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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.
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cyber survey on indy STAR right now

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  • cyber survey on indy STAR right now

    "cyber survey" current question - would you attend a pacers game if tickets were free?

    2/3 say "NO".

    guess that pretty much sums it up.

  • #2
    Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

    Nothing like getting kicked while you're down.
    I just don't understand the Star's point in continueing to run polls and timelines reflecting the teams troubles. I'd figure we've hit a saturation point because the Fieldhouse isn't getting any emptier.
    ...Still "flying casual"
    @roaminggnome74

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    • #3
      Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

      Originally posted by Roaming Gnome View Post
      . I'd figure we've hit a saturation point because the Fieldhouse isn't getting any emptier.
      Actually, I think it is....

      -Bball
      Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

      ------

      "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

      -John Wooden

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

        I'd go if the tickets were free.

        And so was gas...

        Granted most who have responded are probably biased and already have season tickets. BUT for those of us who go once in a blue moon a free night out sounds fine... at least if we are playing a good team.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

          Don't forget parking and food.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

            Oh, the online poll, the first weapon of haters everywhere.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

              Online polls are silly, of course the people who are going to take the time to participate in the poll would be the ones who would vote no.

              I have tickets to the game Sunday night and because of some other commitments - it was going to be difficult for me to go, I considered offering the two tickets for free to someone in this forum - but I have reconsidered and I am going to go to the game myself. Why bother offering the tickets if no one wants to go even for free.
              Last edited by Unclebuck; 02-29-2008, 09:48 AM.

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              • #8
                Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                8

                I will go see almost anything for free. I will go to OHL Ontario Hockey League games for free. I just like live sports and to see the Pacers for Free would be a dream. I couldnt care less who they played or what I just love live Sports and Music.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                  First and foremost the message is they need to fix the problems with the Pacers.

                  We’ve all heard the phrase zero tolerance and I can’t think of any other place or time that it would have more appropriate application.

                  I get that people are entitled to due process and all that but let’s be real here. If you are partaking in conduct illegal or otherwise detrimental to the team your services will be terminated.

                  I think people flat out don’t care what the financial or cap repercussions are at this point.

                  People want to know the bleeding is stopped and there is a progression toward the restoration of this team even if that progression takes longer because of prompt response to get rid of problem players.

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                  • #10
                    Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                    Yeah, no way I want to support thugs like Yi, Bogut and Redd. Oh man, I can't get away from Conseco fast enough when the gagsta posse going by the alias "Magic" roll in on us. And what fool in his right mind would want to get within 10 feet of Kevin Durant?


                    Whoops, that's too "outside the box" for Hoosiers. Conservative isn't just the local political view, it pretty much covers all subjects.

                    I mean you hate JO, Tins, Shawne, Quis because of their off-court stuff. Fine. Why don't YOU (person that hates them) tell me how many minutes they played the last 3 weeks, and just what PCT of all Pacers minutes that represented (rough guess will suffice).


                    I'm really sick of dolts that turn seeing Diener, Granger, Dun, Troy, Foster, Rush vs Roy, Aldridge, Pryz, etc into a big old gangsta party of thugs.

                    The actual on-floor product has nearly zero to do with the in-print stories and team image. Heck, I wish it did because some of those guys might have this team winning more games.


                    Edit - suggestion for the local news. After each of these stories make sure to add the minutes played by that player over the last month, maybe contrast that with typical starters minutes.

                    You might as well say "Pacers win Nobel Prize, come see a hero" if Ike invents a cure for cancer.
                    Last edited by Naptown_Seth; 02-29-2008, 01:42 PM.

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                    • #11
                      Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                      Originally posted by Naptown_Seth View Post
                      I mean you hate JO, Tins, Shawne, Quis because of their off-court stuff. Fine. Why don't YOU (person that hates them) tell me how many minutes they played the last 3 weeks, and just what PCT of all Pacers minutes that represented (rough guess will suffice).
                      .
                      player == minutes, % of 240, % of 48

                      JO == none, 0%, 0%
                      JT == none, 0%, 0%
                      SW == 105, 5%, 27%
                      MD == 194, 10%, 50%


                      What did that prove, Seth? Surely you don't think that, because I apply different criteria to my entertainment choices than you do, that I am incapable of looking up eight box scores on nba.com and adding the numbers together.
                      Last edited by Putnam; 02-29-2008, 02:20 PM.
                      And I won't be here to see the day
                      It all dries up and blows away
                      I'd hang around just to see
                      But they never had much use for me
                      In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                        I might go to a game for free, but I doubt I could convince Kegboy to go so I guess I wouldn't go for free.

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                          If they would pay for my plane ticket and my game ticket, I'd gladly pay for everything else and probably buy the best stadium food they offer.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                            I hear ya', Twes, but truth is you can't fire the guy if he honestly didn't know what was going on. We could argue that Shawne Williams may have known more about things than he's letting on, but by all accounts he didn't know Bohannon was at his home, he wasn't invited by Shawne to be his house guest, and he didn't give Bohannon any money bywhich to use to aid his escape from authorities. So, I'll ask some of the same questions here that I asked over on RATS:

                            - Did Shawne know about the outstanding warrant for murder against Mr. Bohannon?

                            According to the updated report found on IndyStar.com, he did not.

                            - Did Shawne know Mr. Bohannon was at his home at the time he was apprehended?

                            According to reports, no he did not.

                            - Did Shawne at any time invite Mr. Bohannon to be a guest at his home either for a casual visit or for a long-term stay?

                            The long-term stay issue as already been ruled out per the updated report; Shawne claims he never invited him to stay at his home as a long-term house guest. But the report doesn't say that Bohannon had never visited Shawne at any time since the Sept 11, 2007 traffic incident up until he was apprehended.

                            - Could Mr. Bohannon gained access to Shawne's home through his friend at times when Shawne wasn't home, i.e., on away-games, without Shawne's knowledge?

                            Yes, it's very possible.

                            - Could such visits been concealled from Shawne?

                            Yes, it's possible, but it would greatly depend on how often Mr. Bohannon visited and if he left a "trail" behind that pointed back to his unwelcomed visitation.

                            I could go on and on asking all sorts of questions, but the facts as currently reported don't indict Shawne of anything wrong doing. So, until it's clear what he did or did not know and what his real association was to Mr. Bohannon, there's really not a whole lot DW/Bird can do at this point except wait until the truth comes out. And if it shows that Shawne was more involved that he initially let on, he's outta here! However, at present the most the TPTB can do to him is issue a strong verbal reprimad concerning the company he keeps.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: cyber survey on indy STAR right now

                              If tickets were free, if I lived in Indy, if it wasn't snowing, I was allowed to sit anywhere I wanted and I had some free time......then yes, I would go to some games.

                              We're talking about going to see a free game here.....but admittedly....my response is different from most of yours since I only get to see the Pacers play once a year.
                              Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

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