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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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New Michael Smith article

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  • New Michael Smith article

    Yup - I'd say he's a Pacer fan. Of course since I'm gonna need counseling this offseason to take care of my own issues maybe I shouldn't say anything.

    I think you'll like this: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playof...ory?id=2060057

    Carlisle, Pacers offer no sympathy for Pistons

    INDIANAPOLIS -- If you complain about your company car in the presence of someone earning minimum wage, don't be surprised when said someone checks you on it.

    The defending champion Detroit Pistons have played the past two games of their East semifinal series with rival Indiana as though they expect to be given something -- by the Pacers, by the officials, by somebody, I don't know. Indiana hasn't been given anything all season, least of all respect. The Pacers are playing like they know they have to earn anything they get. That's one explanation for why Indiana has a surprising 2-1 lead.

    Detroit trailed by 18 with 65 seconds remaining in the first half and by 13 after three quarters. But the Pistons rallied to take a 72-71 lead -- their first since 4-2 -- with 2:09 left. It was short-lived, as Richard Hamilton was assessed his sixth foul for grabbing Reggie Miller's jersey as the latter was running off a screen. Miller made both free throws. It was Pacers 77, Pistons 74 with half a minute left. The Pacers set up Miller isolated on Lindsey Hunter on the right wing. Miller drove to his left and appeared to extend his right elbow, Hunter fell and Miller stepped back and knocked down the clinching shot. Final score -- Indiana 79, Detroit 74.

    But it wasn't over.

    Larry Brown had something to say about the officiating. He didn't like the call against Hamilton and he didn't like the no-call on Reggie. Brown might be right. But complaints about unfair treatment fall on deaf ears here in Indiana.

    "I don't think there's anybody like [Miller] or anybody who'd take it or anybody who'd make it like him," Brown said. "Look at that. You tell me. Go back to how we talked about at the beginning of this year how they wanted to improve. You put it on the wrong people instead of putting it on the players.

    "Just look at the film," he continued. "He made a great shot, but you look at the film and you write it down and you send me your judgment on that. It was an unbelievable shot. Bow how did he get so open? He got in position and like I always say, great players make great plays. But when you make no field goals in the last seven or eight minutes, tell me how they can still win just shooting free throws. I'd rather lose on how we missed shots rather than how they hit free throws." Before we go on, now's an appropriate time go back to something Pistons reserve forward Darvin Ham said Tuesday regarding Pacers coach Rick Carlisle.

    "When the time presents itself," Ham said, "he really stands up and defends his team." Friday night was one of those times. The usually reserved Carlisle took a detour from his customary high road. His Pacers had just taken a second game in a row from the favored Pistons, and someone had the -- how do they say it? -- the AU-DA-CI-TY to try to take away from the accomplishment.

    Uh-uh. Carlisle wasn't having it. So he had, for him, what would be considered an out-of-body experience during his postgame press conference, which immediately followed Brown's.

    "I agree with what Larry said," Carlisle responded. "I think the players should decide it. The referee allowed Reggie Miller to decide the game with a difficult shot. He made it. Hey, you can call it an offensive foul but maybe it's a flop. Lindsey Hunter is a great defender. You can go either way on that.

    "They shot more free throws [28 to 27], we committed more fouls [25 to 23] than they did," he said. "We lose Jermaine O'Neal on an incidental play with 2:30 left to go in the game. I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear it. Not with the season we've had. Not with what we had to fight through."

    As he said "fight through," Carlisle slammed his right hand on the podium for emphasis. "You must be steadfast in your abstention from falsehood," Carlisle continued. "That's a simple way of saying don't kid yourself. The truth is the truth. We're holding on for dear life, really, all this season, and we have to hear about how the officials blew the game. C'mon! Seriously. I disagree. I think it's ridiculous. Not with the way both teams played."

    Carlisle had every right to go off. His team had a bunch of excuses this season, but they never made them. Brown was upset because he believed the officials screwed the Pistons. League officials -- well, one in particular, named David Stern, who was present at the game -- tried to screw the Pacers back on Nov. 20 after Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson and O'Neal behaved as if they all had a few screws loose during the infamous brawl with fans at the Palace of Auburn Hills. So what Carlisle really meant to say was, "I ain't even trying to hear that."

    If you didn't, you should have seen the emotion with which he spoke. It was righteously indignant. He was offended. Can't say I blame him. Absolutely, Brown has every right to complain if he feels his team was wronged, and I'm not saying he has to watch what he says around the Pacers just because a few of their players got themselves suspended. It just sounded a little whiney, honestly, like a professional athlete lamenting to the garbage man about not being able to feed his family.

    Chew on this -- Brown needs to spend more time worrying about his and his players' performance than those of the officials. After all, no one told the Pistons to shoot 31.3 percent through the first three quarters. No one told them to go the entire game with only one second-chance point. No one told them to turn it over 18 times, leading to 17 Indiana points. Until Detroit exploded for 29 in the fourth, they had scored 78 points in five quarters. Detroit is being outplayed and if coaching is getting a team prepared to play, then Brown is being out-coached by Carlisle, his predecessor in Detroit.

    Brown really has no complaint anyway. Hamilton clearly had a handful of Miller's jersey on his sixth foul, not to mention the fact that Miller was hit with a couple similar calls back in Detroit.

    "I don't think it needs to be called in playoff basketball," Miller said, "but if you call it on me, call it on him."

    Did Brown honestly expect the officials to hit Miller with a charge in the final seconds of what could be one of his last games? I like Hunter a lot, but let's keep it real -- we're talking about Lindsey Hunter. Reggie Miller. Lindsey Hunter.

    "I tried to use his aggressiveness against him and put my body on him," Miller explained. "I wanted to create some space for myself and I did." We'll be talking about an upset if the Pistons don't get their act together real soon. BTW, Rasheed Wallace has already predicted the series will be 2-2 heading back to Detroit.

    But of all the Pistons who talked Friday night, Ben Wallace was the one who got it right when he said, "We've got to stop talking and start playing."

    No argument here.
    The poster formerly known as Rimfire

  • #2
    Re: New Michael Smith article

    Personally, I wish the hacks would go back to writing about how bad we are and how we're gonna get whupped by Deeeeetrooooit. I much prefer the underdog role for this team.





    BTW DK, you can blame Zeke for your conversion if'n ya wanna. It's ok, I can relate to Zeke enmity.
    Ever notice how friendly folks are at a shootin' range??.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: New Michael Smith article

      Originally posted by indygeezer
      Personally, I wish the hacks would go back to writing about how bad we are and how we're gonna get whupped by Deeeeetrooooit. I much prefer the underdog role for this team.
      Yep, all of a sudden it seems like we're the media darlings. Ah well, that's what the press does. Build up, tear down, build back up again. Plus they're always looking for an angle, and now they have one with us up 2-1 on the defending champs. It's a good story.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: New Michael Smith article

        Any other coverage out there? What happened to all that "Detroit in 5" we were hearing about?
        This space for rent.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: New Michael Smith article

          Originally posted by Anthem
          Any other coverage out there? What happened to all that "Detroit in 5" we were hearing about?
          Word Processors are madly clicking at this moment ...

          Watch out - you're about to be cast as Robin to Detroit's Hood.
          The poster formerly known as Rimfire

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: New Michael Smith article

            Originally posted by DisplacedKnick
            Word Processors are madly clicking at this moment ...

            Watch out - you're about to be cast as Robin to Detroit's Hood.

            you mean "we" don't you?
            Ever notice how friendly folks are at a shootin' range??.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: New Michael Smith article

              We win a couple more games and we're going to have the whole nation on our band wagon.

              The Pacers . . . as media darlings? Who would have thunk it?

              To answer my own rhetorical question, 'the lot of us that's followed the Pacers all year. We're not surprised at anything after the year we've had.'

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: New Michael Smith article

                Originally posted by DisplacedKnick
                Yup - I'd say he's a Pacer fan. Of course since I'm gonna need counseling this offseason to take care of my own issues maybe I shouldn't say anything.
                Our you thinking about switching allegiance?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: New Michael Smith article

                  Originally posted by indygeezer
                  you mean "we" don't you?
                  Don't worry - I think I'm over the mad rush of being in Conseco cheering for the same team as thousands of other people.

                  It was a new experience for me ...
                  The poster formerly known as Rimfire

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