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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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Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

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  • #1

    Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

    You have to go to the link to see J.O and Brad together again, sort of.

    Pacers IMO are saying all the right things



    http://www.nba.com/pacers/news/featu...ed_040315.html

    Pacers Dueling Kings
    for NBA’s Top Seed


    By Conrad Brunner
    Indianapolis, March 15, 2004


    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    The ultimate regular-season goal is within reach. For the first time in franchise history, the Pacers could finish with the best record in the NBA, thus assuring homecourt advantage for the length of their postseason.
    Seems like a pretty big deal, right? It’s the kind of thing a team might just beat its chest about.

    The thing is, the Pacers didn’t get where they are by talking about it. And they’re not about to start.

    Asked how high a priority the team was placing on earning the No. 1 seed, Coach Rick Carlisle said, “Right now, we’re just going to worry about the next game, try to win as many as we can, count ‘em up later and see where we are.”

    Then, after a brief pause, he smiled and said, “How’s that for a bad answer?”

    Pretty good, actually.

    And he’s not the only one sidestepping the question.

    “I don’t even want to answer that one because last year we talked about it an awful lot,” said Jermaine O’Neal. “What’s most important to me is to take one game at a time and however the pins fall when the season’s over, I’m fine with it. That’s what we deserve. If we win the games we’re supposed to win from here on out, obviously the No. 1 seed is feasible, but if you try to look ahead and do the numbers you’ll lose sight of what you should be focusing on.”

    It might not make headlines, but that conservative train of thought has made for a spectacularly successful regular season. The Pacers need to go 11-5 in the final 16 games to reach 60 wins for the first time in franchise NBA history. The schedule favors them in the duel with Sacramento for the top seed overall, and it does appear to be a two-horse race. The Pacers’ closest pursuer in the East, Detroit, is seven games back. The Kings have a 3½-game lead on Minnesota in the West.

    While the Pacers play 10 of their final 16 at home, the Kings play 10 of their final 16 on the road. The Pacers will face eight teams with records of .500 or better; the Kings will face 12. Of course, it all could boil down to Friday night, when the Kings come to Conseco Fieldhouse. If Sacramento wins that game and sweeps the season series, it will have gained a significant advantage.


    “We’ve never even talked about the No. 1 seed this year,” said O’Neal. “We never talked about the record or anything. We only talk about the next game. It makes it extremely tough for us to look past anybody. Right now, you have a number of teams with a legitimate chance and they’re one or two games from finishing anywhere from sixth to 11th or 12th in the Eastern Conference. We’re in a dogfight, playing a lot of teams that are fighting for position.

    “So we’ve got to be very careful how we approach these games. That’s why it’s so important for us to take one game at a time – to think about the next game and getting prepared. The coaching staff has done a great job of selling us on the gameplan and the task at hand. We haven’t been talking about anything except the team we’re playing next.”

    Finishing atop the NBA guarantees nothing, but it beats the alternative. Of the last 10 top seeds, six reached the NBA Finals and five won the championship. Only one (Seattle, which was shocked by Denver in the opening round in 1994), didn’t advance at least as far as the conference finals.

    Pacers associate head coach Mike Brown experienced the advantage of the top seed last season, when he was an assistant with the Spurs. In their first-round series, the Spurs promptly lost homecourt advantage in the first game when Phoenix pulled a 96-95 overtime shocker.

    “As you know in the playoffs, anything can happen, but it does give you a boost of confidence,” said Brown. “It helped us out last year because we lost a game early at home to Phoenix, but we didn’t panic. We felt like we were the No. 1 seed and we were confident enough we could come back and win the series so we just went about our business and played.”

    The Spurs won the series in six games. In both the conference finals and the NBA Finals, they lost one of their two opening home games but came back strong to win the series, also in six games.

    “At that point,” Brown said, “You literally take them one game at a time and keep pressing and pressing and pressing until somebody wins.”

    The Pacers don’t have to reach back too far in their history to find a scenario in which having the homecourt advantage might’ve meant a championship. In the 2000 NBA Finals, they won two of three home games from the Lakers, but dropped all three games in Los Angeles.

    What if the Pacers had been the top seed that year?

    “It would’ve helped – a lot,” said franchise president Donnie Walsh.

    “You always try to get every advantage you can, and that’s the most advantage you can get out of the regular season,” said Walsh. “So from that standpoint, it fulfills your goal from the beginning of the year. We all know you have to start over again in the playoffs but, going in, it does give you the best advantage you can have.”

    It is an advantage, however, that could be negated if the cost to attain it proves prohibitive. O’Neal has been battling chronic tendinitis in his right knee most of the season, and has been hinting that it might be necessary to take some time off late in the regular season in order to be at full strength for the playoffs. Jeopardizing O’Neal’s postseason status – or that of any player -- in pursuit of any regular-season goal is something not on the Pacers’ agenda.

    But it might not come to that. O’Neal has started a new treatment therapy that has made him optimistic about the coming weeks.

    “Hopefully, that stops the pain and I can keep my rhythm, rather than taking some time off going into the playoffs,” he said. “The best record in the NBA isn’t going to be settled two weeks before the season is over with. It’s going to go down to the buzzer and I think it’s very important for me to be out there every single game.”

    No matter how significant the top seed is, the Pacers know what it is not: the ultimate goal. That’s why their focus remains narrow. As long as there is a next game, the dream remains alive.
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

    Damn, you gotta love this team. Like UB said, they're saying all the right things. And you gotta believe that they aren't just parroting Rick. It's an overall team attitude.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

      That's the right attitude for them.

      The problem is, with the 2-3-2 format (which I hate BTW - or loath, abominate, etc.) home court advantage is huge in the finals.

      Does someone have a reason why they use that format and not the 2-2-1-1-1?

      I hope it isn't just travel days - that's unimportant to me compared with having a fair series.
      The poster formerly known as Rimfire

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

        That's the right attitude for them.

        The problem is, with the 2-3-2 format (which I hate BTW - or loath, abominate, etc.) home court advantage is huge in the finals.

        Does someone have a reason why they use that format and not the 2-2-1-1-1?

        I hope it isn't just travel days - that's unimportant to me compared with having a fair series.
        They went to 2-3-2 during the sustained energy crisis and recession of the early eighties - so the Lakers, Celtics/Sixers and league officials would have one less coast-to-coast flight in The Finals.

        Unfortunately, when this changed it also co-incided with NBA's massive boom in popularity, so when energy prices and supply levels normalized, they just left this stupid rule intact.


        EDIT - One more thought. I think, from reading Oscar's autobiography, that in the early seventies the Finals were 1-1-1-1-1-1-1. I think that's even better than 2-2-1-1-1. Do any of our "more experienced" posters remember it that way?
        Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
        Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
        Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
        Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
        And life itself, rushing over me
        Life itself, the wind in black elms,
        Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Pacers not "too" concerned with the best record in the NBA

          I think it's just because of potential travel problems. Coast-to-coast travel during the finals could make a mockery of them or spread them out too much.
          The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up.

          Comment

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