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

Super Bowl Thread

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

  • Re: Super Bowl Thread

    The issue isn't strength of opponents. The issue is saying Peyton is the reason why the Colts lost in the playoffs and Tom is the reason why the Pats won, when their statistically similiar. Logic would lead someone to conclude that the difference in their record, when their stats are so similiar, is due to the difference in their teams rather than the difference in their individual play.

    When people have to start dismissing statistical fact in order to argue their personal opinion, there's something wrong going on.
    Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

    Comment


    • Re: Super Bowl Thread

      Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
      When comparing Manning and Brady's playoff stats, it's important to keep this in mind:

      Brady has played in 26 playoff games. 8 of those games have been in the Conference Championship round, and 5 of them of been the Super Bowl. So half of Brady's playoff games have been in either the AFCCG or Super Bowl, i.e. the highest level of competition. It's fair to assume that New England regularly advancing so far in the playoffs has taken a bit of a ding on Brady's playoff stats since he is so often playing against the best of the best. Brady has only played in 3 Wild Card games in his entire career.

      Conversely, Manning has played 23 playoff games, 4 of which were Conference Championships and 3 of which were Super Bowls. So only roughly 30% of Manning's career playoff games have been in the AFCCG or Super Bowl (7/23), compared to 50% for Brady. Also, Manning has 7 Wild Card games compared to just 3 for Brady. Logically, a wild card opponent is going to be weaker than an AFCCG opponent in any given year. Manning has pretty good stats in those 7 wild card games (102 passer rating). For instance, Manning was able to really pad his stats against the Broncos in the 2003 and 2004 wild card rounds. Well, Brady was just sitting at home that week since the Pats were on a bye.

      So yeah, their overall playoff stats are pretty close, but a higher percentage of Brady's playoff games have been played deep into the playoffs against the best of teams.
      I posted this a few months back and wish I could find it easily, but I took a look at defenses they had to play during the playoffs and found that Manning's were actually slightly harder. There was some correlation between advancing and the defenses getting harder IIRC, but it wasn't that strong, and it wasn't enough to overcome that Manning has just ran into a bunch of very hard defenses over the years. I think that the assumption wasn't wrong per se, but the numbers didn't bear it out in this case.

      Comment


      • Re: Super Bowl Thread

        I just did a comparison of scoring defenses faced by Peyton in 1st round losses vs. first round wins and found no difference:

        Scoring defense of the teams who have defeated Peyton Manning’s team in the first round:
        15
        3
        14
        3
        5
        15
        6
        12
        Average rank = 9.125


        Scoring defense of the teams who have lost to Peyton Manning’s team in the first round:
        9
        9
        11
        3
        11
        Average rank = 8.6


        I didn't do yards allowed, even though that is more often followed, because I think points allowed is way more meaningful
        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


        • Re: Super Bowl Thread

          Originally posted by Cubs231721 View Post
          I posted this a few months back and wish I could find it easily, but I took a look at defenses they had to play during the playoffs and found that Manning's were actually slightly harder. There was some correlation between advancing and the defenses getting harder IIRC, but it wasn't that strong, and it wasn't enough to overcome that Manning has just ran into a bunch of very hard defenses over the years. I think that the assumption wasn't wrong per se, but the numbers didn't bear it out in this case.

          I think I remember when you posted those stats. The problem with the defensive stats is that sometimes the regular season defensive rankings aren't relevant to how good a defense actually is when the playoffs roll around. Take the 2011 Giants for example. In the regular season, their defense was ranked a putrid 25th in the regular season by points allowed (25 per game). But once the playoffs rolled around, they got healthy and all of the sudden played like an elite defense. They held the Falcons to just 2 points, the 15-1 Aaron Rodgers 45 TD Packers to 20 points, the Niners to 17 points in OT, and the Brady led Pats to 17 points. That is a pretty damn great 14 PPG, which would have ranked them as the best defense in the NFL if they held that average for an entire season. So technically Brady lost the Super Bowl to just the 25th ranked defense in the league that season, but in reality he was really losing to a defense that played like the best in the league for a month.

          The 2012 Ravens are another good example. In the regular season (tied for 12th), they weren't as elite as they had been in prior years because of injuries, but then they got healthy and went on the roll in the playoffs. They held the Colts to 9 points, the Broncos' offense to 21 (14 of Denver's 35 points came from kicks returned for touchdowns), and the Pats to 13. That's playing like an elite defense.

          Sometimes you have a defense that is the best from the start of the regular season to the end of the playoffs like the 2013 Seahawks. Other times you have teams like the 2011 Giants and 2012 Ravens who get healthy at the end of the year and play like a completely different defense come playoff time. Thus, I think that the regular season rankings only have so much value. I do think there is something to be said about a Conference Championship game or Super Bowl generally being more difficult than a Wild Card game. With each passing round, the pressure is tightened and the competition generally gets kicked up a notch. Even though Brady and Manning have very similar overall postseason stats, I think you have to factor in the fact that half of Brady's playoff games have either been the AFCCG or Super Bowl, whereas it's only 30% for Manning. Manning OTOH has played in 7 wild card games to Brady's 3. Peyton has played in as many Wild Card games (7) as Super Bowls and AFCCG games combined, so that 102 passer rating that he has in those 7 wild card games definitely helps his stats out a bit.

          Manning Wild Card/Super Bowl + AFCCG ratio: 7/7 = 1
          Brady Wild Card/Super Bowl + AFCCG ratio: 3/13 = 0.23
          Last edited by Sollozzo; 02-07-2014, 10:55 AM.

          Comment


          • Re: Super Bowl Thread

            What I find interesting is that Brady and Manning started out at a combined 4-0 in Super Bowls, but now have lost 4 straight combined. Both of them have some pretty haunting late career Super Bowl losses.

            Comment


            • Re: Super Bowl Thread

              Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post
              What I find interesting is that Brady and Manning started out at a combined 4-0 in Super Bowls, but now have lost 4 straight combined. Both of them have some pretty haunting late career Super Bowl losses.
              Changing of the guard.

              Comment

              Working...
              X