Announcement

Collapse

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.
See more
See less

Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

    What the heck - let's see what folks think about this. I'm leaving it private in case someone's embarassed or something. I think from the College Football Thread everyone can figure out how I voted. I'm including the 4 teams with 1 or zero losses, so long as they won their Bowl Game (sorry Boise St).
    20
    Florida
    45.00%
    9
    Utah
    50.00%
    10
    USC
    5.00%
    1
    Texas
    0.00%
    0
    The poster formerly known as Rimfire

  • #2
    Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

    Utah, until proven otherwise.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

      Has to be Florida. Utah looked great against an injury ravaged Alabama team but I think Florida would demolish them.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

        I voted for Utah. To me an arbitrary computer formula does nothing to prove that Florida could beat them ont he field. I'd have to see it done with my own eyes to think that any of the teams above could beat them on a neutral field.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

          Originally posted by Moses View Post
          Has to be Florida. Utah looked great against an injury ravaged Alabama team but I think Florida would demolish them.
          Therein lies the problem with the BCS.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

            I don't really care. I'm just glad it's not Alabama.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

              I think that Florida has he most quality wins by a good margin, so I think that they have earned it. Their one loss looked bad at the time until the team that beat them routed Texas Tech in their bowl. I would like to see a playoff, though, and I was thrilled by watching Utah.

              If the question were instead, "who do you think would win a NCAA CFB playoff", I would probably say USC. But their weaker schedule and loss to Oregon St. lowers then in my eyes based upon their body of work.

              Texas couldn't stop Ohio State a bit, and the Buckeyes could have beaten then with better play-calling to avoid settling for field goals. Utah impressed me a lot. I really hate to see them not get their due. 4th in the coach's poll? no way...
              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


              • #8
                Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                I think that Florida has he most quality wins by a good margin, so I think that they have earned it. Their one loss looked bad at the time until the team that beat them routed Texas Tech in their bowl. I would like to see a playoff, though, and I was thrilled by watching Utah.

                If the question were instead, "who do you think would win a NCAA CFB playoff", I would probably say USC. But their weaker schedule and loss to Oregon St. lowers then in my eyes based upon their body of work.

                Texas couldn't stop Ohio State a bit, and the Buckeyes could have beaten then with better play-calling to avoid settling for field goals. Utah impressed me a lot. I really hate to see them not get their due. 4th in the coach's poll? no way...
                There it is again.

                Wouldn't it be nice to just have a definitive champion, like, well, pretty much every other sporting structure on the planet?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                  Utah. Unbeaten, again. And nothing to show for it. BCS is such a joke.


                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                    Originally posted by Shade View Post
                    There it is again.

                    Wouldn't it be nice to just have a definitive champion, like, well, pretty much every other sporting structure on the planet?


                    Nobody is debating that. I imagine that there is near unanimous agreement among us that a playoff of sometime is preferable to polls and computers deciding it.

                    NCAA Division III football started their 32 team tournament the week before Thanksgiving and 4 weeks later had their national champion crowned, in time for eveyone to finish finals and go home for Christmas. There ought to be a way to do an 8-teamer in the NCAA Div I, but $$$$$$$$s rule and the bowls are afraid of becoming irrelevant.

                    The question was who deserves it given the crappy system we have now. Florida played about 8 very good teams and beat 7 of them, Utah played about 4 very good teams and beat them all. Now is there any way that more than 4 very good teams would even want to schedule Utah home-and-home? Probably not, and that's another problem.

                    I would love to see Utah-Florida next week.

                    I'd love to see Obama invite both Florida and utah to the White House for the traditional champions visit. Maybe he will do it, since he hates the BCS!
                    Last edited by Slick Pinkham; 01-09-2009, 06:11 PM.
                    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


                    • #11
                      Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                      Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                      NCAA Division III football started their 32 team tournament the week before Thanksgiving and 4 weeks later had their national champion crowned, in time for eveyone to finish finals and go home for Christmas. There ought to be a way to do an 8-teamer in the NCAA Div I, but $$$$$$$$s rule and the bowls are afraid of becoming irrelevant.
                      This is what bugs me - you can still have every bowl. If you go with 8 teams you pick 7 bowls to be playoff bowls, rotate 'em around just like they do now with the BCS and keep all the other bowls for non-playoff teams. Limit teams to 11 regular-season games so the most anyone plays is 14. If you go one step further and have 16, then you have 15 playoff bowls.

                      I know what the issue is - $$$$. Nothing else.

                      As for Utah over Florida, Florida beat Alabama in a narrow victory in a game they trailed in with less than 10 minutes left at a neutral site - Atlanta.

                      Utah went ahead 21-0 and never took their foot off Alabama's throat in a game where they had to go to New Orleans - SEC territory.

                      I'm not sure how Alabama became injury-ravaged between the Florida & Alabama games but I know Utah dominated them - nearly outgaining them 2:1 - while they played Florida close to even-up.

                      Based on their game against a common opponent, I pick Utah.
                      The poster formerly known as Rimfire

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                        based upon the one common oppoenent, sure.

                        But it gives no credit for UF beating LSU by 30, Georgia by 39, Kentucky by 58, Vanderbilt by 28, South Carolina by 50, Florida State by 30, Miami by 23, all without any hints of running up the score.

                        Utah won by 3 points or less vs. Michigan, Oregon State, New Mexico, and TCU.

                        The Utes were good. They were not dominating for much of the season.
                        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


                        • #13
                          Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                          Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                          based upon the one common oppoenent, sure.

                          But it gives no credit for UF beating LSU by 30, Georgia by 39, Kentucky by 58, Vanderbilt by 28, South Carolina by 50, Florida State by 30, Miami by 23, all without any hints of running up the score.

                          Utah won by 3 points or less vs. Michigan, Oregon State, New Mexico, and TCU.

                          The Utes were good. They were not dominating for much of the season.
                          This about sums it up. That is also not mentioning Alabama had their worst game of the year against Utah. (Mainly due to injuries, but suspending their dominant tackle didn't help etiher.) As a Georgia fan, I really hate Florida and wish they weren't the best..but they just are.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                            Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                            My point is, tons of fans are making arguments (many of them legitimate) as to why they think a particular team deserves to be champ (or at least in the title game). But, as we sports fans should well know, games are won or lost on the field/court.

                            Let the teams play it out.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Who Do You Think Deserves to be the Number 1 ranked Team in NCAA College Football?

                              Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                              based upon the one common oppoenent, sure.

                              But it gives no credit for UF beating LSU by 30, Georgia by 39, Kentucky by 58, Vanderbilt by 28, South Carolina by 50, Florida State by 30, Miami by 23, all without any hints of running up the score.

                              Utah won by 3 points or less vs. Michigan, Oregon State, New Mexico, and TCU.

                              The Utes were good. They were not dominating for much of the season.
                              How did that dominating regular season last year work out for the Pats again?

                              I am truly not picking on you Tom, and I would have responded to this post with the same point regardless of who posted it. You just happened to be the one to bring up the argument.

                              Comment

                              Working...
                              X