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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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Pacer Prattle

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  • #1

    Pacer Prattle

    Pacer Prattle

    There were rumors right after the Peja/Ron trade that, quote; "the Pacers are trying very hard to obtain Mickael Pietrus from Golden State for Fred Jones." Obviously because he plays defense a lot like Ron.

    Viewed unlikely at the time it's very unlikely now that Pietrus is starting ahead of Mike Dunleavy in the Warriors lineup. Plus the Warriors want a big man, not another guard.

    One thing interesting is the Warriors have to make a deal today or lose the $5.2 million trade exception they got from New Jersey for Cliff Robinson. The exception expires at the close of business today. There are rumors that they are trying to trade Duneavy, but since he is in the first year of a new contract he is BYC, thus really hard to trade. The exception makes it easier to trade Duneavy, so if he is not traded today he probably won't be traded at all this year. The thought I got from this is if they don't trade Dunleavy today maybe they will consider trading Pietrus after all.

    Obviously since we have Peja and Granger manning the small forward position we wouldn't be interested in using Pietrus there. Rather he would be taking Fred Jones backup guard position. (Which could make Jax expendable)

    Personally, I don't see trading Fred at all, even if he is a restricted free agent at the end of the year. Fred is the only player we have that can really guard the Parker's and Wades of the NBA. Thus when Fred gets in foul trouble like he did against SAS, we really get hurt. So what we really need is to trade someone else for Pietrus, and thus have two guards capable of guarding people.

    What the Warriors have wanted is a big man, so maybe we could trade Croshere to them. Most of us like everything about Cro except his contract, however he does seem to be odd man out the way the Pacers are playing now.

    This works.

    Outgoing
    Austin Croshere
    6-10 PF from Providence
    8.7 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 1.2 apg in 25.4 minutes
    Anthony Johnson
    6-3 PG from Charleston
    7.3 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 3.9 apg in 24.1 minutes

    Incoming
    Mickael Pietrus
    6-6 SG from France (Foreign)
    11.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 0.9 apg in 23.9 minutes
    Derek Fisher
    6-1 PG from Arkansas-Little Rock
    11.7 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 3.1 apg in 27.9 minutes
    ----------

    Blurb from Tribune columnist Sam Smith on Peja.

    "It seems time the Bulls end the unending youth movements. Free agency? Peja Stojakovic seems likely to re-sign with Indiana, Ben Wallace with the Pistons and Jason Terry with Dallas. So who? Al Harrington? Nene? Vladimir Radmanovic? Wait until 2007? The Sonics desperately need financial relief. Trading them Gordon, who did his best playing against Western Conference teams last week, would almost replace Allen's scoring and could be a perimeter option along with Rashard Lewis."

    That's good to hear! I agree with Sam, I really don't think Bird will let Peja get away.
    ----------

    Playoff seedings have to be changed.

    Right now the way the playoffs are set up, all six divisions winners have home court advantage in the first round. Since sixteen teams make the playoffs, eight from the Western Conference, and eight from the Eastern conference, it means the fourth place finisher in each conference will also get home court advantage in the first round.

    For instance in the Western conference right now the standings look thus,

    1 San Antonio........... 40-11
    2 Phoenix................. 33-17
    3 Denver.................. 28-25
    4 Dallas................... 40-11
    5 LA Clippers............ 30-19
    6 NO/Oklahoma City... 28-23
    7 Memphis................ 28-23
    8 LA Lakers.............. 26-25


    This is the way the playoffs are seeded.

    [1] vs [8] with the winner facing the [4] vs [5] winner.

    [2] vs [7] with the winner facing the [3] vs [6] winner.


    That means if the playoffs started today the Spurs would play the Mavs in the 2ed round, provided both teams win. That's what happened to the Pacers and Pistons two years ago when the Pacers won 61 games, and the Pistons 54. No one else was even close, New Jersey being next with 47 wins.

    A better way would be to seed the home teams according to record. Nothing else would change since the team with the best record has home court advantage the rest of the playoffs.

    Thus instead of the traditional seedings the teams with the best records wouldn't meet until the conference finals.

    [1] vs [8] with the winner facing the [3] vs [6] winner.

    [2] vs [7] with the winner facing the [4] vs [5] winner.
    ----------

    Too many after game threads

    If you are like me you like to read and talk about the game afterwords. My problem is there are always several threads and basically the same things get covered. Sometimes you even have people coping and pasting something they said in another thread. So my suggestion is 'one after game thread."

    It occurs to me that a lot of us like to read Peck's 'Odd thought's on the Game,' so I would make that an exception. Some of you might thing this not fair, but some people only read Peck's after game thread. I don't believe anybody else can make that claim.

    What's everyone think?
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Pacer Prattle

    The Pacers could trade Jack for Pietrus since GS has a large trade exception. I'm not sure if the Pacers would be much better though. I'm not even sure how much better he is than Freddie (although he definitely has a height advantage).

    Originally posted by Will Galen
    Pacer Prattle


    Playoff seedings have to be changed.

    A better way would be to seed the home teams according to record. Nothing else would change since the team with the best record has home court advantage the rest of the playoffs.

    I don't think the division winners automatically get HCA. They'll get no less than a 3# seed but if they have a record that is worse than the #6 team they'll have to go on the road.

    Didn't this happen last year or the year before with one of the lower seeds getting HCA over a higher seed? My memory escapes me at the moment.

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: Pacer Prattle

      You are right about home court advantage going to the team with the best record. However, that's not what I meant by changing the seeding.

      I said, A better way would be to seed the home teams according to record, meaning 'after the teams with home court advantage are decided' they should be seeded according to record so that the teams with the two best records can't meet until the conference finals.

      I remember a lower seeded team getting home court advantage, but I thought that was in the second round.

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Pacer Prattle

        Personally, although Peitrus may be a great ball player, I would like to see the Pacers settle their roster a bit. We just recieved an all-star caliber player in Peja, already have one in Oneal, and a nice supporting cast. The last thing we need to do in my opinion is continue to tweak, teams can really kill continuity when they do that. I would just like to see our team return to health, get back Tins and Cro, then Oneal, and see where this team can take us.

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Pacer Prattle

          We REALLY need to make a move. A move that lets Peja know we are SERIOUS about a title. We can not afford Fred he has been playing way too well this season. I am inclinced to feel that once he gets his new contract, he will revert to the old Fred we all remember. He's always played good defense, but he's never been looking for his offense as much as recently.

          Anyhow, we need to package Fred/Cro/Tinsley and try to pull off a blockbuster of some sorts. If we could get Pietrus/Dun/Draft Pick from Golden State that would be KEY. Dunleavy and Croshere are basically the same player almost, sure Croshere means a lot to this team, but I am inclined to feel he has lost his place here.

          The reason I include Tinsley in the trade, is because I think that idea of Tins/Fred would be enough to get them to part with Pietrus and we could probably squeeze the draft pick out of them. Fred has shown he can play and Golden State is the type of team that has to take risks (Tinsley)

          I would be THRILLED to see us get rid of Tinsley. He's just one more chemistry issue this team DOES NOT need. Pietrus would be a FORCE off our bench behind Jackson. Can you really imagine this rotation.

          Saras/Aj/GIll
          Jack/Pietrus
          Peja/Granger/Dunleavy
          Jermaine/Foster
          Pollard/DH

          That second unit is such a defensive beast, of course AJ would probably be starting. Of course losing Croshere does cause some concern when you look at it and realize Pollard could go down anytime. That is why the draft pick is key. We use Golden States pick to draft a big guy, then our pick to get another point guard (can't seem to have enough PG's and GIll doesn't really count)

          Just an idea of course, im sure nothing like that will go down.
          *removed* Just keep politics and religion completely out of it, please.

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Pacer Prattle

            I like the game thread idea, on RealGM the Raptors board has one game thread and after the game they have a POST Game Thread where all the comments about the game go, and all the other stuff is locked. Would be a good idea. Whatever Hicks wants though.

            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Pacer Prattle

              Originally posted by Jon Theodore

              Saras/Aj/GIll
              Jack/Pietrus
              Peja/Granger/Dunleavy
              Jermaine/Foster
              Pollard/DH

              You think that we would trade for a guy with Dun Dun's contract and then sit him on the end of the bench? I don't think that this is likely.
              Slug 'em Sabres!!!!!
              http://youtube.com/watch?v=cj1SUF4wzu0

              Comment

              • #8
                Re: Pacer Prattle

                Originally posted by Jermaniac
                I like the game thread idea, on RealGM the Raptors board has one game thread and after the game they have a POST Game Thread where all the comments about the game go, and all the other stuff is locked. Would be a good idea. Whatever Hicks wants though.
                I didn't know that Raptors fans want to discuss anything after some of those games. I would think that they would just want to open a cold Labatt's Blue and forget about most of them.
                Slug 'em Sabres!!!!!
                http://youtube.com/watch?v=cj1SUF4wzu0

                Comment

                • #9
                  Re: Pacer Prattle

                  Originally posted by FrenchConnection
                  You think that we would trade for a guy with Dun Dun's contract and then sit him on the end of the bench? I don't think that this is likely.
                  Just seems like if we want Pietrus were gonna be getting Dun too. I will admit I am not that familiar with him as a player. But I do want Pietrus based on what i've heard/seen during the GS game.
                  *removed* Just keep politics and religion completely out of it, please.

                  Comment

                  • #10
                    Re: Pacer Prattle

                    I'd like to see Pietrus here but not at the expense of Jack. The original trade proposal up there seems nice but would the Warriors do it?

                    Comment

                    • #11
                      Re: Pacer Prattle

                      I'd take Pietrus. It's just a question of putting together a trade to get him here. I'd sacrifice Tinsley, but wouldn't be willing to include Jackson. And I don't think I'd be willing to take Dunleavy. His contract would put us in the same position that we've ahd with Austin the last several years.

                      As for playoff seeding, I think the fairest (and best) way to do it is to re-seed based on record after EVERY round.

                      Comment

                      • #12
                        Re: Pacer Prattle

                        If we trade our best pg we best get a pg and one that can guard.
                        As of now Fred J is going to be gone and we are stuck with a
                        a hole either in the sg or the pg. We are screwed either way so why
                        not leave it as it is until next season.

                        Comment

                        • #13
                          Re: Pacer Prattle

                          Will,

                          Though your point is cogent, in the interest of accuracy it should be pointed out that Indiana and Detroit played in the ECF, not the second round, two years ago.

                          Still, your point is a good one. I believe the NHL re-seeds in the manner you describe, with good results.

                          I'd bring up another point, too. Why do we need six divisions anyway? If you have two divisions per conference, gauranteee the division winners the top two seeds (with home court always determined by record), and then include the six other teams with the best records regardless of divisional affiliation, I think you'd accomplish essentially the same thing.

                          Of course, that will never happen because it would prevent two teams from hanging one of those meaningless divisional title banners.

                          MJB

                          Comment

                          • #14
                            Re: Pacer Prattle

                            Originally posted by mboyle1313
                            Will,

                            Though your point is cogent, in the interest of accuracy it should be pointed out that Indiana and Detroit played in the ECF, not the second round, two years ago.


                            MJB
                            Slapping head! I knew that. (grin)

                            We thought it was going to happen last year and talked about it in pre-season. However, Ben Wallace/Ron Artest happened.

                            Comment

                            • #15
                              Re: Pacer Prattle

                              Not sure I like the idea of having just one after game thread.
                              I mean what if I want to start a thread after the next game about how Eddie Gill should be the Pacers starting point guard. (After all I have started started a thread about Saras and then last week about AJ)

                              Seriously though, I do sometimes get frustrated with so many after game threads, but the bad ones die very quickly. So I would vote to keep as is

                              Comment

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