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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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Xbox One Random Thoughts

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  • Xbox One Random Thoughts

    I've chosen to go with the Xbox One rather than the PS4, and I was reading this last night and got kind of bummed out:

    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/di...ce-off-preview

    Of course, I've since learned that Modern Warfare 2 on 360 was only at 600p:

    http://www.pcgameshardware.com/aid,6...00p-only/News/

    And I never recall having gripes with how that game looked, so I'm not sure if I really care so much now. I'm more concerned about qualities/details within the game being different rather than screen resolution, and if there's a gap there now, hopefully with this cloud computing Microsoft has been talking about they can use that in future years to narrow the gap.

    I'll be honest, though, it still does take some wind out of my sales wondering why Microsoft didn't go ahead with better hardware on a box they plan to have us playing on for 7+ years.

    *edit* Before now, I hadn't been able to watch the YouTube video. It's not as bad as I feared. I think the PS4 looks better, but it's not like the XB1 looks like *** or anything remotely close to that.

  • #2
    Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

    I am very much on the fence with PS4 vs. Xbox One. I have had Xbox since they came out with the first one, I love the controllers, the Playstation controllers I've never liked as much for whatever reason. Someone sway me with way or the other here. Leaning right now towards PS4.

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    • #3
      Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

      If you've liked Xbox and Xbox 360, I don't see why you would jump now.

      In my case, I've gone from more of hard core gamer to more of a casual one, so my above concern isn't enough to make me jump ship, plus the XB1 is going to unify/simply my living room pretty nicely. Right now I use another device as my preferred one for Netflix (because the noise of my white 360 annoys me when I'm trying to enjoy a video, but XB1 is supposed to be very quiet), I have a standalone bluray player, and I like that I can feed my TV output into the XB1 so I don't have to switch settings to watch that, either. Hell, I'll be able to watch my League Pass Broadband subscription on it, too. That media unification is very attractive for me. The only missing link is it obviously isn't going to let me use my iPad/iPhone to airplay things to it like I can with my Apple TV. If it did, it would be perfect. And I'm very comfortable/satisfied with my Xbox Live experience regarding gaming and communicating, so I'm not looking to bail to PS4 for online play purposes, either.

      I think the PS4 looks really good, but for me XB1 is more attractive.

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      • #4
        Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

        I'm on the fence as well, but only because I have the Xbox and Xbox 360.

        What I'm tired of is losing out on exclusive games like Beyond 2 Souls, Heavy Rain, MLB The Show and The Last of Us.

        What the ***** does Xbox have???? Seriously, tell me? They don't have better exclusives.

        And I sure as hell don't care about being able to control my cable tv from the Xbox that will probably use a lot of power. That's just dumb. Also, at least with PS3, you can use Netflix without having to have their paid membership. You can't do that with the 360. That's pretty damn irritating if you ask me about Microsoft.

        But I want to wait a bit and see what exclusives are coming out for each system, and what my friends end up getting will be my deciding factors. So I'll wait for now. Probably make up my mind by August of next year.
        First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.

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        • #5
          Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

          Buy 2 get 1 free on next gen titles at Target - November 10 through 16

          http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/10/...s4-launch-week

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          • #6
            Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

            I am actually not jumping head first into this generation because of worries about the hardware and neither one of the consoles having games that make me really go wow I want to plunk down 500+ for games, accessories, and consoles. I have plenty of backlog to through before I jump into the new gen.

            The media unification has me really intrigued and I have loved my xbox and 360 so I am leaning towards the X1, but if the PS4 can really nail some hardcore exclusives I could see me switching.

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            • #7
              Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

              Originally posted by Sparhawk View Post
              I'm on the fence as well, but only because I have the Xbox and Xbox 360.

              What I'm tired of is losing out on exclusive games like Beyond 2 Souls, Heavy Rain, MLB The Show and The Last of Us.

              What the ***** does Xbox have???? Seriously, tell me? They don't have better exclusives.
              Every once in a while there's an exclusive title that I feel like I'm missing out on, but in my case it's just not enough for me to buy both or to switch. Maybe if I had a lot of extra cash burning a hole in my pocket, but I don't.

              And I sure as hell don't care about being able to control my cable tv from the Xbox that will probably use a lot of power. That's just dumb.
              Fair enough that you don't care about the TV integration, but the part about it using a lot of power just doesn't make any sense at all. Both the TV box and the XB1 are going to use the same amount of power whether you are filtering the A/V through the Xbox one or not. It doesn't require any extra power to do it.

              Also, at least with PS3, you can use Netflix without having to have their paid membership. You can't do that with the 360. That's pretty damn irritating if you ask me about Microsoft.
              I would find that irritating if I wasn't already committed to paying for Xbox live. But I was always going to do that anyway.

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              • #8
                Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                I'll mention this, too: I'm really looking forward to the end of November when it comes to watching Pacers games on TV; with my new setup, it'll be a breeze to hop back over to play a game during commercial breaks. It's not that it's impossible to do that with my current setup, but it's much more tedious and with longer delays to switch from one to the other, enough so that I never bother to even try unless it's halftime.

                But soon, I'll be able to immediately resume my paused game in just a few seconds, and if I want to keep one eye on the screen to make sure I don't miss anything, I'm 90% sure that I can keep my TV video open in a side bar while I game so I know when to pause it again and bring the game back to full screen. I'm going to love that!

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                • #9
                  Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                  I've also decided I'm going to buy my games digitally. I raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarely share my discs these days, so I'm not worried about losing that ability, and I'll love having my most-played games all fully loaded on the hard drive and ready to go at a moment's notice, too. I'm excited about that after decades of cartridges and discs. I never had any really big hard disks for my 360, so this will be my first time buying a game this way; I can't wait.

                  Speaking of games, after the price of admission for XB1, I'm not going to be getting many right away, but right now the plan is:

                  Definitely getting NBA 2K14. Probably getting (of all things) Lego Marvel so I can have something new/fun to play with my nephew, and I'm thinking I might get one more, and that will likely be COD Ghosts. A little further down the road, I'm really interested in Titanfall, and I'm curious about Destiny.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                    I've already got my PS4 locked up. Never really been an Xbox fan. Sony's exclusives and "free" PSN win out for me.

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                    • #11
                      Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                      I want the PS4 because of the price and because I trust their graphics will yet again blow the Xbox's out of the water.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                        Originally posted by Shade View Post
                        I've already got my PS4 locked up. Never really been an Xbox fan. Sony's exclusives and "free" PSN win out for me.
                        So explain this to me, or at least tell me if I understand it correctly: Xbox Live is a paid membership. You can't have access to everything online and all that unless you have Xbox Live. Playstation's similar network setup is totally free?

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                        • #13
                          Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                          It was all free up until the PS4. My impression is that they will now require a PS Plus membership for online play. The nice thing about the PS Plus membership is that it comes with a ton of free game downloads. I don't play enough to subscribe but I usually keep track of the free offers, and they usually have some really nice downloads on there. Usually a couple of "A listers" every year.

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                          • #14
                            Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                            Right now XBOX might close the gap for exclusives this next gen. TitanFall by itself might do it. That game looks insane.


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                            • #15
                              Re: Xbox One Random Thoughts

                              I am a pretty (very?) casul gamer. I usually only buy 4-5 games a year (NCAA Football, Assassin's Creed, Batman game, whatever Rock Star game, and then usually one more that gets some hype), don't play them online, don't use my Xbox for Netflix or anything like that. Honestly my main issue with Playstation has been the controller. If I am that casual of a gamer, is there really any good reason to switch?

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