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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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Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

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  • Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

    http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011...pot/?eref=sihp

    The race for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference is as pathetic as the race for the bottom four spots in the Western Conference is exciting.

    The Pacers, current holders of the eighth slot, have lost four straight games and have gone into a major defensive slump. The Bobcats, pursuing the Pacers as if they were lazy house cats and not predators, have lost five straight. Their combined ineptitude has allowed the Bucks to stay in it even though they’ve been declared dead several times and had lost four of five before blowing out the putrid Wizards on Tuesday.

    You know I have a soft spot for the Bucks, and that I’ve been rooting for them to find their 2009-10 groove, sneak into the playoffs and give the top seed some Andrew Bogut-style hell. But the more I watch Bogut struggle with a rib cage muscle strain and a right elbow that clearly still isn’t right, the more I wonder if it might be best for Milwaukee to miss the playoffs, get its core players healthy, take a swing in the lottery and hope Brandon Jennings makes a leap next season.

    Even if the Bucks were actually trying to tank (which won’t happen), the Pacers and Bobcats just won’t let them escape playoff contention. This battle for the eighth spot — combined with the sterling play of the Sixers, who are seventh and only a half-game behind the Knicks for sixth — has made it clear that whoever wins the battle for the top seed between Boston and Chicago will have a small but important edge in the playoffs.

    As things stand now, facing the Pacers instead of the Sixers or Knicks is a big deal, particularly for an older team such as Boston. Philadelphia and New York always seem to play Boston tough, and having an easy five-game series against Miami last year — as opposed to the bloodbath seven-gamers of Boston’s prior two playoff runs — helped set up the aging Celtics for a Finals run.

    So does any team have the edge in this three-team race? I’d rank them like this:

    1) Pacers: The heavy favorite, with a one-game lead in the loss column over Charlotte and a two-game lead over the Bucks — and the most favorable schedule of all three clubs.


    2) Bucks: A schedule that looks much like Indiana’s — with one significant difference — and is much easier than Charlotte’s. They can also clinch the tiebreaker over the Pacers with a win over Indiana on April 1, which could emerge as a crucial game.

    3) Bobcats: They’re one game ahead of the Bucks in the loss column, but they just traded their best all-around player to Portland (Gerald Wallace), and they’ve got the toughest remaining schedule of these three clubs.

    Seven of Charlotte’s last 19 games come against teams currently in the top four in either conference; five of those seven games are on the road. The Pacers and Bucks have just 10 such games combined. The misery for Charlotte starts Wednesday against the Bulls and continues with a three-game road trip next week that includes a back-to-back against the Thunder and Spurs. Ouch.

    Charlotte does have six games left against lottery teams (the Bucks and Pacers have seven such games each), but three of those games come in the last eight days of the season, when the Bobcats might be out of it.

    And, by the way, Charlotte has already lost the head-to-head tiebreaker with both Milwaukee and Indiana.

    John Hollinger’s playoff odds give the Bobcats a small edge over Milwaukee right now, but I expect that to change in the next week or so. In short: I’d be shocked if Charlotte makes it.

    That leaves the Bucks and Pacers. The remaining opponents of both teams have a collective winning percentage around .470, and Milwaukee and Indiana have (basically) an even split of home and road games the rest of the way. Both face seven teams bound for the lottery. The Bucks do face six of those elite clubs I mentioned above, compared to just four such games for the Pacers, but Milwaukee’s last game against a heavyweight club comes against the Thunder in the season finale for both teams. Oklahoma City will likely be locked into the fourth seed in the West by then and may choose to rest its best guys.

    There is one major difference between the schedules of the two teams: Milwaukee has six back-to-backs left, while the Pacers have just three. (Note: Those figures don’t include Wednesday’s games, which mark the second end of a back-to-back for both clubs.) The Bucks are 6-10 on the second end of back-to-backs, and they have lost four consecutive games in that situation. With so few games to go, that is a real edge for the Pacers. (Side note: No team had more back-to-backs than Milwaukee this season.)

    Milwaukee’s best hope comes from its 2-1 edge in head-to-head games with the Pacers, and the Bucks can lock up that tiebreaker with a win in Indiana on April 1. If Milwaukee loses that game, the next tiebreaker would be divisional record, where the Pacers have an advantage; Indiana is 6-6 against the Central Division, while the Bucks are just 4-7.

    One final nugget of interest: The Knicks could have a major say in who wins this “race.” New York still has three games left with Indiana and two with the Bucks in something of a scheduling quirk.

    The big picture points to the Pacers holding on to the last spot. But if they keep mucking things up, that April 1 game against the Bucks could mean more than Indiana fans would like to imagine.
    Pretty good breakdown by Zach, whom I respect quite a bit. Of course we already know most of this.

  • #2
    Re: Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

    It's nice to see a national writer talk about more than the top five teams. Very good analysis. He makes a solid point that 5-6 more games may not be the best thing for Milwaukee, who have just been ridiculously hurt all year. However, it would give them the opportunity to build some much needed chemistry on that roster.

    As for us, yeah, well, you know.
    Come to the Dark Side -- There's cookies!

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    • #3
      Re: Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

      If the Pacers and the Bobcats collapse so bad that the Bucks actually make the playoffs...I don't know what the rest of that sentense should be except that would really, really be bad.

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      • #4
        Re: Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Zach Lowe of SI: Battling it out for East’s last playoff spot

          Predictable response! If not:

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