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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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Sitting Down with Dungy

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  • Sitting Down with Dungy

    In his weekly conversation with Colt's.com, Dungy says that, among other things, he feels the coverage units are on the up and up. The Colt's didn't even know until about 2:45 Sunday that Aaron Moorehead would not be backing up Marvin and had about forty five minutes to formulate a new offensive gameplan, with Gonzo lining up wide for the first time and Fletcher coming in as the second tight end.

    http://cache.colts.com/sub.cfm?page=...5-69e0cf58b3c7
    By John Oehser - Colts.com

    Question: A 33-14 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday. You called it perhaps your most gratifying victory as a head coach. That was a big victory over your former team, but the Colts had several players down with injuries. It was wasn’t so much beating the Bucs as it was the way the Colts won, was it?


    A: That, to me, gets you excited – when you have a little adversity and you see how your team is going to respond. When you have guys you really have confidence in, and you feel like they’re going to do a good job, but you then go out there and do it . . . that was really something special.


    Q: You’ve always talked about that, even back to when you were the Head Coach in Tampa Bay – that when players are down, replacements have to play well. That sort of victory says a lot of about what you think is important in the NFL, doesn’t it?

    A: We’ve had that in the past and I think a lot of good teams have that – most good teams have that – where guys just expect to step up. They don’t change a whole, whole lot and everybody has confidence in the guys that go.


    Q: How much of that is the approach of the organization? Here, everyone says over and over again, “It’s the next man up.” A lot of it is psychological, isn’t it?

    A: The game is so much mental. If you approach it at the beginning of the week, ‘Gee, we hope this guy can play and if they don’t play, we’re going to have to do this, this and this’ – I just never really believed in that. I always figured you take the approach, ‘OK, these guys probably won’t play. Here’s who’s going to play. Here’s how we’re going to win the game – with these guys.’ So often, it’s belief. When your guys believe they can get the job done, that’s three-quarters of the battle.


    Q: You’ve told the story before about how a year before you got to the Steelers, Pittsburgh lost the AFC Championship Game to Oakland. Running backs Rocky Bleier and Franco Harris missed that game and you said Steelers Head Coach Chuck Noll often said he wished he would have said early in the week that the backs were out – that he thought that would have made a difference . . .

    A: Being with Coach Noll, that was one of the things he always stressed by the time I got there. I learned later on that he felt like that was one of the things he didn’t do in that game. He said, ‘This guy might play; hopefully, this guy will be back,’ instead of just saying, ‘This is what we’re going to do and this is how we’re going to win.’ Some lessons stick with you a long time.


    Q: Guys filling in wasn’t the only story Sunday. What else did you see that went right to enable the Colts to beat a team that came in leading the NFC South?

    A: We did the things we talked about doing. This was a team that had been hot. They were playing their tempo, playing with a lead. We felt like we had to stop the running game early and we had to score points early with good execution. When we got the lead, we ran the ball and didn’t turn it over and didn’t give up big plays. A lot of the things we talked about during the week we focused in on. The one area I was worried about was special teams. I thought we’d have a trickle-down effect with a lot of new guys playing. They (the Buccaneers) had been exceptional on special teams. They had a lot of speed. I thought we matched their speed and won the field-position battle.


    Q: That’s something that has been lost this season. The Colts have allowed a long kickoff return, but overall, the coverage has been pretty solid, hasn’t it?

    A: It has been better. It really has. It has been a lot better. We had one long punt return and since then, we really haven’t had a return against us, so we can’t get that average down. We’ve had a lot of fair catches and touchbacks. We’re in the upper echelon in kickoff coverage (seventh in the AFC) even though we’ve given up the long one for a touchdown. The overall coverage is much, much better. I feel better about it.


    Q: There once was a time if wide receiver Marvin Harrison missed a game, the offense had a good chance to struggle. On Sunday, Harrison was out with a knee injury, and quarterback Peyton Manning threw two touchdown passes and the Colts scored 30 points for a fourth time in five games . . .

    A: Our offense has evolved. I said a couple of years ago I didn’t see Marvin catching 125 passes in a year again, even though he could. I just didn’t see it with the way our offense had evolved and the number of guys contributing. That was a plus Sunday, and it was a plus in ‘03, that you do have other places to go and other guys who can fill in. You don’t have just a tremendous sense of, ‘Oh, what are we going to do now?’



    Q: The Colts were without their leading rusher, Joseph Addai, and an eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver (Harrison) Sunday. Still, 30 points and 400 total yards. It shows you the level that tight end Dallas Clark and wide receiver Reggie Wayne have reached, doesn't it?


    A: It shows you how much talent there is at other places on the offense, and I think it really shows how good Peyton really is. What people will probably never understand is we go in and practice all week like we don’t have Marvin, but we practice with Aaron Moorehead playing right wide receiver and Anthony (Gonzalez) in the slot. All of a sudden, at 2:45 on Sunday, we realize Aaron’s not going to be able to play and Anthony’s going to be out wide and we’re going to be two tight ends the whole game. The fact that that never really changed Peyton’s thought process and we were able to go out and function and put up 400 yards with a different type of game plan that we really just talked about for about 45 minutes is remarkable.

    Q: And it seemed the Colts basically had to run everything from pretty much the same offensive set . . .

    A: Mm-hmm. We were going to have Anthony outside and Dallas and (tight end) Bryan Fletcher inside. That was the way we were going to have to go and feature that and see how they played. If they had played nickel, we were going to have some different things, but that was our group that day and that didn’t evolve until about three o’clock.

    Q: In that situation, how much does Dallas Clark’s versatility help?

    A: It does help you tremendously, that you can play a two tight-end look. You can play what amounts to a three-wide receiver look. You can move him around to different places to try to get mismatches. You can be very versatile. The fact that he can play inside and outside, and Anthony and Reggie can – they all have to understand the offense. You can still be multiple even when we didn’t substitute. That helps.

    Q: This is a third consecutive season with a 5-0 start. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it really is impossible to underestimate the importance of having that early lead in the division, isn’t it? It changes the dimensions of the season.

    A: It helps you tremendously. I really have to attribute it to our offense really functioning. This could have been catastrophic Sunday. It’s a game you could lose and you could have said, ‘Hey, we’re playing a hot team and we didn’t have six starters.’ But the fact that our offense could execute early in the season no matter how it goes . . . Four years ago (in a 38-35 victory over Tampa Bay), we were the same way. (Running back) Edgerrin (James) was out. We had (wide receiver) Troy Walters making big catches. (Running backs) Ricky Williams and James Mungro. We had Marvin that night, but it was the same thing. You had other guys functioning when you really needed it. That’s a tribute to our offensive coaches.

    Q: The Colts started 13-0 in 2005, 9-0 last season and 5-0 this season. You’ve been through seasons where you weren’t 5-0. Do you ever step back, pinch yourself and say, ‘This is special?’

    A: It is and people may never appreciate it as much as you should. I mentioned last week that Pittsburgh hadn’t been 4-0 in so many years. I was watching the Green Bay-Chicago game Sunday night and it said (Packers quarterback) Brett Favre was trying to get to 5-0 for the first time ever. You assume it’s a little easier than it is because we’ve done it a few times now, but it’s unusual and to string that many back to back – I know how difficult it is.

    Q: You don’t look ahead much at the schedule, but you do break seasons down into quarters. The Colts’ next four games are at Jacksonville, at Carolina, home against New England and at San Diego. Any thoughts on that four-game stretch?

    A: I thought this game (Tampa Bay) would be key, to go into the bye week with a win, because we’re coming up with two away games – Monday Night (Jacksonville) and Sunday (Carolina) back to back on the road. That’s hard to do, so you want to come in with some momentum. These next two games will tell us a lot of where we’re going to be.

    Q: Everybody around the NFL is talking New England, but the Patriots aren’t a factor in your thinking yet.

    A: No. I think these games are more important – No. 1, the Monday Night game is a division game on the road. Then, coming off that Monday Night game, which is hard to do – road Monday Nights, the following Sunday is always tough. Those two are really going to be difficult. They’ll tell us where we are. That (the Jacksonville game) is the most critical game of the year to us right now. We’ll have a chance to give ourselves a cushion in the division if we can win that one. Jacksonville’s going to look at it the same way – that it’s their chance to bring us back to the pack. If they don’t, they’ve got to assume it’s going to be tough for anybody else to win the division.

    Q: Overall, what are your thoughts on this team as you head into the bye?

    A: I think we have the potential to do some pretty good things. I don’t think we still have played complete games yet, but we’re building a good team. A lot of guys are contributing. We’re doing the things we always talk about – few penalties, giveaway-takeway, limiting big plays, making big plays. The elements are in place. We’re off to a good start, so I’m pretty optimistic at this point.


    Brannon Condren
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