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Rule #1

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

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

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"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

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"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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Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

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  • Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

    http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...alosi-phalanx/





    League should take closer look at Alosi phalanx
    Posted by Mike Florio on December 13, 2010, 2:19 PM EST
    The widespread presumption in the wake of Sunday’s tripping incident by Jets strength coach Sal Alosi is that Alosi acted alone, a rogue rah-rah guy who had a little too much Rex Ryan and/or Red Bull before the game.

    But look at the video and/or the still image. Alosi appears to be the first man in phalanx of six sweat-suited soldiers who were lined up like soccer players bracing for a kick.

    If Alosi truly opted to throw his knee into the path of Dolphins gunner Nolan Carroll on his own, it possibly didn’t happen because Alosi caught a wild hair but because Alosi and others had been coached by someone to provide an impediment to the gunner. And that makes whoever decided to put Alosi and others in that way partially responsible for Alosi’s apparent decision to be more active than passive in impeding Carroll’s progress.

    For now, we’re not saying whether anyone is or should be responsible beyond Alosi. But we think that the league should look into whether the Jets routinely deploy the Alosi alignment.

    And when Alosi meets with the media today at 2:30 p.m. ET, he fairly should be grilled about why it was that he and five other identically-clad employees were standing foot to foot during an opponents’ punt.

    We doubt that it was a coincidence.
    The Jets were standing as far down the sidelines as allowed, to the last inch.

    More info here:

    http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/201...-sideline-wall

    Check out this photo of the Jets sideline:



    Note the blue line. As far as I know, that indicates the furthest spot that sideline personnel are allowed to stand.

    I heard a WFAN caller (the infamous incarcerated bob) claim that two Jets players said that the Jets were angry that the Dolphins gunner had been going out of bounds during kickoffs, and that this formation was done to stop that.

    Should they have been there?

    From the NFL Rulebook:

    Rule 13, Article 5 Coaches and other non-participating team personnel (including uniformed players not in the game at the time) are prohibited from moving laterally along the sidelines any further than the points that are 18 yards from the middle of the bench area (i.e., 32-yard lines to left and right of bench areas when benches are placed on opposite sides of the field). Lateral movement within the bench area must be behind the solid six-foot white border.

    So, Jets strength coach Sal Alosi and his cronies (practice squad players?) were standing the zone marked for “Coaches and substitution players only” and they were lined up as close to the edge – both to the playing field and edge of the bench area zone as humanly possible.

    Definitely a planned lineup, no? Who had them do this?

    I don’t think the plan was for Alosi to stick his knee out and knock the player down, but he was put into that position. By whom?

    After the game, Rex Ryan professed to be unaware of the situation until the team’s director of media operations informed him.

    So many questions here.

    •Did Rex Ryan order this formation?
    •Is it common to do this?
    •Do other teams do it?
    •Is it only a big deal because Alosi stupidly stuck his knee out?
    •Is this rule even enforced?
    What Alosi did was a penalty:

    Palpably Unfair Act (Non-Player)
    Rule 13, Section 1, Article 8

    Article 8 Non-player personnel of a club (e.g., management personnel, coaches, trainers, equipment men) are prohibited from making unnecessary physical contact with or directing abusive, threatening, or insulting language or gestures at opponents, game officials, or representatives of the League.

    Penalty: Loss of 15 yards. (Unsportsmanlike conduct.) Enforcement is from:
    a) succeeding spot if the ball is dead;
    b) previous spot if the ball was in play; or
    c) whatever spot the spot Referee, after consulting with the crew, deems equitable.

    Should it be more?
    The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

  • #2
    Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

    Did you intend to put this is the Colts section?
    {o,o}
    |)__)
    -"-"-

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    • #3
      Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

      It goes to show you how much things have changed when you compare this to Rick tripping Spree 10 years ago. Moral outrage for the win.
      Come to the Dark Side -- There's cookies!

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

        I think they were lined up 3 feet in front of where they were suppose to be. The solid white border looks like 3 feet in the picture instead of 6 feet.

        Anyway it goes the NFL doesn't enforce all the rules all the time. IMO the guy shouldn't lose his job for doing this. This story is way overblown.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

          Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post
          I think they were lined up 3 feet in front of where they were suppose to be. The solid white border looks like 3 feet in the picture instead of 6 feet.

          Anyway it goes the NFL doesn't enforce all the rules all the time. IMO the guy shouldn't lose his job for doing this. This story is way overblown.
          I disagree 100%.

          Not only was it wrong, it was plain stupid.

          1. There are a bazillion cameras around at modern day NFL games

          2. He is the S+C coach. Lord Forbid the guy have a season or career ending injury.

          I am all for second and third chances, but I am glad he was suspended. They probably could have just hit him with a month suspension (because he gets paid every 2 weeks) but I feel no pity for him for being out of work and a paycheck for the remainder of the season and playoffs.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

            Originally posted by vapacersfan View Post
            I disagree 100%.

            Not only was it wrong, it was plain stupid.

            1. There are a bazillion cameras around at modern day NFL games

            2. He is the S+C coach. Lord Forbid the guy have a season or career ending injury.

            I am all for second and third chances, but I am glad he was suspended. They probably could have just hit him with a month suspension (because he gets paid every 2 weeks) but I feel no pity for him for being out of work and a paycheck for the remainder of the season and playoffs.
            Oh I am by no means justifying what he did and I do think he should be suspended but calling for a mans job is a bit much to me. This is especailly true if he was told by someone to do it.

            I just hate how if anyone makes a mistake now the media wants them fired.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

              Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post
              Oh I am by no means justifying what he did and I do think he should be suspended but calling for a mans job is a bit much to me. This is especailly true if he was told by someone to do it.

              I just hate how if anyone makes a mistake now the media wants them fired.
              I don't have any great "moral outrage" about it. I don't think he's a terrible person, necessarily. But in an environment with 10% unemployment, where there are 100's of qualified trainers and other professionals who would fight for his job, why shouldn't he be fired?

              If you can easily find a similarly qualified individual who hasn't acted like a bone-head, shouldn't you hire THAT person?
              2010 IKL Fantasy Basketball Champion Baltimore Bulldogs

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

                Originally posted by bulldog View Post
                I don't have any great "moral outrage" about it. I don't think he's a terrible person, necessarily. But in an environment with 10% unemployment, where there are 100's of qualified trainers and other professionals who would fight for his job, why shouldn't he be fired?

                If you can easily find a similarly qualified individual who hasn't acted like a bone-head, shouldn't you hire THAT person?
                Are you a S + C coach who is looking for work.

                The whole idea of those guys being so close is to disrupt the player. If the coach wants him to be disruptive then I have hard time saying that he should be fired for carring out what the coach wants.

                The reason why he has that job is because he knows someone anyway. ITs not like the Jets are taking apps for S+C coaches.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

                  I don't think anyone asked anybody to stick out a knee to trip someone. That was likely a spontaneous boneheaded decision.

                  It is crytal clear though that these guys are standing "in formation" ready to take a hit if the gunner was a half-inch across the white line. It seems like such a formation isn't illegal and the NFL will have no further discipline. There are reasons why the tactic would be useful: a player can't throw a legal block out of bounds, while the guy being blocked can use the out of bounds area to run around the blocking player. This was a trick invented by the special teams great Steve Tasker of the Bills.

                  It still seems odd and frankly wrong to line up a group of inactive players and coaches to be "enforcers" should the gunner stray too far off the line.

                  My guess is that the Jets blocker was supposed to shove the gunner out of bounds hard enough to go into these guys and they would make sure he was tangled up enough not to be able to get in on the play. Legal, and dirty.
                  The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Trip-Gate, despicable, but was it planned or even ordered?

                    http://sports.espn.go.com/new-york/n...ory?id=5922926

                    The New York Jets have suspended Sal Alosi indefinitely after the team got "new information" that the strength and conditioning coach "instructed" five players to stand in a wall before he tripped Dolphins player Nolan Carroll on Sunday.

                    Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum announced the punishment after Alosi was suspended for the rest of the season and fined $25,000 on Monday.

                    "Over the last day as we continued our investigation we discovered some new information," Tannenbaum said. "The players at the Miami game were instructed by Sal to stand where they were forcing the gunner in the game to run around them. Based on that new information we've suspended Sal indefinitely, pending further review."
                    This isn't the first time that Alosi has ordered players to line up, according to a player who was in the line.

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