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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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Omri Cassipi Mural Defaced

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  • #1

    Omri Cassipi Mural Defaced

    Dan Devine
    Yahoo.com - Ball Don't Lie
    http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/bal...urn=nba-268847


    I've been reading Ball Don't Lie since long before I got the opportunity to write here -- since nearly the beginning, since the Powers that Be decided to team America's greatest basketball writer with Canada's greatest (non-Greek) basketball podcaster to create a unique version of hoops TNT that had nothing to do with EJ, Kenny and Charles. One of the things that I've always loved about this space is its commitment to discussion of more than just what happens during 48 minutes of nightly exertion on a 94-by-50 rectangle.

    At BDL, we get to write about the games, but we also get to write about history, about culture, about beliefs, about humor -- about how this game, its adherents and all the things related to it (however tangential) that appear ephemeral can become essential. About how it can lift our spirits and warm our hearts.

    Because of that, though, we've also got a responsibility to write about the stuff that makes our hands hot and our heads shake.

    You know the story by now: Police received a call Wednesday afternoon that a plywood mural at 16th and R streets in midtown Sacramento paying tribute to several members of the Sacramento Kings had been defaced, and that a backward swastika had been painted (or scratched) on the forehead of the image of Omri Casspi, the Kings' small forward who last year became the first native of Israel ever to play in an NBA game.

    A "backward swastika." Color me stunned that the creep (or creeps) couldn't even get the direction right.

    From his home in Israel, Casspi handled the incident about as well as you can handle something like this. He told Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee and Sam Amick of NBA FanHouse that he was hurt when he learned of the graffiti, that he knew it was in no way indicative of fan sentiment toward him in Sacramento, and that he planned to "just let the police handle this and focus on having a great season."

    On that score, a Sacramento police spokesman has said the department is investigating the incident as a "possible hate crime." I get the careful phrasing -- that term has a highly specific, debate-inspiring definition, especially in the United States, and as a result, law enforcement officials have to tread lightly in cases like these.

    But that said, legalese and equivocations aside: Of course it's a hate crime. How the hell could it be anything else?

    You can chalk it up to ignorance, stupidity, immaturity or any other explanation you'd like, but the pure fact is that nobody busts out the Krylon and throws up a Nazi symbol on top of an image of a Jew out of love. Nobody does what some sick skell did to Casspi's image without a shameful fever coursing through the blood.

    You might not believe that those who commit crimes like this should be punished more severely because their actions were motivated by hate rather than hunger or poverty or greed or something else. But denying that hatred -- of Jews in general, of Casspi in particular, of some amorphous other, of one's own lot in life, whatever -- underpins the invocation of the slaughter of 6 million Jews and as many as 11 million more people from other groups (not to mention the evocation of Charles Manson) would be nonsensical.

    Similarly, I get why nearly every report and commentary on the matter has taken a cue from the remarks of Darrell Steinberg, president pro tempore of the California State Senate, and included some sort of note that the abysmal artistic remix was all the more tasteless and offensive because "it occurred on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the celebration of the Jewish new year." I tend to think that this small, disgusting act would've been just as heinous any other day of the year, because a flagrant's a flagrant whether it comes right after the opening tip or in the closing seconds, but I get it.

    I'm not a Jew. I'm a Catholic. (A pretty severely lapsed Catholic, if we're being honest.) But despite the absence of any direct, personal connection to the immeasurable pain that symbol represents, this story and its immediate aftermath burrowed under my skin somethin' awful. Frankly, I'm not really sure what about it struck such a chord with me.

    Maybe it's the amazing cognitive dissonance of defacing a picture of Casspi, a gifted kid who's such an immense source of pride for so many, who devoted time this summer to helping at a basketball clinic aimed at fostering interaction and tolerance between Israeli and Palestinian youth. I don't know Omri Casspi(notes), nor do I pretend to, and I certainly don't believe that anyone, regardless of their personal character, deserves treatment like this, but the juxtaposition of his specific face and that horrendous symbol ... I don't know, it just seems particularly uncomfortable.

    Maybe it's that the ensuing discussion hasn't focused a whole heck of a lot on the important role in basketball history played by Jewish hoop luminaries like Red Auerbach, Red Holzman, Nat Holman, Marty Friedman, Sonny Hertzberg, Nancy Lieberman and Dolph Schayes, to say nothing of the rich history of Israeli basketball, of Ligat HaAl and Maccabi Tel Aviv and so much more. That swastika, this disgrace, is an affront to the many verses those legends have contributed, and continue to contribute, to basketball's brilliant narrative.

    Maybe it's that the defacing of Casspi's picture came smack in the middle of a national argument about whether or not a Florida preacher should burn Qurans on the ninth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Maybe it was learning that the artist behind the mural told Sacramento's CBS affiliate that this isn't the first time the painting has been defaced. Maybe it was that in the middle of as great and unifying an event as the World Basketball Championships, something so dark and divisive had to muddy the waters.

    Whatever the reason, it did, and I'm unlikely to forget that, even when we get back into the sweep of the season and we'll have Omri Casspi's game, rather than his image, to discuss. (And plenty of it, if Casspi gets his way -- he told FanHouse's Amick that he intends to show everyone that he's the clear choice in the battle for the Kings' starting small-forward spot this year.) The painting's repaired, Casspi's ready to move on, and so, I'm sure, are most of you. But I hope we wait, even if only for a second.

    "Selah" is a Hebrew word that shows up a lot in the Bible, notably in the Psalms, and while it encompasses a lot of meanings, many of the translations come across as something like, "Pause for reflection," or "Stop and think about that." We should take this opportunity to stop for a moment, think about what that symbol means, and think about what Omri Casspi must have felt seeing it stretched across his face. This kid deserves better. We all do.
    Don't let this turn into a political/racial/religious discussion. Just thought this was an interesting read. It's really too bad the world is still like this. Casspi seems like a great guy.
    Stop quoting people I have on ignore!
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Omri Cassipi Mural Defaced

    Sickening, just awful for someone to do that.

    I just watched a great piece about Casspi on NBA TV a few days ago, very impressive young man.
    "Just look at the flowers ........ BANG" - Carol "The Walking Dead"

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    • #3
      Re: Omri Cassipi Mural Defaced

      I've never understood this bigotry.
      WTH???

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Omri Cassipi Mural Defaced

        All you really have to know is this kind of crap will never end. That part of the world has been fighting for thousands of years and probably will for thousands more. The fact that it was backwards (a native American symbol no longer used) tells me that it was probably kids playing a prank. I don't think the real haters would mess up like that. Just mere stupidity.
        "He wanted to get to that money time. Time when the hardware was on the table. That's when Roger was going to show up. So all we needed to do was stay close"
        Darnell Hillman (Speaking of former teammate Roger Brown)

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