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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.

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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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Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

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  • #16
    Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

    Isiah should be on that list when it comes to picking teams.
    ANDY: I guess it comes down to a simple choice, really. Get busy winning or get busy losing.

    Comment


    • #17
      Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

      You guys are coming up with a lot of great players, but it is important to have a good mix of role players on teams like this too. We have had tons of talent during the last few Olympics, but we have had trouble getting guys to do the dirty work, and guys who can play together. We need talented and dominating guys for sure, but we need scrappy lunch pail people also. Even when you get the cream of the crop to surrender their egos, they sometimes struggle to fill roles that they are unaccustomed to.

      Another thing that we have been missing, and which is absolutely crucial is guys that can flat out shoot. Pure scorers, particularly outside shooters are crucial to the international game. Guys like Chris Mullin, Steve Alford, Steve Kerr, etc. often do well in international play. Somebody mentioned Ray Allen, who is a great choice. Ironically, alot of the great shooters in the NBA are from foreign country's.

      I also think we need some veteran leadership. I am sure all of these guys are considering these things. It would be wonderful to be able to overwhelm the world with talent, but the talent has gotten much better around the world, and we have trouble getting our most dominant players to participate.

      One last thing, we have had a few threads discussing the durability of our players. Jermaine has stepped up to play for the USA many times before, but he may be more hesitant to do it now. Playing these extra games really does take an extra toll on these guys, and we are having trouble keeping our guys healthy for the NBA season.

      I don't promise to have the answers, but just a couple of things to consider.
      When you're playing against a stacked deck, compete even harder. Show the world how much you'll fight for the winners circle. If you do, someday the cellophane will crackle off a fresh pack, one that belongs to you, and the cards will be stacked in your favor.
      -Pat Riley

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

        I just hope Allen Iverson isn't the last fat kid who's picked out of pity this time. He's a must, IMO.

        Whoever you pick, make sure they can score in an offense without having to be the offense. (Some may think these previous two statement contradict. I don't.)

        I wouldn't mind seeing Joe Johnson on the squad.

        Comment


        • #19
          Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

          Here's an idea:

          Reggie Miller.

          You telling me that Reggie wouldn't LOVE to play in the world championships next summer?

          You could fit him in wherever. He'd just be happy to be on the team.

          It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

          Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
          Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
          NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004

          Comment


          • #20
            Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

            Originally posted by Kstat
            Here's an idea:

            Reggie Miller.

            You telling me that Reggie wouldn't LOVE to play in the world championships next summer?

            You could fit him in wherever. He'd just be happy to be on the team.
            A la Larry Bird? (a bit of a stretch, but you know what I mean) Hmm.

            Comment


            • #21
              Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

              well, the difference is, Reggie will be 40, not 36. But he will also be healthy, which Larry certainly was not.

              Reggie is a shooter, and would really be useful in a pinch.

              It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

              Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
              Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
              NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                Originally posted by Hicks
                Did you not read it? It's not like it's just those two. It's a large comittee filled with great basketball minds.
                A mule is a horse created by a committee.

                -Bball
                Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                ------

                "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                -John Wooden

                Comment


                • #23
                  Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                  Originally posted by Kstat
                  Here's an idea:

                  Reggie Miller.

                  You telling me that Reggie wouldn't LOVE to play in the world championships next summer?

                  You could fit him in wherever. He'd just be happy to be on the team.
                  That's actually a good idea.

                  But be prepared to be hit with sarcastic remarks about putting Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson on the team.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                    Last time it seemed like they lost because of no Perimeter shooting (accuracy) and most importantly, they absolutely had no Heart... it looked like they came to play just for fun you know... like "Hey lets go and dunk over some white dudes in Europe! I mean, they really cant play better Ball than us, muhahah!"... and then they got stabbed..

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                      i am really not too thrilled with this whole selction process. i believe we should have tryouts. i am sick of trying to throw a bunch of big names (or the biggest names who accept invites) at the situation and expect to win.
                      this process has (in my oppinion) been proven to be a failure. i want guys who really want to be there and are willing to accept their roles - not some crybabies or guys who want to be paid extra for this. with tryouts you get a better picture of how guys will play together rather than just giving slots to some big names and figure it will just work out somehow. it would weed out guys like melo and others because if they are whinning about p.t. and stuff in tryouts, they would just be sent packing and those who refuse to do what is wanted/needed won't make it.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                        Originally posted by pacerwaala
                        Isiah should be on that list when it comes to picking teams.
                        LOL Why? So he can put a team with no salary cap over it?

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                          I'm only going to disagree with two names out of everyone's list, because the olympics are more than just sports, and that's Rasheed Wallace and Ron Artest. When it comes to the NBA, they're really not viewed as representing a city, and I have a lot more wiggle room with certain guys. But when it comes to the olympics, there is no way in hell I want players that can explode at any give time. There's too much to risk in the eyes of the world to have two knuckleheads representing my country. My team yes, but not USA.....

                          Just my
                          Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                            Considering that the stars usually turn down the offer to play, I think they should go with a majority blue collar team with no more than 4 All-Stars and 8 starter/solid role players.

                            Here's my team:

                            Allen Iverson
                            Richard Hamilton
                            Lebron James
                            Kevin Garnett
                            Amare Stoudamire

                            BENCH
                            Rashard Lewis
                            Joe Johnson
                            Brad Miller
                            Kirk Hinrich
                            Ben Gordon
                            Chauncey Billups
                            Rasheed Wallace

                            Allen Iverson would be perfect on a team like this (just look how well he plays on the All-Star teams). He's the one All-Star that I would beg to play because he is totally indefensible on a team where he can't be doubled. If I thought he'd accept, Vince Carter would be an excellent player to pursue for the international style of ball.

                            The bench should be comprised of totally unselfish players that can all hit an outside shot and move the ball around. Plus, I think these guys would accept an invitation. If any of those players decline, I would go for guys like Tayshaun Prince, Fred Hoiberg, Emeka Okafor, Marcus Camby, or Kenyon Martin.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                              If I picked:

                              Mike Bibby
                              Richard Hamilton
                              Tayshaun Prince
                              Jermaine O'Neal
                              Tim Duncan

                              Other bigs:
                              Amare Stoudamire
                              Ben Wallace

                              Other swingman:
                              Joe Johnson
                              Vince Carter

                              Other small guards:
                              Allen Iverson
                              Jason Terry

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Re: Larry, Michael, Bird, to pick olympic team.

                                I want good attitudes on the USA team. I feel the same way as Since 86, which is an absolute rarity. So I present my team. This squad IMO would have the right mix of talent and teamplay attitude to win. No prima donnas on my team, only those interested in representing the nation.

                                Starters

                                Kidd
                                Wade
                                Grant Hill (if healthy)
                                Duncan
                                Amare

                                Bench

                                Kirk Hinerich
                                Ray Allen
                                Prince
                                JO
                                Okafor
                                Brad Miller
                                Mike Miller
                                House Name: Pacers

                                House Sigil:



                                House Words: "We Kneel To No King"

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