannot take away the fear / like an island song

          - Jimmy Buffett

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

            Originally posted by Hicks
            What about yahoo?
            Yahoo is fun for football, but I hated the format with basketball. Just my two bits........
            Dallas Clark>Tony Gonzalez

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

              A couple of years ago when sports.ws started asking for money I checked out several sites. I bookmarked this one because I thought some of the Keeper League Rules were worth looking at.

              They use a head-to-head format where each team plays 2 games/week. For each of your players, their scores from the first 2 games their NBA team plays in a given week are tallied (if they play in 3 or more games those don't count). They use a 1 Fantasy point for everything system. The commissioner also must have a lot more spare time on his hands than I do.

              http://www.fantasybasketballfederation.com/

              If it looks like our site isn't operating next season, and if I don't have an alternative, I'll e-mail their commish and ask what they use for software.
              The poster formerly known as Rimfire

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                We could do it ourselves by hand.

                Although theoretically if you set up the algorithms in Excel... it'd only take a week instead of a month.

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                  Originally posted by Hicks
                  We could do it ourselves by hand. .
                  Been there. Done that. Wrote a program so I wouldn't have to do it again...

                  Why, I remember when we had to type in the NFL scores from the newspaper...

                  HEY! YOU KIDS!!! GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!!!




                  Seriously, back in the day the hardest part was getting the stats. Once I wrote a bunch of Perl scripts to scrape box scores from USA today, things got a bit easier.

                  Until they changed their format.

                  So I'd fix them.

                  And then they'd change their format. Again.


                  Today, I kinda have the same issue with RoboDoug. He pulls the results from the Pacer games automatically from nba.com. But, if they change their format, and they have several times over the past couple of years, it breaks and I have to adjust the code.

                  There might be a site out there now that offers free stats feeds, but I haven't looked for one in a while.

                  The rest of it is a simple matter of programming. Of which, I don't have the time for.
                  You're caught up in the Internet / you think it's such a great asset / but you're wrong, wrong, wrong
                  All that fiber optic gear / still cannot take away the fear / like an island song

                  - Jimmy Buffett

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                    I've looked at it, their site adn what ever there was to look into it, but their request for capital or take-over is quite clear, though funny, like anyone would make an offer without knowing what the entire operation pertains.

                    I am sure I can get someone to write the dbase part, no problem, the datamining from where ever would be the problem, as Doug stated. but a dbase (preferably oracle) would be "easy" inlcuding setup options for whatever.
                    However, that is the backoffice part, not the front.
                    If there are volunteers for a project, then I am prepared to have the backoffice done and the hosting, but I need a few people to design, write and build the front end.
                    So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

                    If you've done 6 impossible things today?
                    Then why not have Breakfast at Milliways!

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                      For the more adventurous spirits, we are considering handing over part or all of the physical, technical, and creative resources owned and acquired by Sports.ws. We would love to sell all intellectual property, servers, even the domain name, at heavily discounted rates. Sports.ws has been around as 94feet.com and Gametime.ws since 1997, and the gameplay has been in use since 1995. A massive userbase, premier .WS domain name, automated gameplay and scoring, a profitable business model, code to integrate financial transactions, multiple servers and hosting, and a finely tuned administrative interface to manage the entire site are just some of the assets we possess.

                      Why would we come out and advertise this in a not-so-subtle manner? The truth is we want to plan ahead and if a party interested in acquisition were to surface, we would want to allow plenty of time to make a smooth hand-off in time for next season. Why advertise to the average user? With resources already thinning, we honestly don't have the ability to target larger companies with the perfect sales pitch and don't have much to lose advertising here.

                      Our game has always been the alternative to mainstream large-site games much like our .WS name is an alternative to mainstream .COM. We're different, but proud of it. We don't take our situation likely and will be flexible in considering any serious inquiries made. If you have an interest in acquiring Sports.ws in part or as a whole, send an e-mail to sports_sales@sports.ws and be sure to include your intentions and ideas for compensation. We can respond to serious requests with plenty of information and answers to any questions. Please, legitimate inquiries only.
                      Anyone actually made contact with them about cloning them for a price, or getting some serious software help from them?
                      Hey! What're you kicking me for? You want me to ask? All right, I'll ask! Ma'am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                        I considered, but did not do at the time, the offer (as far as i know) is no loner "open" but I will contact them for options that they think are still available.

                        Don't forget that in order to take something like this over you will need serious dollars, not just the take-over, because frankly the hardware and such I would likely not be interested in, nor the hosting as you will understand, but also in preparation for what is to come, the userbase can be "nice" but remember that they couldn't make it to work, otherwise it would not be for sale or closing down part of the ops, but will draw a serious exchange on your resources.

                        So in short I figured that only if I had financial backing woudl this be possible and considering they could not make it work, I would have hard time selling it to potential investors.

                        I have emailed them to see what "can" happen as in source and such, and if they have "numbers" available, and work with that, but this will not stop the dev going on already sometimes it is wiser to just do it "anew" instead of taking over a losing prop.

                        But thanks for posting this Skaut I couldn't find it anymore.
                        So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

                        If you've done 6 impossible things today?
                        Then why not have Breakfast at Milliways!

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                          That's what I was thinking about: The source code.

                          the userbase can be "nice" but remember that they couldn't make it to work, otherwise it would not be for sale or closing down part of the ops, but will draw a serious exchange on your resources.
                          I know, I know. I'm just so disappointed I'm reaching.
                          Hey! What're you kicking me for? You want me to ask? All right, I'll ask! Ma'am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Re: An annoucement from Sports.ws about next season

                            Originally posted by Skaut_Ech View Post
                            That's what I was thinking about: The source code.



                            I know, I know. I'm just so disappointed I'm reaching.
                            Skaut; I AM developing a site that will do the same, you will not be out, no matter where we get with this, as I wrote them in the meanwhile.

                            There WILL be a site doing this for all thowse concerned, just don't expect EVERYTHING to be as it was
                            So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

                            If you've done 6 impossible things today?
                            Then why not have Breakfast at Milliways!

                            Comment

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