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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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What TV Show Did You Last Watch

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  • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

    The Legend of Korra episodes are up on nick.com.

    Gonna watch them throughout the week and over the weekend. Woot! Only about 12 episodes though, just wish there were more.
    First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.

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    • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

      Originally posted by BRushWithDeath View Post
      It's got potential. If you're an Aaron Sorkin fan, you'll enjoy it. It's pretty standard fare for him. Preachy with a few too many monologues but still somewhat entertaining and thought provoking while unabashedly remaining as liberal psuedo-porn.

      I liked Jeff Daniels immensely. After reading the ESPN book, it seems like his character is pretty clearly based on Keith Olbermann. Genius but generally an insufferable dick. But so far he's pulled it off without me hating him which is commendable. I thought his performance seemed fake in the beginning but by the end of the pilot he had totally redeemed himself.

      I hated the British girl. I can't think of any other way to say it. Hopefully she improves.

      As a pilot, it has succeeded because I'll keep watching.
      I was the exact opposite about Emily Mortimer. I found her somewhat mesmerizing. It's nice to see a strong female character. One could argue she's the strongest character on the show. Jeff Daniels is the talent, but she's got a better grasp of the big picture, in life and professionally. The fact that I find her oddly, very attractive doesn't hurt.

      I thought it started kinda slow. Part of the was based on my knowledge of how Sorkin works and style-wise, it didn't feel like him. The second half was the Sorkin I've come to know. I'm a biased fan of his run on sentences and rapid fire delivery. And I inwardly laughed when one of the characters started one of Sorkin's patented self rightous monologues......and I loved it. I thought it was a nice wink-wink moment when Daniels responded to one of the speech by basically saying, "yeah, whatever." I thought it was a nice little gesture from Sorkin acknowledging how he does that with his characters and showing how he knows a thinking person wouldn't simply succumb to grandstanding speeches.

      Entertainment-wise, I found the ticking clock feeling as they went with the breaking story truly exciting. When the show was over, my wife and I literally clapped out loud and laughed at ourselves. We've found a new hour long show in which we can't wait to see each week.

      Now the character I'm trying not to hate is the young girl. I'm trying to go with the fact that she's supposed to be really naive, but at what point is naivety stupidity and cluelessness? I can not wait for Olivia Munn to show up next week. I think I'm gonna really, really like this show.
      Last edited by Skaut_Ech; 06-26-2012, 09:55 AM.
      Hey! What're you kicking me for? You want me to ask? All right, I'll ask! Ma'am, where do the high school girls hang out in this town?

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      • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch




        Originally posted by Skaut_Ech View Post
        The fact that I find her oddly, very attractive doesn't hurt.
        It's probably the avian bone syndrome.
        This is the darkest timeline.

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        • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

          I watched the pilot last night, and I enjoyed it well enough. This is my first time watching an Aaron Sorkin show (wasn't really aware of him before seeing The Social Network).

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          • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

            Originally posted by Hicks View Post
            I watched the pilot last night, and I enjoyed it well enough. This is my first time watching an Aaron Sorkin show (wasn't really aware of him before seeing The Social Network).
            The West Wing and Sports Night are both great series. I don't know which I liked better.

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            • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

              I'll say this much, the show makes me feel a little dumb; I had some trouble keeping up with it all / keeping everything straight. It hits you fast and with a lot. At least that's how it feels to me. I'm trying to digest what was just said or just happened and before I can finish processing it something else happens.

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              • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                Originally posted by Skaut_Ech View Post
                Now the character I'm trying not to hate is the young girl. I'm trying to go with the fact that she's supposed to be really naive, but at what point is naivety stupidity and cluelessness? I can not wait for Olivia Munn to show up next week. I think I'm gonna really, really like this show.
                This (the naively stupid and clueless disgust for young people) is one thing that really infects Sorkin's work and really keeps him from being a high quality writer. Oh, and the fact that he couldn't write a real human interaction to save a character's life.

                That said, the pilot was good, certainly not great, maybe a 'B-'. It's really weird to see a true event being used as part of a fictional world, like he wasn't confident enough to make up something and just used the crutch of the audience's knowledge of the event. It's really not as compelling as if we were experiencing this news story for the first time; to be honest, it was pretty silly. (Think about how weird it is when South Park takes a couple of months to comment on something. Two years ago seems like centuries.) Ditto on the initial excrutiatingly generic monologue. I liked some of the sentimental touches that Greg Mottola brought.

                My expectations have lowered quite a bit. (The highly negative reviews from critics are somewhat unfounded, I will say. I would never expect something as good as Network.) This show feels dated and not very ambitious, especially after Veep just killed it with its deftness with respect to social media and the spreading of news. This will be much more interesting to discuss than enjoyable to watch.
                Last edited by AesopRockOn; 06-26-2012, 05:32 PM.
                You Got The Tony!!!!!!

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                • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                  4 episodes of the Legend of Korra. Pretty awesome so far. Looking forward to watching more today.
                  First time in a long time, I've been happy with the team that was constructed, and now they struggle. I blame the coach.

                  Comment


                  • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                    I really liked Newsroom. Sure it had all of Sorkin's storytelling traits some great, some not so great, but I was thoroughly entertained.

                    Anyone else think Sam Waterston is miscast. He tends to speak in a halting way and it seemed to me that he was trying to speak as Sorkin wanted and it came across distracting to me. Plus his character just seemd really off. I know he is supposed to be playing a drunk of sorts, but his character was the only one that didn't h8it the mark.

                    I will watch the show for sure.

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                    • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                      Personally, I think it's great the show is placed in the past and in our real world. Makes it much more interesting to me. Especially when you compare to how the news actually handled the Deepwater Horizon story.


                      Comment


                      • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                        Originally posted by Trader Joe View Post
                        Personally, I think it's great the show is placed in the past and in our real world. Makes it much more interesting to me. Especially when you compare to how the news actually handled the Deepwater Horizon story.
                        That was one of my bigger problems with the show. It seemed like Sorkin was criticizing the real media for not reacting fast enough to the oil spill. Yet, the only way to make it remotely believable that the ACN crew would have the knowledge of how big a story the leak was going to be was to make it so a producer just happens to have both his college roommate and sister high up in BP and Halliburton respectively.

                        It's ridiculous. Of course the real news outlets focused on the missing people rather than the oil spill at the time it happened. It's easy to say in hindsight that the spill was the bigger story but in real time, without conveniently placed fictional sources, they've got to go with what they know.
                        "I had to take her down like Chris Brown."

                        -Lance Stephenson

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                        • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                          Originally posted by Trader Joe View Post
                          Personally, I think it's great the show is placed in the past and in our real world.
                          I'm sorry, that newcast was not from the real world. Learning in two hours from one person's friend and sister and another person's science fair project what the New Orleans Times-Picayune took weeks to uncover and fact-check? Having not just a douchey Haliburton guy who Jeff Daniels can emasculate, but Jesse Eisenberg as the scared, stupid, little engineer who's is just totally fine with embarassing himself in front of hundreds of thousands? The very laziest network shows would probably try something like this (see: all hacking montages), but it's reasonable to expect some effort or balance from Sorkin on this. Though compelling dramatically, the sequence was laughably juveline and fantastical. It reads like a teenager yelling at a bunch of kindergartens, "See, Santa's not real. It's just your parents. STUPID!"

                          Originally posted by BRushWithDeath View Post
                          That was one of my bigger problems with the show. It seemed like Sorkin was criticizing the real media for not reacting fast enough to the oil spill. Yet, the only way to make it remotely believable that the ACN crew would have the knowledge of how big a story the leak was going to be was to make it so a producer just happens to have both his college roommate and sister high up in BP and Halliburton respectively.

                          It's ridiculous. Of course the real news outlets focused on the missing people rather than the oil spill at the time it happened. It's easy to say in hindsight that the spill was the bigger story but in real time, without conveniently placed fictional sources, they've got to go with what they know.
                          This is where I'm at on the real story/fictional universe question; there's no tension is a gambler keeps winning every hand and never gets kicked out of the casino.

                          I'm waiting for someone to photoshop Sorkin's head onto Captain Hindsight.
                          Last edited by AesopRockOn; 06-27-2012, 07:47 PM.
                          You Got The Tony!!!!!!

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                          • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                            Cannot wait until Episodes Sunday night

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                            • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                              Louie and Wilfred season premieres (though Wilfred had a preview episode already...) - TV is back to being awesome again. No other show has the grounded surrealism that Louie has (The new Yankee Stadium!). Wilfred is kind of close though, with its odd combination of baseness and mysterious mythology. A great back-to-back that hopefully lasts for years to come.

                              Awkward - Not sure if I am physically able to watch a show about high school on MTV. (Seriously, they do the scroll bar on the bottom that tells us what Foster the People song is about to play. Holy ****.) Then again, I watched all of Veronica Mars so I'll continue to give it a chance. There's some potential.
                              You Got The Tony!!!!!!

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                              • Re: What TV Show Did You Last Watch

                                I didn't enjoy the second episode of Newsroom as much as the first. Found myself looking at the clock thinking when is this episode over.
                                Last edited by Unclebuck; 07-06-2012, 09:29 AM.

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