jimdahl

Ah, that explains it -- it seems to be geo-targeted to North Dakota. That's why the rest of us didn't see it. I would guess they just bought up a ton of ad space in N.D., and this being one of the biggest sites in N.D. ( ) it picked up a lot of the ad units. I put the URL on the ban list, though it warned me that it could take up to 4 hours to take effect. Let me know if you're still seeing it tomorrow. Sorry again for the inconvenience.

I haven't seen that either, but BigGreyAnt is right -- if you're seeing it in the upper right, it's a Google ad that I didn't intentionally chose. It's always been important to me to try to keep visitors united as fans of the Sioux, so I definitely wouldn't intentionally introduce something divisive or use the community to try to advance a political opinion. I'll look into if I can perform some sort of blocking by category (e.g. politics), but it's not my recollection that I can. What I know I can do is refuse specific ads (I've added blocks for ads from NDSU in the past). If you see the ad again, note the highlighted text and record the URL the ad sends it to -- that's the info I need to block it.

Sorry to ruffle your whiskers, Walrus. You are of course right, you didn't say that. Part of my reaction was to an ongoing theme that some of the comments reminded me of, but that you didn't say. The real point I was trying to make was... I agree that various parties were likely seeking different outcomes and almost certainly did some behind-the-scenes counting and comparing of votes. However, the point I wanted to make is that though different people may have been seeking different outcomes, each is trying to work toward what they think is the best interest of UND (with a dash of self-interest on the side). They just have different ideas what's best.

Whenever a non-UND person is chosen for a UND job, there are whispers here of secret cabals and conspiracies with nefarious anti-UND motives. I've never understood what those suspect motives are supposed to be (Tony paid off the KGB to blackmail O'Keefe to persuade five other administrators to pick a pretty qualified guy instead of the UND guy?) Looking at who's on it, I would guess that each person on the committee voted for who they thought would be best for UND. That different people have different opinions on who's best isn't a surprise, and doesn't lead me to suspect anyone's motives. Differing opinions are probably attributable to (1) them having information we don't, and (2) different people placing different weights on each attribute (e.g. experience at a national D-I university weighed more heavily than UND ties, in contrast to some fans thinking the latter more significant). Of course, it's an attitude like this that keeps me from getting invited to the secret conspiracy meetings.

The message board should render fine on most modern devices. Other parts of the site will render fine on advanced devices (e.g. iPhone), but "degrade gracefully" on browsers that don't fully support Javascript. For example, the dropdown menus become long lists of the options that would have been available in the dropdown menus on a more fully feature browser. If you're just trying to get scores in a hurry or just read the message board, the mobile version was designed for phones with minimal web browsing capability, displaying only low-bandwidth text.

You're forgetting that this is no big deal for Minnesota. While UND only gets Gopher week twice a year, for Minnesota every week is Gopher week. Every Minnesota opponent thinks they have a big rivalry with the Gophers and plays up to them, but to the Gophers each week is just another opponent who thinks they're the Gophers' rival.

No, the bonus isn't used by the committee this year and so hasn't been used in the siouxsports.com PWR calculations since December. Any references to it are just me having failed to eradicate those traces of it. Thanks for pointing out that display error, I see what you're referring to and will fix it ASAP. Again, the calculations and rankings were correct, but that particular page incorrectly displayed that aspect of the background details behind the ranking.

Congratulations SiouxBetcha for thread #10000 (and congrats for selling the tickets in a speedy 50 minutes).

It was an extremely misguided adjustment at best. I did a detailed analysis of its exact impact a year ago. Combined with the extension of the negative win exemption to the regular season, the easiest path to the top of the RPI seems to be schedule creampuffs and beat them. Miami currently has a comical 8 games thrown out of their RPI calculation for being negative wins, and 6 of the remaining 8 would currently be thrown out if won.

I know Brad's written that very same article in the past, I know the NCAA ice hockey committee has promised a crackdown on obstruction for years, the WCHA has pledged to open up the game for years. The NHL figured it out in 2004 when attendance and freefalling t.v. coverage forced them to do something to save the game. Frankly, unthinkable in my youth, the NHL is now a better, more watchable hockey product than college hockey. After all the false starts, the cynic in me worries that the NCAA and WCHA won't actually do anything until their survival depends on it, and I don't see the fan market applying sufficient pressure. The optimist in me hopes that the increase in the WCHA as a training ground for the NHL allows the NHL to apply sufficient pressure.

Everything we know so far is at the 2008 schedule wiki page. There have been rumors that an official schedule would be released around now, but nothing has come out yet.

Harsh -- I knew we wouldn't be able to pick the same player within a game, but across games, ouch. There goes my all-Jones all-the-time strategy. Gimme LaPoint

Probably -- as you noted, they currently have 7 games against TUCs and 2 more scheduled. The only TUC they've played "on the bubble" is Bowling Green at #21. Some other opponents in the low 20s could become TUCs, catapulting them past 10. It was just pretty shocking to me to see a top-ranked team in a position such that, given the current rankings, it will have only played 9 games against TUCs in the regular season.

With the usual disclaimers, it's always amusing when these come out: (From N.E. Hampton on hockey-l)

Anyone who wants to talk about the Sioux is more than welcome here, diversity of opinion keeps the discussions interesting (as long as they can be expressed respectfully). That said, the dead horse keeps neighing only because we all keep kicking it. (Quite a metaphor, eh?)

I wrote a blog post a couple days ago outlining where the current PWR leaves UND. I see no point duplicating USCHO or CHN's bracketology articles or such, rather it's more specifically focused toward UND's situation and Sioux fans with the assumption that you already understand PWR from some other source. They'll become more specifically forward-looking as it begins to make sense to do so. In summary, of the five teams to whom we're currently losing a comparison: Clarkson: UND could take TUC or COP (with a little help) to flip the 2-1 comparison CC: UND trails 1-4 with no h2h remaining. Ouch Denver: UND trails 1-4, but has two h2h remaining. Miami: UND trails 0-2. TUC isn't in play because Miami hasn't played enough, but the RPI comparison is within reach Michigan: UND trails 0-3. It's leads in TUC, COP, and RPI are formidable.

Buoyed by recent press clippings, his first career goal comes in his third year to Zach Jones.

Board adopts salary range

Topics resurfacing is fine, there are always new people and new things to say. The problem with the other thread was the appearance that you were just trolling for Bison fans (who I applaud for ignoring it), with statements such as: A, "So, do you think we'll finally get the rivalry game going again in '09," would've been met with groans some fans sick of the topic, but probably wouldn't have been closed by a moderator.

I think this is a good discussion to have. My thought on this topic are here.

I'll make a few comments about some of the moderation and appropriateness topics. I agree that people should be able to criticize players' and other public figures' public performance (not personal lives, except aspects that are otherwise in the news), though I would only do so myself with extreme care. Everyone should definitely follow Sicatoka's advice (which I think he stole from me) that before posting something negative about someone, you should think about if you would say it to their face. The call for less moderation is interesting, in that comments are usually in the opposite direction, that we let too much go. That's a helpful reminder that plenty of reasonable people disagree and that no matter where we set the bar, there will be people who think it's wrong in both directions. The feedback from discussions like these is helpful, and I always read it carefully. One thing that's started to concern us in moderating that you might not think about is reputational impact on UND. Most of the people talked about here do read the board or at least occasionally find out what is being said about them. When people search for information about UND or these people, this site is near the top of the search results. In those ways, the discussions here are a reflection on UND. Since SiouxSports.com is a reflection on me, I'm interested in that reflection on UND being positive. I'm happy to devote 1000s of my personal hours and dollars to bring information about UND to Sioux fans everywhere, but draw the line where I think the impact and reflection on UND becomes negative.

People who "register" but never click the link in the "confirmation of address" email are assigned a member number that can't be reused.

While the gap between the post numbers and the number of posts gets larger as the moderators and I go wild with our machetes, congratulations for post #300,000 goes to Sioux Hab-it for this dispute settling clarification.

I first saw this in a G.F. Herald article where they apparently thought this piece painted N.D. in a bad light, but National Geographic did a pretty cool spread on North Dakota ghost towns: North Dakota, The Emptied Prairie Not a hatchet job, in my opinion, but undoubtedly sad.

Long visits GF again Some interesting talk about the AD reporting structure, that's been discussed here many times...