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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

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Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

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

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

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

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

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

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rule #2

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

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

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

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

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

Rule #6

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.
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Insider: Chris Kaman

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  • Insider: Chris Kaman

    Chris Crossed

    By Ric Bucher
    Comment on this article


    It's not important that you believe in God, but be grateful Chris Kaman does.

    If he didn't? Well, imagine a wiry, attention-deficit/hyperactivity-disordered, 7-foot, 265-pound man fascinated by guns and knives and driving ultrafast, trying to navigate the idle time/disposable cash/array of temptations obstacle course laid out for NBA players. In LA -- or Sin City, as Kaman calls it -- of all places.

    The question is posed to the posse Kaman shuttles from Michigan to his five-bedroom house in Redondo Beach to insure that question will never have to be answered. They're all sitting on the sweeping staircase just inside the front door of his crib, a cascade of rolling eyes, shaking heads and nervous laughter. "He might be dead," says his 18-year-old sister, Jessica. "I'm serious."

    Worse, he might not be the only one.

    "The first time we met, he was standing in the doorway with a knife," whispers Ben Chamberlain, friend and full-time housekeeper. "Chris was like 9. I was 13, but I was afraid of him."

    Kaman overhears this and yells, "Are you guys telling about how I tried to stab Ben?"

    Ben: "I didn't say that!"

    Kaman: "Yeah, but I did try to stab you!"

    Christopher Zane Kaman is both feared and beloved, a one-man reality show pitting good vs. evil. Good is winning, but evil gets in just enough licks to make it interesting. Kaman prefers to keep this part of his life private, because he doesn't want to come off as holier than thou, which might discourage you from becoming a true believer.

    Not that he has time to proselytize.

    That would require slowing down, and even as he has been nursing a sprained left ankle that has discolored his leg halfway up his shin and halfway down his foot, he hasn't stopped moving. The injury limited his court time to four games in November, preventing Kaman from fully enjoying the Clippers' 9-6 start. That doesn't sound like much, but hey, this is a franchise that hasn't made the playoffs since 1997.

    * * *

    AFTER A while, there's a honk on the street, and Kaman dashes (bum ankle and all) to the door to find Jessica in the truck he bought her. He notices an unfamiliar car behind hers. "Are you bringing boys over to my house?" he yells. Before she can answer, Kaman adds, "I'm telling Dad!"

    A minute later, he's retrieving a basketball at the request of a photographer. "Whatever you do, don't dribble it!" he warns. Someone asks why, which in Kaman's ear sounds like "Show me."

    "Watch," he says, bouncing the ball in the narrow foyer at the bottom of the stairs. Tank, his rottweiler, bursts out of the bedroom and leaps at the ball, jaws snapping. Kaman's eyes are wide as he keeps a shoulder-high dribble going to coax more frantic leaps from the 60-pound canine. "He'll start growling in a second," he says.

    But when it's Kaman's turn to ponder where he'd be without his faith, he spins away as if from a defender on the block. "It's not a valid question," he says. "I've never had to worry about that. That's negative."

    What seems like an innocent inquiry may not be for Kaman, who has reason to be careful about what he lets into his head. The middle child of Leroy and Pam Kaman's three kids was found to have severe attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder at 2, which explains why he could never shake the impulse to do or say whatever came to mind. Most of it was relatively harmless. At 4, he locked out the babysitter and fried up a dish of potato chips and ketchup while she tried to get back in. As a teen, he booby-trapped the entire backyard with fishing line. When his parents didn't know where he was, they'd look up at the neighborhood rooftops. Chris liked to sit and tear off shingles.

    "I didn't think of myself as dangerous," he says. "I always felt my thoughts were harmless, but I look back now and think I was crazy." His older brother Mike, who also had symptoms of ADHD, takes part of the blame. "He'd do anything we dared him to," he says.

    Kaman's antics didn't go over well at Tri-unity Christian, the small private school in Grand Rapids, Mich., he attended from kindergarten through high school. If he wasn't being forced to sit next to the teacher, he was being sent to the principal's office. Mark Keeler, one of Tri-unity's basketball coaches, practically had to hold down Kaman in the huddle. "He'd go back out on the court, and I'd know he hadn't heard a word," Keeler says.

    Kaman, 22, grew to 7feet by the end of his junior year. But Ritalin had killed his appetite, leaving him Manute Bol-thin. Kaman was always the tallest man on the court, and yet Tri-unity won its two Class D state titles before and after his tenure. "I got frustrated with him a lot," Keeler says. "Most plays for him had to be a lob."

    A late-night talk with his brother in his junior year prompted Kaman to think about his future. Mike, then a children's pastor at Gaylord (Mich.) Community Church, sensed Chris needed direction. "He was getting in trouble because he couldn't sit still," Mike says. "Working with hyperactive and ADD kids, I know that's their biggest problem. If you overcome that, they're like guided missiles. They chase their dreams with all the passion in the world."

    Kaman's dream, as far away as it seemed, was the NBA. So he began to channel his excess energy toward improving his game. He gave up his meds for his senior year so he could begin to bulk up. Still, only two unflashy local programs recruited him, Division III Hope College and eventual winner Central Michigan.

    For all the misery created by its bad wiring, Kaman's brain also offered a tantalizing gift that blossomed in college: ambidexterity. Bowling, batting or shooting 20-foot jumpers, Kaman can do it with either hand. "As far as athletic ability, he is truly a balanced individual," says Clippers assistant Kim Hughes. In three years, Kaman turned that ability into lottery status. After averaging 10.7 ppg over his first two seasons, Kaman doubled that in his junior year, putting up 22.4 a night. The breakout swayed the Clippers to make Kaman the sixth pick of the 2003 draft. Then again, they almost didn't stick around long enough to notice him. The first time GM Elgin Baylor went to see Kaman play, he nearly left the gym before the tip-off. Baylor was turned off by Kaman's bouncy, splay-footed gait. "I couldn't believe he was a good basketball player," he says. "With that goofy walk, you'd never know he could run the floor the way he does."

    Being viewed as too moralistic can be as problematic for an NBA hopeful as a checkered past. In Kaman's case, some teams thought twice about choosing the big man because they were concerned about whether he'd fit in an NBA locker room. But the Clippers have had no issues with their teammate. For Kaman, on the other hand, the NBA life is a daily issue. "I try to live the way the Bible tells me," he says. "I like my teammates as people, I just can't see myself doing what they do. The hardest part is staying positive when people are talking about the wrong stuff, stuff I don't need to hear. Bad company robs good spirit. Who do you hang out with, what do you do?"

    That's no concern in the confines of his home, which is why Kaman rarely strays from it. His strategy for keeping bad influences at bay is to limit his exposure to them, and to engage in nothing that allows him to think beyond the task at hand.

    So the LA nightlife is off-limits. He doesn't go out to eat, to avoid the possibility of being tempted by a pretty waitress. For Kaman, looking is sinning.

    His live-in, three-man Christian posse from Grand Rapids helps Kaman remain true to The Word. He met all of them at Tri-unity Christian or at his church, the nondenominational Resurrection Life. Chamberlain, who on this particular day is sporting a post-9/11 "Michigan Is Praying for New York" T-shirt, runs the show. Jeremy Scully, having earned a degree from a culinary school in Pittsburgh, is the chef. Ben's younger brother, Caleb, Kaman's best friend since grade school, is the electronics whiz. These guys, right down to the pet rottweiler, are their own version of HBO's Entourage (a show none of them has seen) ... well, without the naked models, casual sex, Jell-O shots and spontaneous trips to Vegas. Basically, they're looking to be saved, not laid.

    "We don't leave the house unless we have to," Ben says. "And Chris hates to be home alone."

    Jeremy: "Don't say that. People will think we're house rats."

    Ben: "We are!"

    * * *

    THE LEGACY of faith in a higher power runs deep in the Kaman clan. A great-great-grandfather started Michigan's First Assembly of God Church. Legend has it that a great-aunt was raised from certain smallpox death as a baby by family prayer. Chris' mom prayed with her three children every night as they grew up.

    Ben sends two or three Bible verses a day to his buddy's BlackBerry, but that's not what keeps Kaman on the straight-and-narrow. His posse knows that is accomplished only by keeping their big friend active. The ankle sprain made this a more complicated challenge. Halo 2, acquired the minute it was available, worked for a bit. But after 40 hours of almost nonstop play, Kaman had mastered it. So the men of the house raised the stakes, concocting a real-life version of the game.

    After turning out the lights and opening the sliding glass doors, they grab air guns and plastic BBs, don masks and split into two-man assault teams. Late-night screams have prompted neighbors to complain about "the noisy parties."

    "As if we'd ever have one of those," Scully says.

    Left adrift in Grand Rapids last summer, Chris and Mike decided to build the tree fort they'd always dreamed of as kids. There they were at 4 a.m., dropping 14-foot poles on the 25-acre spread Kaman bought for his folks. In three weeks they had a house on stilts, complete with sliding-glass door and electricity. Next summer's plan is to enter a car on Michigan's demolition derby circuit. It won't be the '72 black Chevelle with the engine Kaman boosted to 700 horsepower.

    The Redondo Beach house bears the brunt of his perpetual motion these days. When Kaman decided he needed a 700-pound safe to store his knife collection, he installed it himself. But lugging it on a dolly up the outside marble staircase did a number on the steps. Then, shortly after hearing Kaman begin to cut a hole in a closet wall, Ben heard spraying water just seconds before Kaman sprinted past him in search of the shut-off valve.

    The BBs have done damage as well. Small divots pock the walls and every picture. The one of Ali standing over Sonny Liston at the top of the stairs wears the scars of a particularly heavy ambush. Kaman is inspecting one divot when his eye is drawn to a red mark about six feet up the wall. "I think that's from my shoe," he says. "He's levelheaded in choices of morality," Mike says. "He's just crazy when it comes to fun."

    Know who Elton Brand is reminded of when he thinks of Kaman? "Ron Artest, my teammate in AAU," he says. "It might not be the right timing to say that, but it's true. They're nice guys who walk to the beat of their own drum. Chris' faith is just part of the package. He gets some slap about it in the locker room, especially about not chasing girls, but I definitely respect him for it."

    His faith is an issue for no one besides Kaman. Marko Jaric, a renowned playboy who tools around in a $240,000 Aston Martin, considers him a friend. The last thing Kaman wants is for people to think he believes he's superior. That would be un-Christianlike. And you won't find a cross hanging from his neck or him giving thanks to Jesus in interviews. He used to wear WWJD wristbands, but he turned them inside out, and he stopped wearing them because they kept breaking or getting ripped off in games.

    "If I say, 'Jesus Christ!' he'll punch me," says Hughes. "But then he'll turn around and use the F-word in front of a woman. He's a paradox."

    Kaman shakes his shaggy head. "My mouth is my biggest problem," he says. "Sometimes I don't control what I say. Thing is, I don't really consider myself a religious person. I just want to be a good person who loves God. The main reason is, when life is over, where do you go? I want my soul to go to a good place where I can live forever."

    For now, he's content to live in the hills above LA, cloaked by his posse. On his bedroom wall, facing his four-poster bed, hangs a framed photo of a lighthouse surrounded by stormy ocean, a massive wave poised to swallow its base. A tiny figure, the lighthouse keeper, stands in the hollow of all that water seemingly unaware of his impending doom. Kaman studies the picture for a moment, then picks up a car magazine.

    "Ahh," he says. "Home."

  • #2
    Re: Insider: Chris Kaman

    Did you catch this? Elton Brand on Ron Artest:

    Know who Elton Brand is reminded of when he thinks of Kaman? "Ron Artest, my teammate in AAU," he says. "It might not be the right timing to say that, but it's true. They're nice guys who walk to the beat of their own drum.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Insider: Chris Kaman

      Yeah, thats one of the main reasons I posted it here. I forgot to bold it for easy finding. Thanks for pointing it out.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Insider: Chris Kaman

        Kaman has some potential. He is a pretty good passing big man. Did anyone see the play he made a couple nights ago against the Lakers? He took the ball from coast to coast, put it around his back, and did a nifty no-look pass behind the back as well for a nice assist. He looked like a PG out there!

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