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

Pagano thread

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

  • Pagano thread

    I think he deserves his own thread, like Luck. I'll start:

    http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/8...o-stays-strong

    Chuck Pagano stays strong

    Originally Published: November 7, 2012
    By Rick Reilly | ESPN.com

    AP Photo/Jim PrischingIndianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano has temporarily left the sidelines but continues to inspire his family and his team.
    You want to talk about the speech, but I want to talk about the man.In my hometown of Boulder, Colo., the Paganos were our Kennedys.They were all charmers -- with biceps. I used to cover the dad, Sam Pagano, a high school coaching legend who picked off state football championships like a cop shooting carnival bottles. His All-State sons, Chuck and John, could flatten silos. Hell, their paper boy could've run for mayor and won.They were the best our town had to offer. That's why it seemed impossible, that 1979 day, when tragedy moved into their house.
    Chuck and John's sister Cathy was dead at 22. Killed in a jeep accident in California. Cathy, the bubbly one. Cathy, the one who always showed up with a chocolate cake for her dad after every game.More support for Pagano

    Andrew Luck became the latest Colt to shave his head in support of Chuck Pagano. Story


    "I remember Chuck driving home from college, getting out of the car and just sort of collapsing into my parents' arms," says John, now 45.The Pagano family picked themselves up and started leading again. The two boys became fine coaches in college and the NFL. John became the defensive coordinator of the San Diego Chargers. This season, Chuck Pagano became head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. Everybody from Boulder nodded and said, "Seems about right."
    And then, late this September, tragedy knocked again.Chuck's wife, Tina, was on the phone telling Chuck's parents her husband would have to stop coaching and fight a dangerous form of leukemia, right away."I could hear Tina's voice, but I went blank," Chuck's mom, Diana, remembers. "And I thought, just for a second, 'I can't take this much pain again.'"In San Diego, John flinched at the news. "When you bury a sister, man, that's something nobody wants to go through. And then, when you get the word [on Chuck], it's something you just can't imagine."But Chuck, 52, had three things going for him to stay alive: (1) With luck and grit and chemo, this kind of leukemia is curable; (2) he'd gotten a break with an early bye week to get some stubborn bruises checked out and caught it early; and (3) Chuck himself.Chuck Pagano has always been as unstoppable as the wind and twice as unpredictable. In the first grade, his teacher called Diana and asked if she could tie him to his chair to settle him down. "Sure," Diana said, "as long as I can come down there and tie you to yours." He'll turn left when you think he's going right. But there's always a reason. The man could motivate a tree sloth."Coach Pagano's an inspiration," says Colts QB Andrew Luck who just shaved his head in solidarity, along with more than 20 teammates. "I love him. We all do." No wonder every Colts player wears a "Chuckstrong" T-shirt during pregame warm-ups.
    But a constant chemo drip and 25 days in one hospital bed will get down even a 5,000-hour energy drink like Chuck. So when his brother flew in from San Diego on a rare day off two weeks ago to spend 10 hours with him, he had his own motivational speech to give him."Listen," John said before he left. "Anybody comes in that door, you show strength, you show grit and you show them how you're gonna whip this thing. 'Cause you are."And so it was that when Pagano crawled out of bed, got cleaned up, and walked into the Colts' locker room after their win Sunday over the Miami Dolphins, you knew he was going to say something to put a lump in your throat the size of a grapefruit."He wasn't really supposed to talk after the game," says a Colts staffer. "His doctor wanted him to stay in a confined space with not a lot of contact with people, to avoid germs. But next thing you knew …"… he was in among his players. He took off his hat for the first time and revealed his hairless head. In high school, he and his Fairview High School teammates used to shave their heads as a vow to beat one rival or another, but this time, it revealed something I'd never seen in a Pagano before: frailty.Until he started speaking, that is, and then he was as Chuck as ever. With a cracked voice and glistening eyes, he vowed to his men that he'd live "to see two more daughters dance at their weddings" and to "hoist the Lombardi [Trophy] with you guys."I cried watching it. His parents cried. Watch the video. Even the player behind him in the video cried.
    "He just blows me away," his dad says. "He's such a leader, such a coach, such a man.""He is reaching another place," says his mom. "He's got information coming from high places. I put Cathy in charge of all that.""That's Chuck," John says. "He inspires me every day."He starts another round of chemo this week, and it's going to clothesline him, just like the first round. He'll be flat enough to slide under the door. But I know Paganos, and they don't stay down long. He knows cancer turns things upside down. You have to get sick to get better. Bet you he's back on the sideline by mid-December.
    The question is, can his family take the stress of that?"I can," Diana insists. "I'm Chuckstrong."
    There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

  • #2
    Re: Pagano thread

    Love this line:

    ...but this time, it revealed something I'd never seen in a Pagano before: frailty.Until he started speaking, that is, and then he was as Chuck as ever.
    There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Pagano thread

      Wish I could read this but I am morally opposed to Rick Reilly.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Pagano thread

        If I refused to read writings by any writer that's written a POS article in the past, I'd never read an article again. Instead, I just read stuff, and if it's good, then take it to heart, and if it sucks, I hit "Back" and move on with my life.

        Skip Bayless is about the only media personality that is an absolute and complete idiot. Even then, I *always* give him a chance. But every time I walk away thinking, "Yep, I feel dumber for having listened to him."
        There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

        Comment

        Working...
        X