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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:

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

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

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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.

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.

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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

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Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

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  • #31
    Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

    Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
    Agreed 100%, especially when you take into account the fact that this community has funneled tens of millions of taxpayer dollars into the Pacers. In 2010, this city gave them what, $33 million dollars? And that's back when the only people who would have cared if the Pacers left town were the people on this forum. Most of the community wouldn't have blinked if the Pacers bolted three years ago, but the city gave money to the Pacers anyway because they thought it was the right thing to do.

    I agree, losing Lance Stephenson because of a tax that is relatively miniscule in comparison to the taxpayer money that has been given to the franchise would be hard to take.

    If the Pacers were funded exclusively by the Simons, then I guess none of us would have much right to complain. But since the community has given them so many taxpayer dollars over the years and helped them build that palace, we all have a sense of ownership in the team. Maybe not literally, but definitely figuratively.
    Would the taxpayers be willing to pony up more for the additional losses from paying the tax and not getting the tax income, or does Herb "deserve" to lose more money because he finally has a winning team?

    I would guess this all comes down to if you believe that the Pacers were losing money or if you think the money the city provided went into profits for the Simons. If the former, and if going into the LT causes the Pacers to lose MORE money, why would it make sense to the city to subsidize it further? In fact, one might think the taxpayers would prefer the more cost-effective choice. If the latter, well, not much anyone can say, really, other than if they were willing to steal and disappoint the fans before why would they want to steal less now?
    BillS

    A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
    Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

    Comment


    • #32
      Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

      Originally posted by BillS View Post
      Would the taxpayers be willing to pony up more for the additional losses from paying the tax and not getting the tax income, or does Herb "deserve" to lose more money because he finally has a winning team?

      I would guess this all comes down to if you believe that the Pacers were losing money or if you think the money the city provided went into profits for the Simons. If the former, and if going into the LT causes the Pacers to lose MORE money, why would it make sense to the city to subsidize it further? In fact, one might think the taxpayers would prefer the more cost-effective choice. If the latter, well, not much anyone can say, really, other than if they were willing to steal and disappoint the fans before why would they want to steal less now?

      All the Pacers would have to do is go to the CIB and demand $x amount more. If there's one thing that's true about Indy, it's that there is no ceiling on how much it is willing to pay for sports teams. Taxpayers here never really have much choice when it comes to being forced to subsidize toy sports teams for billionaire owners.

      Comment


      • #33
        Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

        Originally posted by Since86 View Post
        I don't think he needs to get into the 10M over, and really get into the teeth of the LT, but if he balks at going just a couple million over, I'll be livid.
        I won't completely disagree because I myself would be very disappointed, but since I thoroughly believe Herb has had a lot of his own money go down the drain over the years I wouldn't feel I should be angry that he wants to take the financially prudent course.
        BillS

        A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
        Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

        Comment


        • #34
          Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

          I have immense, IMMENSE, respect for the Simons, w/o them the Pacers most likely don't exist. But I simply don't believe the monetary losses. There's a reason you've never heard a peep about Herb, or Mel before he passed, being interested in selling (which would bring what, 600 mil, ballpark?)

          Comment


          • #35
            Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

            If the Pacers can't turn a profit while winning a NBA championship, then there's a real problem.
            Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

            Comment


            • #36
              Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

              Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
              All the Pacers would have to do is go to the CIB and demand $x amount more. If there's one thing that's true about Indy, it's that there is no ceiling on how much it is willing to pay for sports teams. Taxpayers here never really have much choice when it comes to being forced to subsidize toy sports teams for billionaire owners.
              Aren't you kind of sending a mixed message here, being pissed off that billionaires get subsidies and yet being pissed off if they don't take a course of action that would require more subsidies? I'd think you'd be all for them taking a financial course that led to profits and therefore no need for subsidies.
              BillS

              A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
              Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

              Comment


              • #37
                Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                Originally posted by Heisenberg View Post
                I have immense, IMMENSE, respect for the Simons, w/o them the Pacers most likely don't exist. But I simply don't believe the monetary losses. There's a reason you've never heard a peep about Herb, or Mel before he passed, being interested in selling (which would bring what, 600 mil, ballpark?)
                Because maybe they do want to keep the team in Indiana (which is why they agreed to buy it in the first place)? Or is that not a possible reason?
                BillS

                A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                Comment


                • #38
                  Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                  Originally posted by Since86 View Post
                  If the Pacers can't turn a profit while winning a NBA championship, then there's a real problem.
                  And that may be. After all, it really looks like they are about $11M per year from break-even, and a big chunk of that is the cost of the Spirits deal. But even if they can sell out (and maybe get a better local TV deal) on top of a championship team, saying "now give all that back - and maybe more - by crossing the LT threshold" is a little unrealistic. They'd essentially still be losing money but for different reasons.
                  BillS

                  A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                  Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                  Comment


                  • #39
                    Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                    Originally posted by BillS View Post
                    Because maybe they do want to keep the team in Indiana (which is why they agreed to buy it in the first place)? Or is that not a possible reason?
                    Sure, anything's possible. But they didn't become billionaires by throwing money away. I don't think it's a Simon/Indiana specific thing either. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I think it's basically a league mandate to declare losses and get massively subsidized buildings out of it. Taxpayer funded buildings are the norm now, owners wanted Seattle's bid to fail specifically because it was privately funded.

                    Comment


                    • #40
                      Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                      Originally posted by Heisenberg View Post
                      Sure, anything's possible. But they didn't become billionaires by throwing money away. I don't think it's a Simon/Indiana specific thing either. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I think it's basically a league mandate to declare losses and get massively subsidized buildings out of it. Taxpayer funded buildings are the norm now, owners wanted Seattle's bid to fail specifically because it was privately funded.
                      Yeah, that's too conspiracy for me.
                      BillS

                      A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                      Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                      Comment


                      • #41
                        Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                        Originally posted by Heisenberg View Post
                        I have immense, IMMENSE, respect for the Simons, w/o them the Pacers most likely don't exist. But I simply don't believe the monetary losses. There's a reason you've never heard a peep about Herb, or Mel before he passed, being interested in selling (which would bring what, 600 mil, ballpark?)
                        I agree. Amazing to me how the worth of a business can literally increase by hundreds of millions of dollars over the span of a few decades even though the business is allegedly constantly bleeding money.

                        Comment


                        • #42
                          Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                          All of the profit things are just accounting tricks. I never buy what teams say they are losing. If NBA teams were such a money-loser, more people would be selling teams, and the Kings group and Tom Benson would not have been interested.

                          Comment


                          • #43
                            Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                            Originally posted by Heisenberg View Post
                            Sure, anything's possible. But they didn't become billionaires by throwing money away. I don't think it's a Simon/Indiana specific thing either. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you want, but I think it's basically a league mandate to declare losses and get massively subsidized buildings out of it. Taxpayer funded buildings are the norm now, owners wanted Seattle's bid to fail specifically because it was privately funded.

                            Agreed. Three years ago, weren't we told that they lost money in all but one of the first 11 years of the Fieldhouse, including the Finals year? You're telling me that these men who became self made billionaires couldn't even negotiate a stadium deal that would make them money when the team went to the NBA Finals? Yeah, I've never bought it.

                            Comment


                            • #44
                              Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                              I don't doubt that they lose money during the season. I would say that get their money based off the value of the franchise, which isn't liquid money.

                              You're asking good questions Bill, but my question is simple: Why should I spend my hard earned money on a franchise that isn't willing to do what takes in order to get a ring? If this is just a hobby, and not something worth going for the hardware, then that's fine but I'm going to go invest my time and money somewhere that is willing to take me the full way home, instead of dropping me off at the entrance to my neighborhood.
                              Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

                              Comment


                              • #45
                                Re: Any conceivable way we bring back both Lance and Danny ?

                                These circumstances (needing to exceed the luxury tax threshold) are hypothetical, and unlikely to even be tested, IMO.

                                I believe that Lance will be re-signed, and I believe he'll be re-signed in a circumstance where we stay within the cap, because both sides want to see this happen.

                                I think the question comes down to what will be sacrificed to see this through: certainly Danny Granger (unless he's willing to re-sign for below market value), and likely one other player unless Lance's agent OKs a deal that is backloaded for future years and fits within the lux tax window next year. In 2015-2016, things start to open up a bit.

                                PS: Don't forget that exceeding the luxury tax line comes with the additional "cost" of losing the revenue share that the below cap teams receive. I'm sure Mel wants to enjoy some of the Russian's money in the next couple of years.
                                Last edited by docpaul; 11-12-2013, 05:35 PM.

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