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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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Forbes.com article about Jim Irsay.

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  • Forbes.com article about Jim Irsay.

    http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2008/0929/083.html


    Colt 45
    Monte Burke 09.04.08, 6:00 PM ET
    Forbes Magazine dated September 29, 2008


    Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay may come across as a flaky, 1960s hippie burnout. But no NFL owner has done more with less

    Jim Irsay, owner of the Indianapolis Colts, is pretty sure that he's the only National Football League owner who has his team's logo tattooed on his right shoulder. The 49-year-old, who speaks in the gravelly voice of a pro wrestler and has the physique to match, is also a published poet ("Frozen Lakes of the Confessor" was a tribute to his deceased buddy, Hunter S. Thompson), a songwriter (he wrote an official Colts fight song) and a collector who owns, among other items: guitars from Jerry Garcia and Elvis Presley, Jack Kerouac's 120-foot-scroll manuscript of On the Road and the glasses worn by Mike Myers in the Austin Powers movies. Irsay sees no difference between owning an NFL franchise and his outside interests. "I believe we're all artists, that business is art," he says.

    Irsay is the untucked shirt in the buttoned-up world of NFL owners. (He swears other owners are wackier than most realize. When pressed for examples, he cites the fact that Steelers owner Dan Rooney is a pilot and Jonathan Kraft, son of Patriots owner, Robert, "likes music." Weirdos!) But the NFL's most eccentric owner is also among its savviest--and one of its biggest risk takers.

    Since he took over the team in 1997 after the death of his father, Robert, who will be remembered for his dead-of-night abduction of the Colts from Baltimore, Irsay has consistently produced winning teams on and off the field. Playing in the NFL's ninth-smallest market, in a decrepit stadium that produced only a fraction of the revenue that rivals like the New England Patriots and Houston Texans took in, Irsay made the decision to spend millions of his own money to keep All-Pro players like Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison. The gamble paid off with a 2006 Super Bowl win.
    And unlike some other small-market owners, like the Buffalo Bills' Ralph Wilson, Irsay didn't waste time bellyaching about revenue discrepancies between big cities and small ones. Instead he focused on keeping his franchise competitive by doing a better selling job. One of his first moves as an owner was to bring the radio rights in-house in 1998, the first NFL team ever to do so. Within two years radio revenues tripled; last season they were $3.2 million, more than most other small-market teams got.

    Irsay is also good at finding sponsors--including 50 local ones--twice the count of the average NFL team. During the past five seasons the Colts' advertising and sponsorship revenue has doubled to $15 million. "He's the best small-market owner in the NFL," says Marc Ganis, president of the Chicago consultancy Sportscorp.

    A decrepit stadium can be replaced. In 2005 Marion County and the state agreed to finance all but $100 million of a new $719 million retractable-roof stadium for the Colts. Lucas Oil, a California fuel additives producer (no relation to the Russian Lukoil), chipped in $122 million for naming rights over 20 years. The Colts moved into Lucas Oil Stadium earlier this month. The team is on the hook for only a $66 million loan from the city, which Irsay can pay back over 27 years. The Colts pay a tiny $250,000 in annual rent while reaping all football-related revenues (tickets, parking, concessions, sponsorships), which will add $30 million a year. Remarkably, Irsay faced little resistance from taxpayers asked to pick up so much of the cost. "It's definitely one of the most favorable leases in recent league history," says Robert Vogel, president of the Bonham Group. This year the Colts make a jump in our value rankings, from 21 to 8, as their enterprise value increases 18% to $1.1 billion.

    Irsay's philosophy for the team and for his collecting is the same: identify and obtain quality pieces, then hold on to them. In 1998 he hired Bill Polian, who had built the 1990s Buffalo Bills powerhouse, as general manager. In 2002 he got coach Tony Dungy. Says Irsay, "There are certain moments of opportunity, and you have to seize them." Dungy, who has coached at Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay, says: "When I interviewed for the job, he didn't talk about winning a Super Bowl. He talked about getting established in Indiana, about making a connection with fans, the macrolevel stuff. The winning was to be a by-product." Another difference from other organizations for Dungy: "I was used to signing footballs. Now I sign guitars."

    Irsay displayed the same touch and consistency with players. In 1998 he drafted quarterback Peyton Manning, who's now in his second contract, a seven-year, $99 million deal signed in 2004. He's held on to stars like wide receiver Marvin Harrison ($67 million over seven years) and defensive end Dwight Freeney ($72 million over six years), selling stocks and real estate to pay $100 million in signing bonuses in the last ten years. It's paid off: The Colts are among the most successful teams of the past decade, compiling a regular season record of 105--55, making the playoffs in seven of those years and winning the 2006 Super Bowl. Last year they became the first team in NFL history to win at least 12 games five straight seasons.

    Irsay has also reached out beyond the Indianapolis market. Besides landing sugar daddy Lucas Oil (whose founder, Forrest Lucas, is from Indiana), he got Airtran Airways from Florida and Anheuser-Busch (nyse: BUD - news - people ) from St. Louis as sponsors. Other league owners credit his work as an owner--and his personality--as a significant reason for awarding Indianapolis the 2012 Super Bowl, a rare honor for a cold-weather city. "I voted for Indianapolis because of Jim, because I like him and respect what he's done there," says Patriots owner Robert Kraft.

    Stark contrast to the reign of his father, Robert, who didn't have a lot of admirers. Robert Irsay made a fortune by starting a heating and air-conditioning company that competed with his own father's company. In 1972 Robert bought the Los Angeles Rams for $19 million, then, in a prearranged deal, swapped the team for Carroll Rosenbloom's Colts, then in Baltimore. His ownership tenure was troubled from the beginning. "They say humor is the bridge to sanity, and I laugh like hell about some of the things that happened back then," says Jim. "But at the time it wasn't funny."

    The heavy-drinking Robert Irsay fired coaches at whim and called plays from the owner's box. John Elway, his first draft pick in 1983, refused to play for the team and was traded to Denver, where he led the Broncos to five Super Bowl appearances, winning two. Robert's own mother called him "a devil on earth" in a 1986 Sports Illustrated article. But he's most known for his infamous midnight move of the team from Baltimore to Indianapolis on Mar. 28, 1984, done without notifying the city of Baltimore or the NFL.
    Jim Irsay got a firsthand education in how not to run an NFL franchise, starting as a ball boy in training camp as a teenager. He joined the team full-time in 1982 after graduating from Southern Methodist University, first working in ticketing and public relations, then becoming general manager in 1984. Things didn't get much better for the team after the move. The Colts posted an 85--122 record under the elder Irsay in Indianapolis, never winning more than nine games in a season. "I got fired many, many times," says Irsay.

    But all the while Irsay was learning, from his father's mistakes and from the examples set by some of the founding owners of the NFL, like the Bears' George Halas, who attended Irsay's confirmation and wedding. Jim Irsay has blended his respect for the history of the game, learned at the feet of Halas, with the pro-growth attitude of newer owners, like the Cowboys' Jerry Jones. "As Bob Dylan says, you're either busy being born or you're busy dying," says Irsay. He has battled an addiction to painkillers, which he describes as "a fatal disease." He says: "I am filled with gratitude for having been able to get through that. My dad never had that chance, and it eventually killed him."

    Even with the bounty of the new stadium, this season the Colts will be spending a significantly higher percentage of their revenue on players than several teams in bigger markets, including the Washington Redskins, the Dallas Cowboys and the Houston Texans. And in 2010 both New York teams, the Giants and the Jets, will share a new stadium that will give each team far more revenue than the Colts get from Lucas Oil Stadium. In his small market (a third of the size of nearby Chicago), Irsay has far less room for mistakes. A few bad contracts--like a player with a huge signing bonus who either doesn't pan out or gets injured--would hurt the Colts more than, say, the Redskins, who have had a string of poor personnel decisions and a 74--86 record over the last decade, yet still remain the league leader in revenues.

    A more frightening prospect: an end to the salary cap, which could happen as early as 2010 because the owners opted out of the collective bargaining agreement last spring. If there is a prolonged period where owners can spend as much as they want on players, Indianapolis won't have the cash to compete with richer teams.

    But Irsay sees some benefits to being in a small market, too. "This team has a huge influence on the psyche of the community. I believe in that magic," he says. "I know that I sound like Timothy Leary, but I really believe it."
    And I won't be here to see the day
    It all dries up and blows away
    I'd hang around just to see
    But they never had much use for me
    In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

  • #2
    Re: Forbes.com article about Jim Irsay.

    Good article.

    Irsay has been a fantastic owner.

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