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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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Al's second mother (old article).

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  • Al's second mother (old article).

    Posted many moons ago, but just in case someone missed it.



    http://www.indianapoliswoman.com/cov...ry/99/dec.html


    Mothering the Pacers—
    Kathy Jordan knows NBA from two angles
    by Shari L. Finnell
    For the past 16 years, Kathryn Jordan has been an enigma to Indiana Pacers' fans. Many of them are curious about the woman who is front and center, cheering at virtually every basketball game, or is somewhere nearby while the towering players make public appearances for their awestruck fans.

    Al Harrington, Pacers forward, has introduced Jordan as "his mother away from home." Guard Reggie Miller describes her as a surrogate aunt. Point guardTravis Best willingly obliged when she told him to take off his cap before appearing on Ahmad Rashaad's TV show Inside Stuff.

    Although she's been described as a sister, a mother, and an aunt in Pacers circles, Jordan, 43, officially is a vice president — the first and only female v.p. with the Pacers, and one of the few in the league.

    "Years ago, the kids would ask, ‘Is that your wife?' ‘Is that your agent?'" says Jordan, reflecting on how she, in many ways, grew up with the Pacers because of her lengthy career with the team. "When I first came, I was about the same age as the players. You work very closely with them. They're your buds. Your big brothers. Now that I'm older, some of the kids are asking, ‘Is that your mother?' One day I crossed that line," the easy-going Jordan says with a laugh. "I remember thinking, ‘When did that happen?' "

    As vice president of communications, Jordan's responsibilities are far-reaching. She oversees advertising, public relations, corporate relations, media relations, community relations, web site issues and facility marketing.The busy v.p. is responsible for coordinating the demanding schedules for players' public appearances and community involvement, which amounts to a massive amount of correspondence related to endorsements, speaking engagements, interviews, and television appearances for the increasingly popular team. She participates in the organization of public service projects.

    Additionally, she is founder and current president of the Pacers Foundation, an organization created to expand the community outreach of the team throughout Indiana. Jordan's role with the Foundation consists of developing future growth plans and public speaking engagements.

    Jordan also interfaces with the WNBA, where she performs the same functions. Because the women's division shares the same city, franchise and building, it works in partnership with the men's division.

    Despite her hectic schedule, which includes staying busy as the single parent of her 14-year-old son Evan, Jordan doesn't hesitate to perform the most simple of tasks. When Pacers forward Derrick McKey was greeting fans at a cable TV convention Downtown earlier this year, Jordan was busy unfolding Pacers' calendars so that he could quickly sign autographs. Last season, Jordan noticed that a little boy had dropped his cotton candy during a basketball game. She made sure he got another one.

    Perhaps Jordan's most significant role is her relationship with the players. She's among the first people that new players and their families meet. She gives them practical information, such as where to live and where to eat, and hands out plenty of "motherly" and advice to younger players, as former Pacers player Chuck Person puts it.

    Miller says, "She's very protective. Very, very protective."

    "Sometimes I do get a little too motherly," says Jordan, who laughs easily and exudes calmness. "I have to realize they're grown men. People say I can be too protective."

    However, from the players' perspective, Jordan is indispensable. What she does behind the scenes to keep their lives less complicated eventually translates into how the Pacers perform on the court, says Miller. "It's somewhat of a trickle down effect."

    Person says Jordan goes beyond the call of duty when it comes to making the players' lives easier. "Whatever you need her to do, she will try to get it done."

    "When people want players to do something or speak at some event, she has to be the bad guy if they can't. It takes the pressure off the players and she's more than willing to do it. She really protects the players."

    The players also say she's quick to defend them and takes it personally when they're criticized. "I see the human side of them," she says. "I get upset when I see negative things printed about basketball players. The general public doesn't know what these guys are going through."

    Besides being committed to her job, there are other reasons why Jordan is so defensive about protecting basketball players, their wives, and families. She knows first-hand what it's like to be the spouse of an NBA player.

    "It's brutal," says the ex-wife of Purdue University standout and former NBA player Walter Jordan. "Everybody think it's pretty glamorous, but it's not fun at all. It's tough when your husband is on the road all the time." She says the wives of basketball players often get shoved aside while everyone clamors for the attention of their spouses.

    She had met Walter at Purdue University, where she studied sports education. They married shortly after graduating, then traveled from city to city, while he endured a series of trades and disappointments involving his professional basketball career. Eventually, a serious ankle injury forced him out of the game.

    Jordan had such a distaste for the NBA and how it treated its players during the late '70s and early '80s — they were constantly traded back and forth merely as commodities, she says — that she's surprised that she's now working for the league. However, she points out, the league is a lot different now. "That was during the very early days of the NBA. Things have changed an awful lot. Owners and general managers now understand that these are human beings. They're people."

    Jordan landed her job with the Pacers during the 1983-84 season, shortly after Melvin and Herbert Simon bought the team. But she first worked with her brother, Charles Williams, for Indiana Black Expo.

    Neither job was necessarily her first career choice. While her husband continued to travel with the NBA, Jordan had decided to get her master's degree and try to pursue her own career goal as a teacher and coach. However, when the1974 graduate of North Central High School returned to her hometown of Indianapolis she found a tight job market. The school systems were cutting teachers from their rolls, not adding them.

    Indiana Black Expo, which was much smaller and struggling financially at the time, needed to hire its first full-time employee. The work was demanding. The pay and benefits were virtually nonexistent. "My brother told the staff, ‘Hey, my sister can work here. She's married to a professional basketball player; she can work for free.' So here I had a master's degree, making $100 a week before taxes."

    Even when she later accepted a position as promotions assistant for the Indiana Pacers, Jordan had no intention of sticking around there, either. "Its purpose was to get me to do something else until I could teach. I would love to be able to teach, to this day. The intent was not to stay. I thought at some point the educational thing would turn around."

    However, she did stay with the Pacers — for 16 years and running. During that time she advanced in ranks, working in promotions, community relations, game operations, special events, and special advertising before eventually earning her current title: vice president of communications.

    Her reaction to the promotion? She pauses, then laughs. "I thought, ‘It's about time.' " Reflecting further, she says, "I thought it was a major step on the Pacers' part. There aren't very many women in leadership in the NBA." Although she acknowledges the NBA is definitely a man's environment, she says her co-workers always have been very respectful toward her.

    The walls of Jordan's office reflect her history with the Indiana Pacers. Dozens of photographs of her with current and former basketball players and with staff members share space with posters, banners, jerseys, plaques and other Pacers paraphernalia. One photograph shows her during a game, feeding Evan, only about 3 months at the time and dressed in a tiny Pacers outfit. Cutouts of Pacers coach Larry Bird and mascot Boomer stand guard on opposite ends of her desk. About a dozen of her employee IDs from previous years are lined up along her computer terminal.

    A photograph of comedian Bill Cosby stands out like a sore thumb in this blue and gold shrine, but even he has a connection to the Pacers. Cosby goes back to the days when the Pacers booked entertainers in a marketing effort to lure people to their basketball games, she explains. Working for the team back in those days was particularly gritty, she says. Only about 3,000 people would show up in the 16,530-seat Market Square Arena to watch the struggling team, which had recently switched from the ABA to the NBA. Behind the scenes, the small Pacers staff of 12 worked mightily to come up with strategies to get more people to see the Pacers, who seldom made it to the playoffs.

    "We practically had to give tickets away," says Jordan, who also helped book the Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, B.B. King and the Temptations to perform in post-game concerts in MSA. "The idea was to buy a concert ticket and, while you're there, see a basketball game," Jordan says. "It served its purpose — it got people in the door to see the team. People started coming in and looking at the product."

    During those early days, Jordan and the rest of the staff often would work 12-, 14-, 16-hour days. Some workdays blended into the next workday. Although the staff is now much larger, the work still is demanding, says Jordan, again disputing the perception that a career in professional basketball is glamorous. "You have to have the right reasons for wanting to be here. You can't want to be here because you might be around Michael Jordan," she says. "You're not hobnobbing. It's not a 9-to-5, Monday-through-Friday work schedule. The work is nearly as hard as being a player."

    Jordan's assistant, Kelli Towles, describes the atmosphere as a "calm crazy. There's a lot of stuff going on at once. But it's very organized." She says Jordan manages to stay above it all. "She's very focused. She doesn't get rattled too easy."

    Because of her demanding work schedule, Jordan took her son practically everywhere she went, from the time he was an infant. "If I needed to bring him to work, I did," says Jordan, proudly looking at images of Evan, in different stages of his life, flashing on a computer screen saver. "That's my heart."

    Many of the players have been big brothers and father figures to Evan because of the close relationship among the staff and players. "It's like a family," Reggie Miller says. "It's tight-knit."

    Because of the close relationships that are developed among the players and staff, it's been difficult when the changing needs of the team disrupt the Pacers family. When Wayman Tisdale was traded, Jordan says she and her son cried. "I asked Donnie Walsh, ‘Did you really mean to do that? How could you trade Wayman?' My son was really close to him. He's a great guy," she says.

    Then Herb Williams, another good friend, was traded. Antonio Davis was traded. Her son was devastated again when Chuck Person, who was like an older brother, left. "It's tough," Jordan says. "But it's a business. I've learned to always find the positive in things. I still have the friendships. It's not like you're never going to talk to them again or see them again."

    That positive attitude has helped Jordan in perhaps one of the most challenging points of her life. Last year, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and continued with treatment throughout this year. "I was in shock. Denial," says Jordan of the doctor's diagnosis after she had discovered the suspicious lump.

    Her faith in God helped her get through the difficult time, she says. She underwent a lumpectomy, chemotherapy and 33 radiation treatments. She stopped smoking, read literature that stressed the benefits of positive thinking, and had "conversations with God every day. I do have a strong faith. I tend to chalk up my faith to my mom," says Jordan, a member of Witherspoon Presbyterian Church. "She always had a very strong faith and passed that on to her children. She would pray to God about everything. When we were children, she would tell us that she had prayed for two children, a boy first and then a girl — with long hair. As a child, I would think, ‘Oh, wow. This prayer thing works.'

    "My relationship with God has gotten stronger because of this. All the little cliches like ‘Don't sweat the small stuff' make more sense to me now," says Jordan, who only missed 10 days of work during that time.

    Her brother, Charles, says the cancer diagnosis was devastating for the family. But he knew that she would beat it because of the strong fighting spirit that has characterized her over the years. "She was afraid, of course, but she had the determination to fight back, fight the disease, and not let it beat her," he says of the sister who often golfs and bowls with him. "I knew she would overcome it, and she did."

    Jordan, who started self-breast exams after participating in the NBA's campaign to promote breast cancer awareness, stresses the importance of performing self-breast exams, and encourages women to keep track of changes in their bodies. She says she wasn't as aggressive about taking care of herself as she should have been. "It's a blessing from God that my OB-GYN said, ‘Let's take a look at it.' I probably was too passive about it. If he had said, ‘Come back later,' I would have said, ‘OK. I'll be back in six months.'"

    These days Jordan has a lot to look forward to. She's helping to get things rolling for Indiana's WNBA team, which she considers an amazing accomplishment in the history of women's sports. "We've come a long way. A lot has happened in 20 years." She recalls limited opportunities for girls when she was in high school.

    And, of course, she's looking forward to a winning season for the Pacers. "It gets very personal for me." She equates watching the Pacers play to watching her son play. "I get so emotional. The cheerleader in me comes out. When you see a dirty play and the refs don't call it, I'm out there yelling, ‘Hey!' When they get hurt, I'm somewhere with a tear in my eye."

    Jordan says last season particularly was emotional. "I felt for the guys, especially this year, because they wanted it so bad and they worked so hard. They took responsibility for it. They apologized to the fans because they felt they let the fans down. It really hurt to see the hurt in the guys. You could see it in their eyes."

    Jordan's long-term aspirations vary from realizing her dream of teaching to owning a production and television business. "I don't have any aspirations of being general manager of a team. There's too much stress," she says. "I thought about it when I was in my 20s. Now that I'm 43, it's not that appealing." In the meantime, she plans to continue on the same path she has forged during the past 16 years — providing that invaluable extra line of defense for the Indiana Pacers.
    You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

  • #2
    Re: Al's second mother (old article).

    Interesting! Is she still with the team?

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    • #3
      Re: Al's second mother (old article).

      I believe she is Will. Interesting thing about Ms. Jordan is she is the one that had really pushed for Reggie to get a statue with Dale Ratterman (sp?).

      It was put on the back burner until she brought the idea up again and Fuson was on board. I guess Reggie getting the car from the Simon's was enough appreciation.
      You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

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