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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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VA Tech Shootings

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  • VA Tech Shootings

    Since the boards have been down for a while and I'm sure everyone has heard about this and probably has an opinion on it.

    http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/vir...ech.shootings/

    Prayers and condolences are still with all the families who lost someone. One of my friend's room-mates who goes there actually got shot once but it was a minor injury and it was only in the hand.

  • #2
    Re: VA Tech Shootings

    I'm sure we all have those families on our minds at this time. But on a scarier note...someone at my school today was caught with having a rifle in the trunk of his car. The police arrested him this morning before anthing was started thankfully. A rumor I heard around school is that there were also pistols and weed in the car.
    I think KP is a Captain Planet fan. He believes that the collective will of five decent starters can outweigh the power of top-level talent. Too bad Herb won't cut the check for their Planeteer rings.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: VA Tech Shootings

      Anyone read his plays that he wrote for one of his classes? Wow. Juvenile, not well-written, vulgar. Those pieces of work really show his character.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: VA Tech Shootings

        I just heard on the news that he sent a video to NBC between his first killings that morning and the second killings (it is postmarked with the time and date).

        He sent it "Express Mail" but it was delayed because he used the wrong zip code.

        ...Basically... it's another psycho wanting publicity and to go out in a blaze of glory (in his mind) and our media is giving it to him.

        I remember several years back listening to Paul Harvey on the radio and he had a piece about a former hairstylist for Elvis Presley (stick with me here... I'm making a point).

        Insert Paul Harvey voice----
        He said (paraphrased) "There's a man in Tennessee. A man that claims he was a hairstylist for Elvis Presley before he died. He tells us that Elvis' hair wasn't naturally the jet black mane that we were all used to. Oh no... in fact his hair had grayed and needed colored. This man... this former hairstylist... he tells us this and he also wants us to know his name...

        "Page TWO!"

        And Paul moved on without ever telling us the man's name. There's a lesson there for the media.

        -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


        • #5
          Re: VA Tech Shootings

          http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/

          I was listening to the Michael Savage Show the last couple days and he's the only commentator that will talk about the "A. Ishmael" that was on his arm and was also seen as on the return address of the package that he sent to NBC. What does this mean?

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: VA Tech Shootings

            Originally posted by tora tora View Post
            http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18169776/

            I was listening to the Michael Savage Show the last couple days and he's the only commentator that will talk about the "A. Ishmael" that was on his arm and was also seen as on the return address of the package that he sent to NBC. What does this mean?
            Ishmael was a biblical character.

            Ishmael is also a novel about human survival told through the eyes of a gorilla.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: VA Tech Shootings

              I've been wondering what would cause a person to do something like this - I can sort of see taking out a GF (or girl he was obsessed with) and the RA - and himself. But the rest of it?

              Well, between the plays and tapes, it seems he was just a complete whackjob. You knew he was at least something of a whackjob but I doubt we'll ever find anything that could be perceived as a coherent reason. Pretty much a paranoid type complex. Everyone was out to get him - and they were also out to get a lot of other people and he perceived himself somehow as the defender of the downtrodden.

              I could write pages on this - particularly for the media running around asking why the campus wasn't put on total lockdown after the 1st shooting. But I won't.
              The poster formerly known as Rimfire

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: VA Tech Shootings

                Originally posted by DisplacedKnick View Post
                I've been wondering what would cause a person to do something like this - I can sort of see taking out a GF (or girl he was obsessed with) and the RA - and himself. But the rest of it?

                Well, between the plays and tapes, it seems he was just a complete whackjob. You knew he was at least something of a whackjob but I doubt we'll ever find anything that could be perceived as a coherent reason. Pretty much a paranoid type complex. Everyone was out to get him - and they were also out to get a lot of other people and he perceived himself somehow as the defender of the downtrodden.

                I could write pages on this - particularly for the media running around asking why the campus wasn't put on total lockdown after the 1st shooting. But I won't.
                I agree. There really is no excuse to not have the campus shut down after 2 students had been killed. The murderer could still be walking around the campus...I just will never understand it. I realize VA Tech is a huge campus with a ton of students, but a few days of missed classes while they investigate isn't that bad...especially after what happened. But it is what it is. The guy was a nut job and it did happen. We could go back and blame tons of things, but at the end of the day..he was just a psychopath. Anyone who saw the tapes would agree with that.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: VA Tech Shootings

                  Originally posted by Moses View Post
                  I agree. There really is no excuse to not have the campus shut down after 2 students had been killed. The murderer could still be walking around the campus...I just will never understand it. I realize VA Tech is a huge campus with a ton of students, but a few days of missed classes while they investigate isn't that bad...especially after what happened. But it is what it is. The guy was a nut job and it did happen. We could go back and blame tons of things, but at the end of the day..he was just a psychopath. Anyone who saw the tapes would agree with that.
                  No way you could shut down the entire campus at that moment. The police were caught off guard (as was everyone). How do you notify 15,000+ students? Email? Sirens? Personal phone calls? Radio adverts? Television commercials?

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                  • #10
                    Re: VA Tech Shootings

                    The other thing I heard was at first, they weren't sure if one of the two dead weren't the killer themselves. They just didn't know. It all happened too quick.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: VA Tech Shootings

                      Originally posted by Stryder View Post
                      Ishmael was a biblical character.

                      Ishmael is also a novel about human survival told through the eyes of a gorilla.
                      Ishmael was also the story teller/character in Moby Dick. The only survivor after the whale destroyed the ship too.

                      EDIT: Also, as a current college student there is no way you can shut down campus for two murders. I never check my email before I go to class normally, and only do if I have emailed a prof the night before. How many students actually listen to the radio before the go too?

                      Most of the time, when it's early classes like that, you roll out of bed and within 10mins your out the door. (I know it's not the same for girls for the time) You just dont get up early and sit down and watch TV in the mornings either.

                      Outside of mass texting or a speaker system that can reach over a mile away, there's no way you're going to be able to inform people.

                      We recieved a letter from BSU's president (which I can post if anyone would actually like me too) and they are actually looking into the mass texting, and the project has been sped up since this taking place.
                      Just because you're offended, doesn't mean you're right.” ― Ricky Gervais.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: VA Tech Shootings

                        Originally posted by Moses View Post
                        I agree. There really is no excuse to not have the campus shut down after 2 students had been killed. The murderer could still be walking around the campus...I just will never understand it. I realize VA Tech is a huge campus with a ton of students, but a few days of missed classes while they investigate isn't that bad...especially after what happened. But it is what it is. The guy was a nut job and it did happen. We could go back and blame tons of things, but at the end of the day..he was just a psychopath. Anyone who saw the tapes would agree with that.
                        Are you serious?

                        Do you shut down an entire city of 35,000 when someone murders their girlfriend?

                        It's impossible - and for something like this, unnecessary. Obviously, we have hindsight to tell us this guy is a mass murderer but folks get murdered at college campuses all the time - you can't shut it down every time that happens. Usually, like the case at Purdue a couple of years ago, it's domestic in nature.

                        About the best you can do is notify as many people as you can. VT could maybe be knocked for taking 2 hours to get a message out (though that doesn't seem way out of line by the time you get TPTB together to put together a statement) but in the long run that probably didn't make any difference.
                        The poster formerly known as Rimfire

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: VA Tech Shootings

                          I wish there were some simple way to alter the data shown in this graph:




                          I grew up in rural southern Indiana, with shotguns and rifles, hunting deer, quail, rabbits, etc so I am not by nature a gun control freak. But I do wonder how much better our society might be with handguns absent.

                          I can't help but wonder that if this psycho nutjob were going to college in England, France, Germany, Japan, etc. the realization of his twisted fantasy might have been to get a knife and stab one or two people before he would be stopped by people fighting back.

                          Here in the good ol' USA he can arm himself to the teeth and kill by the dozens.

                          Of course he could have accomplished a lot with a rifle too. But it is very hard to secretly carry or even secretly own the types of weapons that are legitimately used by hunters. You only hunt people with handguns.

                          I'd like to get rid of handguns. How to do that is a tough question.

                          I'd settle for making the best possible effort to keep all firearms from being owned by persons not trained in how to use them and not posesssing an absolutely spotless criminal record with no history of mental illness.
                          The poster "pacertom" since this forum began (and before!). I changed my name here to "Slick Pinkham" in honor of the imaginary player That Bobby "Slick" Leonard picked late in the 1971 ABA draft (true story!).

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: VA Tech Shootings

                            What I meant by what I said is that more should have been done. What I said was extremely unrealistic regarding evactuating the campus.

                            At least send a bunch of cops to sit around at certain points in the campus. This guy had time to cap 30 people and walk around in the hallway shooting at random with no resistance for quite some time. The last time someone died at Georgia State, there were cops all over the place for the rest of the day.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: VA Tech Shootings

                              Originally posted by pacertom View Post
                              Of course he could have accomplished a lot with a rifle too. But it is very hard to secretly carry or even secretly own the types of weapons that are legitimately used by hunters. You only hunt people with handguns.

                              I'd like to get rid of handguns. How to do that is a tough question.

                              I'd settle for making the best possible effort to keep all firearms from being owned by persons not trained in how to use them and not posesssing an absolutely spotless criminal record with no history of mental illness.
                              As a follow-up, Wikipedia has a summary of gun-related homicides by state here:

                              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_vio...tates_by_state

                              Even more interesting is that when you look at the numbers, New Hampshire has some of the weakest gun control laws in the country - no license required to buy, no state background checks, no limitations on concealed carry, etc - but has the lowest level of gun-related violence.

                              In contrast, Maryland has some of the strictest handgun laws.

                              I don't have a handgun now but at one time I used to carry large amounts of cash (pre-ATM days) and had a permit in several states.
                              The poster formerly known as Rimfire

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