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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

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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.

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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!

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http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
Title of the Article
Author's Name
Indianapolis Star

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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.

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OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

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  • #16
    Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

    That was pretty dumb the way those fans acted but I don't they they're indicative of the fanbase as a whole.

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

      All I can say is - unbelievable.

      Just when you think this series is over, just when you think that it can't get more tense and nail-biting, damn if the tension doesn't ratchet up another notch.

      Almost as fun as watching basketball...
      Your horse is dead, get off it already...

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

        It's fun though I don't see how anyone could not enjoy this!

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

          Awesome game. I can't wait 'til Game 7.
          Take me out to the black, tell 'em I ain't coming back. Burn the land and boil the sea, you can't take the sky from me.

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

            Originally posted by Shade
            I'm generally not interested in baseball, but there's just something about these two teams that intrigues me.

            Anyway, another classy example of New Yorkers tonight.
            Do you have something against people from New York or what? Personally I don't give a crap but I've seen alot of new york generalizations from you on this board.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

              Shade, a vast and sweeping generalization, eh?

              Geez.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                Simply the greatest comeback in the history of sports, if the Red Sox take game 7 tonight.

                Maybe the greatest comeback in human history since Lazarus.



                I'd hate to be a Yankee called into Steinbrenner's office tomorrow if they lose tonight.

                My avatar is to remind you that it is all tied up.
                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


                • #23
                  Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                  Just keep reminding us Pacertom!

                  And I have to agree, I am not really a baseball fan, but I have been enthralled win this series. Don't know why, but its been fun to watch.

                  And I have to say, I'm cheering for the Sox.

                  For some reason, I equate the NY Yankees with the Lakers that we all hate in the NBA. There's a certain degree of cockiness on the yankees part that I just don't like I guess.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                    Gyron, take a look at the players of the yankees. Now compare them to the bo-sox players. Are you saying Martinez, Ramirez and Ortiz are not cocky and don't act that way? Please.

                    These are two very confident teams and they both act that way.

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                      efx- give it up, you of ALL people should know that no team from NY shall ever be shown in a positive light on PD. I believe its a forum rule somewhere, let me look it up for you...

                      It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

                      Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
                      Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
                      NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                        I know dude But I'm a persistent mf and if I see something that I disagree with I'll argue it.

                        But I'm starting to think my time could be better spent.

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                          Originally posted by efx
                          Gyron, take a look at the players of the yankees. Now compare them to the bo-sox players. Are you saying Martinez, Ramirez and Ortiz are not cocky and don't act that way? Please.

                          These are two very confident teams and they both act that way.
                          I agree! Except for pretty-boy A-Rod (who we REALLY wanted in Boston) the Yankees are not particularly hateable. Well, maybe add in the 'roided up duo of Sheffield and Giambi.

                          It's the Yankees FANS that really irk me and other Red Sox fans. Maybe not you, and certainly not all of them.

                          We work with them. They live among us. They believe in a certain entitilement. They will win because they always win and that fact improves their own sense of self-worth.

                          I can respect any Yankees fan who was as avid a fan in the doldrums of the 80's, when Don Mattingly and company could never win anything.

                          I can't respect the hangers-on, who glom onto them because they are likely to win.

                          In that respect they are the opposite of Red Sox fans. There is no bandwagon. It's the anti-bandwagon. Come root for the team that is ALWAYS one of the 5 best teams in the league but nevertheless always loses in bizarre, disasterous, even Shakespearian ways.
                          [edit=97=1098292542][/edit]
                          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


                          • #28
                            Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                            Pacertom, I agree with you! It's like the lakers/bulls fans of the 90's that climbed on so to speak.

                            It's just "hard" being a yankee fan because you're always the target of people who claim you're a bandwagoner and so forth.

                            I just like the yankees because Jeter is my favorite baseball player. It's as simple as that. Just like I became a Pacer fan because of Reggie. I would not be less of a fan if either of these aforementioned teams lost.

                            And being a pacer fan I'm sure we all can relate to that!

                            But you make a good point.

                            Imagine that, a yankee and a red sox fan having a civilized discussion!

                            Let's roll with that and just enjoy sports for what it is. Entertainment.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                              I don't dislike NY fans or teams whatso ever. I also didn't say I hated the yankees. I said their is a certain cockiness that I seemed to sense in them.

                              Being a baseball outsider, thats just what I've witnessed in the last couple days of watching.

                              I admit that they have one hell of a team and organization, I just said I equate it to the same general feeling that I get when watching the Lakers.

                              And personally no, I have not noticed while Ihave been watching in the last 6 games that feeling of cockiness from the sox. Its not to say it isn't there, maybe I just don't know the players weel enough to see it. As I said, these are the ONLY baseball games I have watched all year.

                              I will say the one yankee that I am impressed with is Matsuei. It just looks like to me that he comes to go to work. Seems like everytime you see him, he's just emotionless and there to do his job, and he seems to do it well.

                              Jeter and A Rod I am not as impressed. They are both great players, its just something in how they hold themselves. Don't know....Oh well, I'm definitely not going to argue any further over a sport I don't know a lot about.

                              And as for the Anti New York Bias, thats BS. Yes I do not care for the Knicks, and I just expressed a little bit of a feeling about the yankees, but it is defnitely not just because they are from New York.

                              My Dad is from New York, and as funny as this maybe, if there was one team in NY that I would cheer for, it would be the buffalo bills. I grew up watching my dad obsess over that team, through the good and the bad(always seems there is more bad with that team, HAHA).

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: OT - Yankees vs. Red Sox, Game 6

                                the sports guy chimes in:

                                http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...simmons/041020

                                **FILED AT 3:30 AM, WEDNESDAY MORNING**


                                Blank screen.


                                I'm staring at a blank screen.


                                (Come on ... type something ... )


                                What can you say? What can you say about Curt Schilling? How many words are enough? 500? 2,000? 10,000? This wasn't just an ankle sprain. His right sock was covered in blood, thanks to three sutures (!?!?!?!) holding together his dislocated ankle tendon. In Game 1, that same tendon was popping. This time it was leaking blood. He didn't care. The team needed him.


                                So Schilling kept pitching. Put his career on the line. Gritted through the next three hours at Yankee Stadium -- seven innings, 25 batters, 99 pitches in all. Won the game. Kept the team alive. Hugged everyone in the dugout when he was cooked. Stuck in a dip, sat back and waited for the ESPN Classic royalties to start pouring in.


                                It was that good. Win or lose on Wednesday night, the Schilling Game takes its place alongside the Willis Reed Game, MJ's Flu Game, Bird banging his head against the Pacers and everything else in the Sheer Guts Pantheon. Sitting in the dugout between innings, he threw a towel over his head and stared at the ground, hands pressed against his ears, looking like someone who just finished a harrowing plane flight. All he needed was a barf bag and the cast of "Lost" standing behind him.


                                ONE FINE DAY
                                It might be hard to believe -- but we've got another Sox-Yanks Game 7 on our hands. And this one could change everything.
                                I don't know how he did it. There was nothing different about his situation from Game 1, other than the O.J. sock, the sutures and the hands of God (his words, not mine). The Red Sox made a big deal about this "emergency boot" from Reebok, a device that would stabilize Schilling's damaged ankle tendon, but I'm starting to wonder if they bought that device on eBay from Sidd Finch and the Easter Bunny. Schilling didn't even wear it. This was about heart. This was about coming through when it mattered most. This was about choosing to pitch for a tortured franchise, promising that things would be different, and then perservering only because you gave your word.


                                Over the next few days, everyone will make a big deal about Schilling's Game 6, only some for the right reasons. We live in a sports world where every good moment gets beaten into the ground. It isn't enough for something to happen anymore. You have to vote. You have to watch two guys screaming on a split-screen. You have to read 400 columns, then columns by people reviewing those columns. You have to hear sports radio hosts screaming, and once the subject becomes exhausted, one of them takes a crazy angle on the topic just to keep the phone lines ringing for another hour. It keeps going and going, a vicious little snowball. When it runs out of steam, something else replaces it, and the whole cycle starts all over again.

                                Schilling's recipe for success: A lot of heart, some sutures and the hand of God.
                                I don't want the Schilling Game to fall into that. I don't want to hear someone claiming that he "wasn't that hurt," or that it "doesn't matter if they don't win Game 7," or even that Schilling was "milking the moment." You're not taking this away from me. This was even better than Pedro coming out of the bullpen five years ago in Cleveland, and I never thought I would say that about any Red Sox pitcher.



                                In my three decades of following Boston sports, my favorite underrated performance belongs to Kevin McHale, who limped around on a broken foot for two straight months in the 1987 playoffs. The doctors explained the risks to him: If he kept playing, there was a chance his foot would never be the same. He would never get the same lift again. That's what they told him. He didn't care. They were the defending champs. They needed him. So he played. He was never quite the same. Years later, when he was asked about the decision, McHale explained that you only have so many chances to win a championship, so you do what you have to do. It's that simple.


                                Even though Schilling was at a different point of his career, the mindset remains the same. After you win one, you just want to get back there .. even with a popping ankle tendon, with a suture leaking blood, with 46-degree weather making your legs quiver, with the hopes of an entire region resting on your back. Schilling risked his career and came through. Sometimes in sports, we have a tendency to remember the scarring moments and forget the great ones. I just hope we don't forget this one. Even when people are screamingon a split-screen.
                                (We'll be back on the "Sports Reporters" after this.)




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



                                So what happens Wednesday night? I'm probably the wrong person to ask. I haven't slept in four days. My back feels like Schilling rammed his protective shoe against it. Even my jaw is sore -- from chewing gum like a madman during Game 5. The classic move would be for the Sox to come back, win three games in a row, then lose the climactic 7th game. But this isn't a classic Red Sox team. The old Red Sox would have blown Game 4 or Game 5, and they definitely would have choked in Game 6. With the old Red Sox, Bellhorn's homer gets ruled a double, A-Rod definitely gets called safe at first base, and Miguel Cairo clears the bases for the game-winner in the ninth.


                                Here's the point: Those things haven't been happening. Sometimes you pass a point where history becomes a factor -- like with the Patriots three years ago, when the diehards kept waiting for the Other Shoe to drop, and we were waiting and waiting, and suddenly Vinatieri's final kick split the uprights, the most liberating feeling you can imagine. That's the thing about baggage as a sports fan -- you can shed this stuff. You just need a few breaks. This Boston team is getting them.


                                I'm not making any predictions. I'm not even trying to be coherent. Just remember the following things heading into the game:


                                1. In less than 24 hours, you could be hearing someone say the following sentence: "So the Red Sox completed the most dramatic comeback in baseball history rallying from three games to zero to defeat the New York Yankees and make the World Series, where they'll be facing off against Roger Clemens and the Houston Astros in Game 1."


                                2. If the roles were reversed, Red Sox Nation would be having a collective coronary right now. Repeat: Coronary. I can't imagine what New York is like. And the thought of Steinbrenner's potential reaction to the biggest choke in sports history ... I mean, even if you're NOT a Red Sox fan, you have to be rooting for this, right? Couldn't you see him having Cashman drawn and quartered before the Winter Meetings?


                                3. You could make a case that this Yankee team has more pressure tonight than any baseball team in recent memory -- not only will they be the guys who finally lost to the Red Sox, they will be the guys who choked away a 3-0 lead. Meanwhile, this Red Sox team is still playing with the house's money. It's an interesting role reversal, although the end result is that I'm still peeing blood either way.


                                4. My editor Brick points this out: If the Sox pull this off, for the foreseeable future, every time you're watching a playoff series (in any sport) where someone's up 3-0 and they show the "Teams that have come back from 3-0" graphic, they will feel obliged to mention the 2004 Red Sox. The moment will live on. And on. And on.

                                The t-shirt guys in Boston are printing up "A-Fraud" as we speak.
                                5. This isn't the 1996-1999 Yankees. Only four guys remain from that team. You can only get away with relying on so many Tanyon Sturtze- and Tony Clark-types before it catches up with you. I keep telling myself this.



                                6. The Buckner-Armbrister flashback play in Game 6 clearly exposed A-Rod as a liar and cheater of the highest order -- the kind who would turn over an "R" in Scrabble and pretend it's a blank letter. Warrants mentioning.


                                7. If the Yankees are down by two runs in the ninth inning, and somebody walks -- like Matsui did in Game 6 -- apparently it's as good as a home run. That's how Tim McCarver explained it last night. I'm not sure if just the Yankees are immune to double plays, or if it's everyone in the league. But it's an interesting development.


                                8. I'm thinking that All-Star Game rules apply tonight -- everyone pitches a couple of innings for the Sox, nobody stays on the mound for too long. Eighteen years ago in Shea Stadium, faced with a similar situation, the always-incompetent John McNamara screwed things up, relieving Bruce Hurst with Calvin Schiraldi and Al Nipper when he could have used Oil Can Boyd and even Roger Clemens. Things will be different this time around. Say what you want about Terry Francona -- and I have -- but he's certainly been willing to bend the standard bullpen rules during this series, for better and worse.


                                9. If the Red Sox prevail against the Yankees and win the World Series, you will never have to read me whining about the travails of Red Sox fans again.


                                10. Read that last sentence again.


                                Bill Simmons is a columnist for Page 2 and ESPN The Magazine. His Sports Guy's World site is updated every day Monday through Friday.



                                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!).

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