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

Great Rosen Article on Refs in the CBA

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 1
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous template Next
  • #1

    Great Rosen Article on Refs in the CBA

    I just love this story - especially the bit about getting tossed by ref who thinks Rosen is complaining too much - turns out, it was a loudmouth fan behind the bench. Classic!

    The Phil Jackson not letting the refs sleep bit is a close second.

    Enjoy -->

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

    http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/3430088

    Refs get it wrong way too much
    Charley Rosen / Special to FOXSports.com

    Referees are a necessary evil.

    Back when Ed T. Rush was the league's director of officiating, he told me that the game videos prove that the calls made by NBA refs are correct 93 percent of the time. These videos were produced by whichever local station (or national network) that had televised the games, and were edited from the footage provided by the four or five cameras normally in use.
    However, one particularly wealthy franchise normally records their home games using 12 of their own cameras. According to the enhanced angles provided by these videos, NBA refs actually blow one of every three calls.

    And Rush also admitted that nobody in his office tallied or evaluated another critical aspect of officiating that had at least as much of an influence on ball games — the non-calls.

    No wonder that the NBA's coaches and players feel they have a license to complain whenever the whistle shrills. The sheer capriciousness of the calls, coupled with the refs' righteous arrogance, is enough to drive coaches batty.

    Before the establishment of the National Basketball Developmental League, virtually every player call-up (about 40 every season) was from the Continental Basketball Association. The CBA was also used as the official training ground for future NBA refs — the likes of Steve Javie, Ken Mauer, Gary Benson, Bill Springer, Jim Delaney, Monty McCutchen, Ron Garretson, Duke Callahan, Ronnie Nunn (the NBA's current director of officials), and many more. In fact, Garretson once told me this: "The CBA has only one purpose. To develop officials for the NBA."

    During my own nine-year stint in the CBA, I tangled with once and future NBA refs on numerous occasions. I firmly believed that refs were cops with whistles instead of guns. That they were mere mechanics who scanned a game looking for mistakes. No surprise, then, that for each of my six seasons as a head coach (Savannah, 1986-87; Rockford, 1988-90; Oklahoma City, 1990-91; and Albany, 1991-92), I led the CBA in technical fouls.

    I deserved many (if not most) of my T's. And just as certainly I was unjustly "whacked" and even "tossed" several times. Like the time I happened to be coaching the Oklahoma City Cavalry and we were getting trounced in Wichita Falls by the hometown Texans. There was a drunk sitting directly behind me, who was loudly excoriating the refs in a thick southern drawl whenever a call went against the Texans. Yet it was I who was booted midway through the second quarter by Callahan. "I've heard enough from you, Charley," Callahan shouted as he pointed offstage right. I was then illegally locked inside the visitors locker room, where I had no other outlet than to throw a few chairs and kick an innocent garbage can around the room.

    But it wasn't only my own personal differences with referees that demonstrated how otherwise normal, peaceful, and knowledgeable basketball coaches could be driven to outbreaks of temporary insanity by NBA-bound referees.

    Here are a few examples:

    I was Phil Jackson's assistant, and roommate, with the Albany Patroons from 1983-86, and after we were convinced that we'd gotten "homered" in a game in Pensacola, neither of us could sleep. By chance we'd discovered that the two officials who had worked the game were not only registered in the same motel, but were also lodged in an adjacent room. Phil's anger was such that roughly every half-hour throughout most of the night he'd loudly bang on the common wall and scream curses at the offending refs. "If we can't sleep," was his rationale, "then they sure don't deserve to sleep either."

    The Patroons finished up the 1984-85 season playing the Puerto Rico Coquis in San Juan. The home team was coached by Herb Brown, older brother of Larry, one-time head coach of the Pistons, and currently an assistant in Atlanta. The Coquis needed a win to qualify for the playoffs, and in Brown's view a series of biased calls tilted the game to the Patroons and unjustly terminated his season. Herb was so incensed that he stormed the court, grabbed the whistle-lanyard that was draped around Ken Mauer's neck, and proceeded to twist the lanyard in such a way as to prevent Mauer from breathing. None of the other coaches, or players (or the other ref), made a move to save Mauer from a horrible death. It wasn't until Mauer's face started turning blue that a security officer pulled Brown away. (Brown's penalty was to be suspended without pay for the first six games of the following season.)

    And it isn't only the coaches on the short end of a score who are frequently freaked by the refs' incompetence.

    George Karl was coaching the Patroons, and my Oklahoma City squad was being thoroughly demolished in the fourth quarter of a game played in Albany. As I recall, we were down by 30 points with about three minutes left in the game, when Karl nevertheless became incensed by a foul called on one of his players. Karl raced on to the court, picked up the bouncing ball, and neatly punted it high into the upper grandstand. A truly monumental feat which deserved a standing ovation, but which earned him an instantaneous banishment.

    The late Bill Musselman was certainly the most successful coach in CBA history, with a total of three league championships (1985-88). One of the secrets of Musselman's impressive achievements was his ability to locate and hire (for illegally inflated wages) ex-NBA players for spot service. Like Coby Deitrick, who was around long enough to throw a terrific pass to beat the Patroons in a crucial playoff game. Or Rod Higgins, who played in only the seventh game of another playoff series against the Patroons and scored 30-plus points. But in addition to being an outstanding Xs-and-Os coach and a resourceful recruiter, Muss was also blessed with a highly developed sense of fair play.

    Like the time his Tampa Bay Thrillers beat my Savannah Spirits on a last-second jumper by the late "Fast" Eddie Johnson. Despite the dramatic win on his home court, Muss was bothered by the fact that one particular ref had called three offensive fouls on my best player (Cedric Henderson) during the last few minutes of the game. Instead of celebrating the victory, Muss followed the refs to their dressing room, and began to kick and bang on the door. "You stole the game from Charley!" he kept shouting. "You stole the game!"

    With one last ferocious kick, he then stormed off to deliver who-knows-what kind of postgame summation to his players.

    Ladies, don't raise your sons to be cowboys or referees.
    “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

    “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Great Rosen Article on Refs in the CBA

    Oh, dear lord, armageddon is upon us; I just agreed with Charlie Rosen.

    The state of officiating isn't the top reason we're not getting season tickets anymore, but it's damn close. And, with the demise of the CBA, the NBA gets their refs from the WNBA now. And of course, the worst ref I ever saw in my 3 years of getting Fever tickets promptly got promoted to the big league. Ed Malloy. Just awful.
    Come to the Dark Side -- There's cookies!

    Comment

    Previous template Next
    Working...
    X