Hi there,
Welcome to Pacers Digest. If you are new to our forum, here is what you need to know.
If you haven't posted before, you need to know that your first 2 or so posts will need to be approved by an admin before they appear to the public. This controls spam bots and prevents previously banned members from easily coming right back. After that, your posts will start appearing automatically from now on.
What follows are the general guidelines we try to uphold on this forum. But before we get to them, please keep the following in mind:
a. We're all human beings. This means we have our own emotions, opinions, biases, blind spots, and flaws, and we all make mistakes.
b. Despite that, we do try our best.
c. There are going to be situations where reasonable people will have opposing opinions on a forum policy, guideline, or action. The trick is to keep your emotions in check and remain considerate and respectful with whomever you disagree with. It's easier said than done.
d. If I feel a mistake has been made, I'm willing to admit it and to try to make things better.
With that said, here are the guidelines:
1) Belligerence, hostility, rudeness, abrasiveness and/or disrespect are not wanted here. Discuss without taking shots and without having an attitude or otherwise being unpleasant.
2) When you share or paste content 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.
3) Regarding illegal videos of NBA games, we cannot tolerate them on PD. 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 banned (temporarily or permanently).
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.
4) We generally do not want to see politics/religious topics, avatars, or signatures on PD.
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 Brandon Rush and his issues with marijuana use).
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.
5) 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.
6) 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'll contact you.
7) We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
8) Do not advertise anything without talking about it with me first. This includes your signature, your avatar, and starting a thread.
9) Our general policy when we have a problem or an issue is to contact you with a private message to have a conversation about it. Often a private conversation is all that is necessary to resolve a problem or a conflict on PD.
Sometimes we use our infraction/warning system at the same time as we privately contact you. Along with a text message, this gives you either a warning or an infraction. Infractions carry a value of one point, expire in 31 days, and carrying three or more of them at the same time restricts your ability to post.
We may abandon the use of this infraction/warning system in the future because it is not often needed.
Depending on the circumstances, if something strikes us as blatantly offensive or clearly an attempt to cause trouble on the forum, we will ban an account. It's a case by case situation; usually the ban is permanent, but sometimes it's temporary if we believe things can be worked out in the future.
10) We have a feedback board, and we generally prefer that to be used for the kinds of questions, comments, or concerns that are not "finger pointing" in nature.
In other words, if you want to call me out or call another admin out over a problem you have, please come to me or whomever with a private message instead of making a thread about it. Anything that might get emotional for you, me, or another admin needs to be done in private to show respect and consideration and to actually get things resolved instead of just making yourself feel better.
This doesn't always happen the right way (and sometimes that's on our end, by the way), and when it doesn't, it almost always ends badly or at the very least worse that it could have been if everyone had just kept the discussion private to begin with.
Thank you for reading, and once again welcome,
Shade
Welcome to Pacers Digest. If you are new to our forum, here is what you need to know.
If you haven't posted before, you need to know that your first 2 or so posts will need to be approved by an admin before they appear to the public. This controls spam bots and prevents previously banned members from easily coming right back. After that, your posts will start appearing automatically from now on.
What follows are the general guidelines we try to uphold on this forum. But before we get to them, please keep the following in mind:
a. We're all human beings. This means we have our own emotions, opinions, biases, blind spots, and flaws, and we all make mistakes.
b. Despite that, we do try our best.
c. There are going to be situations where reasonable people will have opposing opinions on a forum policy, guideline, or action. The trick is to keep your emotions in check and remain considerate and respectful with whomever you disagree with. It's easier said than done.
d. If I feel a mistake has been made, I'm willing to admit it and to try to make things better.
With that said, here are the guidelines:
1) Belligerence, hostility, rudeness, abrasiveness and/or disrespect are not wanted here. Discuss without taking shots and without having an attitude or otherwise being unpleasant.
2) When you share or paste content 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.
3) Regarding illegal videos of NBA games, we cannot tolerate them on PD. 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 banned (temporarily or permanently).
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.
4) We generally do not want to see politics/religious topics, avatars, or signatures on PD.
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 Brandon Rush and his issues with marijuana use).
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.
5) 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.
6) 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'll contact you.
7) We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.
8) Do not advertise anything without talking about it with me first. This includes your signature, your avatar, and starting a thread.
9) Our general policy when we have a problem or an issue is to contact you with a private message to have a conversation about it. Often a private conversation is all that is necessary to resolve a problem or a conflict on PD.
Sometimes we use our infraction/warning system at the same time as we privately contact you. Along with a text message, this gives you either a warning or an infraction. Infractions carry a value of one point, expire in 31 days, and carrying three or more of them at the same time restricts your ability to post.
We may abandon the use of this infraction/warning system in the future because it is not often needed.
Depending on the circumstances, if something strikes us as blatantly offensive or clearly an attempt to cause trouble on the forum, we will ban an account. It's a case by case situation; usually the ban is permanent, but sometimes it's temporary if we believe things can be worked out in the future.
10) We have a feedback board, and we generally prefer that to be used for the kinds of questions, comments, or concerns that are not "finger pointing" in nature.
In other words, if you want to call me out or call another admin out over a problem you have, please come to me or whomever with a private message instead of making a thread about it. Anything that might get emotional for you, me, or another admin needs to be done in private to show respect and consideration and to actually get things resolved instead of just making yourself feel better.
This doesn't always happen the right way (and sometimes that's on our end, by the way), and when it doesn't, it almost always ends badly or at the very least worse that it could have been if everyone had just kept the discussion private to begin with.
Thank you for reading, and once again welcome,
Shade