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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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That Punk Kobe...

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  • That Punk Kobe...

    has grown up.

    http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slu...yhoo&type=lgns

    by Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports Mar 13, 5:59 am EST

    PHOENIX – Privately, people wonder: How many more passes does Kobe Bryant(notes) give Pau Gasol(notes) for speaking so boldly about him? How long until Bryant’s public and private reprisal comes with a ferocity that could bring a 7-footer to his knees? All season, Gasol has been a relentlessly consistent, if not passively aggressive, critic of the franchise star’s shooting habits, of an offense that doesn’t deliver him the ball with the frequency that he wants.
    Kobe Bryant says "the jury is still out" as to whether this season's Lakers have the urgency required to defend their championship.
    (NBAE/ Getty Images)

    Whatever the reasons, Gasol has been emboldened to speak his mind. Whatever the odds, Bryant has bit his lip and let it go.
    Related Video



    • “I believe in what I believe,” Gasol said.







    Hours before Friday night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns, chatting on a chair inside U.S. Airways Center, Bryant let out a laugh and insisted there will be no public rebuttals. “I’m not touching that,” Bryant said with a smile and shrug.
    Bryant could come out and say that Gasol had never won a playoff game until arriving to the Lakers. He could tell Gasol that the Lakers still had the NBA’s best record without him for a month to start the season. He could tell him to make a free throw in the last minutes of tough games, tell him to toughen up.
    Truth be told, Kobe Bryant could tell Pau Gasol to simply shut the bleep up.
    Only, Bryant doesn’t do it. Tempted? Well, of course. Yet, the reason for such restraint is simple: The Lakers desperately need Gasol, and a public chastising of him would almost assuredly reduce his fragile psyche to rubble, costing Bryant the player he needs to catch Michael Jordan and his six championship rings.
    Bryant responds with polite, processed reason: He isn’t playing differently this season, he insists.
    Perhaps circumstances have changed, but not him.
    “Last year during our stretch run, Andrew [Bynum] wasn’t there ‘cause of injury, so Pau got a lot more touches,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports. “And this year, we’ve got to kind of split the difference between those two. Now, any of those guys can have a big night. Andrew had one the other night. Lamar [Odom] can have a big night. And Pau can have a big night.
    “Some nights you get a lot of touches, some nights you don’t.”
    Such patience out of Bryant, such perspective. Years ago, this wouldn’t have happened. He would have blasted Gasol into oblivion. No more. Everyone has watched and listened to Gasol take these little shots along the way, beginning with Bryant’s pursuit of Jerry West’s Lakers scoring record and continuing several times over.
    Nevertheless, Bryant has been nurturing, not narcissistic. So when there was a game on the line Friday night, Kobe had the capital to slap Gasol upside the head in the fourth quarter, a kind of nurturing, go-get-‘em moment that preceded an improbable stand by the Lakers frontline.
    Moments later, Gasol would flex those skinny arms and crush Phoenix’s Louis Amundson(notes) upside the head on a drive to the rim. The foul sent Suns coach Alvin Gentry into a rage, costing him two technical fouls, an ejection and perhaps ultimately a 102-96 loss.
    “Pau gave a hard foul, which is what we like to see from him,” Bryant said.
    These are the small victories which assemble one on top of another: A hard foul here, clutch basket there. This is the reason the Bryant dictatorship has allowed such dissident talk out of Gasol. Maybe it emboldens Gasol. Maybe it leaves Gasol thinking that’s he standing up to Bryant, standing tough. This week started with Gasol reiterating his issues with Bryant shooting too much and ended with a savvy 21 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists from Bryant.
    Four straight road losses had everyone doubting the Lakers’ resolve, and with Bryant’s mangled finger reaggravated, with that bum ankle acting up, he’s never needed so much out of his teammates. So, whatever momentary satisfaction might come out of a public obliteration from Gasol’s emboldened mouth, the harshest consequences would ultimately be meted out to Bryant. This has been the evolution of Kobe. All those years of raging against the machine, of a genius talent forever trying to control the inner rage that ruled him, Kobe discovered the proper way to harness it.
    “I’ve definitely seen the growth,” Derek Fisher(notes) said. “We’ve talked about it. It’s something that he’s very conscious of. He lives, breathes, digests every aspect of his game, our team’s game and what’s necessary to win. He’s very aware of what needs to happen on and off the court for us to be successful.”
    Where did Bryant change in that way? Well, it had to be Shaquille O’Neal’s(notes) derisive rap and Bryant’s ultimate reaction: silence. At the Beijing Olympics, on the eve of his 30th birthday, Bryant told me that his big mistake earlier in his career was always coming up with a rebuttal for Shaq. “My philosophy had always been to keep quiet and not to say anything,” he said. “And by me responding, that drew me into it. If I had to do it over again, I would’ve just let people talk and say what they had to say, and as time goes, they would’ve seen what was what.
    “When you’re young, [you think], ‘Enough is enough. I’m going to say something.’ And all of a sudden …”
    Kobe Bryant knows he needs a confident Pau Gasol at his side if he hopes to catch Michael Jordan's six titles.
    (NBAE/ Getty Images)

    All of a sudden you’ve created a distraction, a needless opponent. Bryant had endless energy in his 20s, but everything comes harder now. Everything comes with emerging doubts, with a suggestion that LeBron James(notes) has passed him, that the game’s greatest player is, well, no longer the game’s greatest player. Bryant isn’t chasing Jay-Z as his model, but rather M.J. He wants fists full of rings. He’s trying to get between Jordan’s six titles and Bill Russell’s 11. He’s trying to create a championship legacy that no player of his generation can call his own.
    Even so, this has been a season of doubting Bryant. Before the All-Star break, with Kobe finally resting an ankle injury, you couldn’t listen to Southern California sports-talk radio without the most preposterous premise being peddled on the airwaves: Look at the way these Lakers play without Bryant, look at the ball movement, look at how they’re better without him. The Lakers won a few games without Kobe, and somehow that became an indictment of his greatness. Pure folly.
    “A lot of times they run out of things to talk about,” Bryant said. “They talk about things that have no relevance, that make no sense. They forgot that last year, playing exactly the same way, we won a championship. But they get excited about a four-game winning streak.
    “…We have to focus on the big picture. That’s what I try to do.”
    Someone close to Bryant suggested that his angry disposition after beating Toronto on Wednesday with a fabulous fade-away was born of this message: Don’t expect me to always bail everyone out. In some ways, the Lakers take Bryant for granted, believing that he’ll always save them in the final minutes.
    “Yeah, sure,” Bryant agreed. “I’ve been in L.A. for 14 years now, and I think people have gotten used to seeing me do things like that.”
    The thirtysomething Bryant has discovered something the twentysomething had a harder time with: Restraint can be his salvation. This started with Shaq’s rap assault two years ago, where Bryant’s non-response went against every fiber of his DNA. Yet it changed the public dynamic of how people perceived the Shaq-Kobe feud, turned Kobe into the grown-up and Shaq into the pesty, immature kid.
    It did something else, too: It’s colored the way Bryant’s treated his sidekick, Gasol. Make no mistake: Kobe has engendered Gasol with much more public respect than Shaq ever did him. He hasn’t been condescending to or belittling of him. Yes, he’ll go after Gasol and Bynum for failing to play hard and tough and sustained. Basketball’s greatest coaches are always the superstars who hold teammates accountable.
    So, yes, when Gasol has been so publicly disparaging of Bryant’s mode of attack, it naturally has to rankle him. Gasol did it on several occasions this season, including after Sunday’s loss in Orlando. His theme’s been wanting the ball, wanting Bryant to come inside with the pass. “It’s nothing against Kobe or any individual here,” Gasol insisted. “It’s all about our team success. I think he understands that’s why I think that way, why I might say those things. There’s no harm intended.”
    No one is buying it, but whatever. Bryant is practicing a diplomacy in his 30s which didn’t exist in his thermonuclear 20s. As Fisher suggested, Bryant’s forever diagnosing his team and the climate in which it exists.
    These Lakers are 48-18 and have fallen three games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for the best record in basketball. Looking back at previous Lakers teams which tried to repeat as champions, Bryant said, “This is kind of the typical malaise you go through this time of the year waiting for the playoffs. The teams we had in the past went through the same kind of lull. But ultimately we had a sense of urgency to get out of it. But the jury is still out about whether we’re able to do that.”
    Between now and then, the increasingly benevolent dictatorship of Kobe Bryant will allow its people freedom of speech. He thinks these things through for hours upon hours, and Pau Gasol can have his say for now. For his own sake, Gasol had better get it all out of his system and deliver come May and June. Hell to pay then.

  • #2
    Re: That Punk Kobe...

    delete sorry

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