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Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

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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:

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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.

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If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

http://www.linktothearticlegoeshere.com/article
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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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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.

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We really did upgrade the bench

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  • #16
    Re: We really did upgrade the bench

    Originally posted by Anthem View Post
    No. At the time I agreed with you, but since then my feelings have changed. If it wasn't for the brawl, there would have been another outbreak of craziness later in the year. There's no way Ron would have made it through the season.

    I liked Jermaine a lot (I sometimes feel like the only guy one the board who can say that) but right now I'd take Roy Hibbert over 2004 Jermaine. JO's body had already started to break down from carrying too much weight and from playing 3 or 4 summers in a row.
    i agree with this. brawl or not- that squad couldn't keep it together. the talent was there for some rings however, too many players who played critical roles with too much selfish attitudes. too many guys who pursued individual wants over the well-being of the team (primarily jo, tins, ron and jackson)

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    • #17
      Re: We really did upgrade the bench

      Originally posted by Sookie View Post
      I think, though, Collison was a better fit for the second unit last season. That unit didn't have any scorers besides him in the playoffs. (And Barbosa was on and off in the regular season too. ) He had a cold Barbosa, a colder Tyler, Lou and Dahntay. Not a lot of scoring..
      Absolutely. Putting Augustin on last year's squad wouldn't have been an improvement. But he's a better fit this year.
      This space for rent.

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      • #18
        Re: We really did upgrade the bench

        Originally posted by pacer4ever View Post
        If are starters are consistent? How soon people forget or don't realize
        Of course I realized it. That's my point. Read "If the starters can be consistent..." as "If the starters can do this year what they did last year..."
        This space for rent.

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        • #19
          Re: We really did upgrade the bench

          Originally posted by Future_NBA_Player View Post
          The 2004 Pacers team was the best Pacers teams in a very long time. They are extremely better than the 2000 Pacers that went to the finals, and the current team would be embarassed by that squad. If it wasn't for the brawl that team would of gotten us three championships, and we would of been able to persuade Reggie to play longer.
          They were not better than the 2000 Pacers. The 2000 Pacers unfortunately had to go up against (arguably) the most dominant center ever when he was in the best season of his entire 19 year career. Shaq was an absolute freak back in 2000 and there was simply no way of stopping him. That 00 Pacer team would have won the title in a lot of years. Also, it was basically the same team that took Jordan's Bulls to 7 games in 1998. The core of the team (Reggie, Dale, Smits, Jackson) went to the Conference Finals five times. The JO/Artest Pacers went to the conference finals once, but imploded in every other season aside from that. They don't deserved to be mentioned with the 2000 Pacers.

          Good stuff about the bench, Anthem. I didn't get a chance to watch the game last night, but I like what I'm hearing.

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          • #20
            Re: We really did upgrade the bench

            Hats off to Walsh...he put together a solid bench without spendioo much $$
            "So, which one of you guys is going to come in second?" - Larry Bird before the 3 point contest. He won.


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            • #21
              Re: We really did upgrade the bench

              Have not seen any of the games, but from the stat lines from the past games I have seen that Green and Ian have been very valuable additions. With the Green addition the lower amount of minutes from DG won't hurt us as much.
              Why so SERIOUS

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              • #22
                Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                I like the new additions except Augustine. His defense is so bad, it is really going to hurt the 2nd unit. I think this is going to be a recurring issue this season.

                I am really impressed by Green and Mahinmi. Mahinmi made an elite move on the baseline vs Gasol last night that was a real eye opener on how skilled he is/can be.

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                • #23
                  Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                  Originally posted by Anthem View Post
                  I've got to say, I'm impressed with our offseason acquisitions.

                  Mahinmi is way better than I expected, and he seems to be getting along well with his teammates. I really (REALLY) like that he's capable of playing the 4 next to Roy. Very Antonio-Davis-esque. Great signing.

                  Tyler had a solid game, and he's diversified his moves this offseason. That's good news for a couple reasons. Not only does it make him harder to guard right now, but it also means he's actually able to add things to his game (which we hadn't seen so far).

                  Green? Amazing signing. Love that he's locked up for three years.

                  Stephenson's game has significantly improved. His shot looks better, he's not nearly so impetuous, and he's clearly growing up. The big downside for him right now is that he looks significantly better running the point than he does the backup 2.

                  Augustin didn't look great out there, but he was a backup playing with the starters. I think he'll be more than adequate for our backup PG minutes.



                  Every backup position looks better than it did last year. If our starters can just be consistent (with maybe a little development by Paul George) and everybody stays healthy, this is gonna be a really fun year.
                  Yes, the bench is improved but not by a big margin. The Pacers did nothing with the starters and for that reason, I think they will slip just a little bit this season unless PG breaks out and plays out of his mind. The Pacers are built for the regular season and not the playoffs again and it will be that way until and if they can add a stud to the staring lineup. When the superstars, start playing extended minutes in the playoffs, the Pacers will quickly exit stage left....... 48-34 fourth or fifth in the East....

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                  • #24
                    Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                    Originally posted by pacer4ever View Post
                    If are starters are consistent? How soon people forget or don't realize our starters were the best 5 man combo stats wise last year. Like I said earlier our only issue was backup bigs. If we have a Ian level C defender in the Miami series we beat them. Also trading Rush hurt as we didn't have a good replacement at all and that's why the bench was historically bad in that series. That is really the only hole now a shooter who also is a lockdown defender and can guard 1s. That and Luis Scola
                    Stats can be made to show about anything. This starting group will never be able to contend for a championship against teams with superstars. The bench will be better this year but the starters won't be unless PG becomes a superstar (and he won't).

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                    • #25
                      Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                      Originally posted by OlBlu View Post
                      Stats can be made to show about anything. This starting group will never be able to contend for a championship against teams with superstars. The bench will be better this year but the starters won't be unless PG becomes a superstar (and he won't).
                      against the heat, the pacers ran into trouble when vogel went with the bench. when he went to the total bench lineup, THAT is when we saw 9-12 point leads quickly evaporate to a tied game and even falling behind. it happened time and again. unfortunately frank didn't seem to figure this out and kept with it even after that method proved to be ineffective.
                      i still think miami wins that series even if he doesn't go from all starters to all bench but it would have been closer. this year, our bench looks substantially better with a real scorer in green and a real center in mahinmi. those are both 2 things we really didn't have last season.

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                      • #26
                        Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                        One thing I would warn people away from is focusing too much on scoring. Anyone can have those nights, even Lou had one of those nights. But the big 4 (Ian, DJ, GG and Young) were having positive impacts even without scoring, that's what really impressed me. They've all shown they can get you points, but they've all also shown poise under heat and a general ability to make clutch plays on either end.

                        The top 9 guys on this roster can win 55 games this year, I really expect that.

                        Originally posted by Trader Joe View Post
                        I've been touting Mahinmi next to Roy since the party. I thought it was going to be our secret weapon in the playoffs, but it looks like maybe we will be nuking teams with it more often. That is a lot of beef up front and Mahinmi is so light on his feet he does not move like a 5.

                        EDIT: Obviously West will still start, but let's go to the Heat series specifically the end of game 6 where Udonis Haslem exposed West's D in a big way, now imagine we could have put Mahinmi on him for some of those possessions? Would have gone a little differently I think. West and Mahinmi swaps on late game timeouts for O for D just seem so obvious and will be a big part of our strategy I think,
                        It's funny how what we saw last night was exactly what we mentioned at the PD party. I likened the use of Ian instead of West late as your MLB closer coming in to get that final defensive shutdown and preserve the lead.

                        But seeing Ian's offensive footwork and touch around the rim? So nice. His fouls per minute which hindered him at Dallas are still going to be a problem, but when he's able to be out there he's a huge win. He does give you a sense of Antonio when he comes in, that agile but strong big that gives you a bit of everything you need.

                        Ian also frees up Roy to be an even more aggressive shot blocker. And he can replace Roy when needed and run just as well or better next to West. Great 3 man rotation through 2 spots.



                        Young's defense last night was outstanding. There were a few trips where he was just relentless in bodying his man when he tried to dribble drive to the lane, turning him away and forcing the kickout/reset pass. When you had Green out there too and that kickout went to his man it just compounded the problems for Memphis. Young isn't the scorer Green is, but he's going to be great as 9th off the bench and defensive specialist. I liked DJones, but I prefer Sam just in general and I'm glad he's getting this chance with the team.


                        Green - he's a much more all-around bench player than Barbosa or DJones, his hops give him a unique quality at the rim on either end, and yet he's showing a great scoring touch off the dribble and a sense of CONTROL AND CONFIDENCE that you need from the bench. SIXTH MAN CANDIDATE all the way. Very sincere. Seems obvious really. ESPN highlights keep him in people's heads and his solid box lines give him the stats to be in the running. Add in an elite team with a lot of wins, and bingo. Should be a great year for him.



                        DJ - look, again he's just going to get crushed almost immediately by the other PGs first step. If you swing help defense in behind that then you can cover this up. After that he's giving you great positives in every other way. His ball control skills are the best we've seen since Tinsley. He's not just Collison quick and Hill poised, he's also showing a vast array of speed change and dribble change skills that keep defenders off balance much in the way a 95 mph fastball pitcher can do when he mixes in an 80 12 to 6 curve.

                        He doesn't have any specific move that kills people, he just keeps on mixing in things until he's got the space he's looking for. And he has a great awareness of what space it is that he needs to find, and what to do with it when he gets it. He's showing a variety of passes to make the most of tight situations and maintains a poise right to the end of the shot clock. He's not putting up monster lines, but he's a big plus when he's out there. Only his defense prevents him from being a starter.
                        Last edited by Naptown_Seth; 10-21-2012, 12:46 PM.

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                        • #27
                          Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                          Guys it's pre-season, man how fast the Tyler haters forgot that Tyler averaged 20ppg in pre-season last year? I like what I see but let's calm down.
                          @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

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                          • #28
                            Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                            Originally posted by Anthem View Post
                            Wow, think about this for a minute. We've got a legitimate offensive presence at every single position of our top 10 rotation players. Every single starter could score 20 in a given game without us being too surprised, and every single backup could score 10 without anyone batting an eye. I don't remember the last time I saw a team with that much distributed talent.
                            I'm thinking every backup could 20 in a given game as well. In fact, they probably already have.
                            "Look, it's up to me to put a team around ... Lance right now." —Kevin Pritchard press conference

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                            • #29
                              Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                              Great to hear a general consensus on this. I haven't had a chance to watch any of the preseason. But its great to hear. Unless George has completely evolved into a superstar, still have to give the nod to Miami. But if any of the big 3 goes down, this is a team well equipped to beat them.

                              Lets hope Vogel spent a good deal of the offseason working on some Zone that can be used against Lebron

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: We really did upgrade the bench

                                i know this is preseason and all but, i do think we have made legit improvements with the bench. last year, foster barely played and although lou did his soldier's duty and did the best he could, his effort was overcome at times because he wasn't in possession of the needed tools- we got that now. green can help with bench scoring and i think even tyler might help as a 2nd or 3rd bench guy but if he doesn't, dj might pick it up for us in case.
                                i feel better about this squad compared to last year's.
                                of course that might change but hey- what can we do?

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