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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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Why is it

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  • Why is it

    With the Travis Diener signing it makes me want to bring up race, touchy subject but I don't think it will be in this case.

    Here is something that I don't understand that happens all the time in basketball, not just on PD but everywhere.

    Why is it that especially with white players that players are compared to others based on race?

    Sometimes it is true but it seems that a lot of people say hmm this guy is a white point guard so he is John Stockton. Or this is a 6'9 forward so he is Larry Bird.

    I remember that Luke Ridnour's profile on nbadraft.net has him being compared to John Stockton. Lol. Ridnour, IMO, is nothing like Stockton. And how about Saras, didn't some people say he could be like Steve Nash?

    It just bugs me how when comparing players sometimes the only thoughts put into it are race and position.

    Oh and one other thing, why is Larry Bird thought of as a guy who just wants white players? I know we have a lot of them for an NBA team but not all is by his choice IMO.

    Ron requests a trade, I believe we wanted Corey Maggette but we end up with Peja.

    Then the recent trade with Golden State is a deal that had to be made. We had to deal Stephen Jackson and I think that Bird saw a chance to get a player he really likes in Ike Diogu and so he did by taking on Dunleavy and Murphy. However if Stephen Jackson hadn't had negative trade value we would have had many more opitions.

    Remember that Larry traded Austin Croshere for Marquis Daniels.

    IDK where i'm going with this. I guess I just don't understand why race is always brought up in everything. I really don't care about race and just don't see how it is somehow brought up as a factor in everything.

  • #2
    Re: Why is it

    There's probably some truth to it for one, and for another I think it's just easy to say/think it. I think it's overblown.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Why is it

      When was the last time you saw a white man (besides Brent Barry) jump and dunk from the free throw line? Dunk over 5 defenders and do some of the things that MJ and other black players did? Travis Diener was compared to Tyrone Lue on Draft night anyway.

      If a white man, 6'7 let's say gets good and is picked number one overall he is compared to a guy in his race because it seems all white guys have the same skill set in physical capabilities. Your not going to compare a guy that scores 30 points a game off set shots and screens to a guy that does it explosvivly like Michael or Vince Carter for example.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Why is it

        Race is brought into the discussion with basketball because it is the only major sport where whites do not compete well at all. An incredible 26 out of 27 of the top scorers were black last year. As a result, race is something people naturally pay attention to in the sport.

        It's just not news when a black guy succeeds. It is news when a white guy makes it....so people naturally want to know what makes that particular white guy different.. They see Dirk and think....ah, that's the formula. Dirk must be like Bird because they both succeeded. Nash gets the same treatment.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Why is it

          I'm an exception. People compare me to Wilt Chamberlain.

          As in, "Do you know who you remind me of? Wilt Chamberlain. Only you're short and chubby, and you can't run, jump, dribble or shoot. And you're white. Other than that, you're just like him."
          “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

          “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Why is it

            Originally posted by Los Angeles View Post
            I'm an exception. People compare me to Wilt Chamberlain.

            As in, "Do you know who you remind me of? Wilt Chamberlain. Only you're short and chubby, and you can't run, jump, dribble or shoot. And you're white. Other than that, you're just like him."
            I can SO relate to this... mainly because I too have slept with over 20,000 women.

            And by 20,000 women, I mean maybe 20...

            so never mind.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Why is it

              Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
              Race is brought into the discussion with basketball because it is the only major sport where whites do not compete well at all.
              Compete well at all? Greece says "hi"

              I'm just crossing my fingers we do better this year. Anyway, maybe the statement should have been in regard to the "NBA" as opposed to "basketball" in general? I don't want to hijack the thread -- just something to further discuss.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Why is it

                Originally posted by Smooth_for_Pres. View Post
                I can SO relate to this... mainly because I too have slept with over 20,000 women.

                And by 20,000 women, I mean maybe 20...

                so never mind.
                I thought it was like 1000 or 2000 women he said he slept with?

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Why is it

                  Originally posted by GrangerRanger View Post
                  I thought it was like 1000 or 2000 women he said he slept with?
                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilt_Chamberlain

                  Claimed 20k+.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Why is it

                    Originally posted by GrangerRanger View Post
                    When was the last time you saw a white man (besides Brent Barry) jump and dunk from the free throw line?
                    Rex Chapman
                    Tom Chambers
                    Dan Marjle (young)
                    Kirilenko could probably do it
                    Chris Anderson (w/o drugs)
                    Bobby Jones (80s Sixers)

                    It's not as rare as the stereotype would have you think.

                    Weren't Jeff Foster and Jonathan Bender BOTH dunking from the free throw line after practices when Bender was going to compete in the slam dunk contest?
                    Last edited by Slick Pinkham; 07-21-2007, 07:06 PM.
                    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


                    • #11
                      Re: Why is it

                      So Wilt and I do have something in common.....

                      We both prefer women.
                      “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

                      “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Why is it

                        Originally posted by Smooth_for_Pres. View Post
                        I can SO relate to this... mainly because I too have slept with over 20,000 women.

                        And by 20,000 women, I mean maybe 20...

                        so never mind.
                        So I've never understood what's the big deal in sleeping with women. I personally think it's more impressive if you've had sex with that many.
                        You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Why is it

                          Here's a thought. The Donaghy point shaving scandal is nearly gone from the news in 24 hours, of course it will be back when charges are filed (for about 24 hours). Vick is still headlines, Bonds still headlines and will be. I consider what Donaghy did a 1000 times worse. He attacked the integrity of the entire NBA. Vick if guilty, just stupidity. Bonds injured only himself by forever having an asterisk by his name. Racism is alive and well in the American media.

                          I think comparisons are made in Basketball because black athletes appear to be more athletic than white. If you named the 20 fastest guys in the NBA how many of them would be white? Maybe 3. If you named the 20 best leapers in the NBA how many would be white? It has just become easier to compare blk with blk and white with white. I have also noticed that foreign players are compared to other foreign players. Someday hopefully, racism will die but I am sure there are powers that will try and keep us separate because its in their best interest too.
                          "He wanted to get to that money time. Time when the hardware was on the table. That's when Roger was going to show up. So all we needed to do was stay close"
                          Darnell Hillman (Speaking of former teammate Roger Brown)

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Why is it

                            Originally posted by aceace View Post
                            Here's a thought. The Donaghy point shaving scandal is nearly gone from the news in 24 hours, of course it will be back when charges are filed (for about 24 hours). Vick is still headlines, Bonds still headlines and will be. I consider what Donaghy did a 1000 times worse. He attacked the integrity of the entire NBA. Vick if guilty, just stupidity. Bonds injured only himself by forever having an asterisk by his name. Racism is alive and well in the American media.
                            Say what? So if this was a black referee you think it would be more of a news story? I don't buy that take at all. The reason the Vick and Bonds situations get more play is that those guys are HUGE, POPULAR NAMES and when folks like that run into some trouble of course it gets more play.

                            Labeling the American media racist in that manner is about as ridiculous as anything I have read online.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: Why is it

                              There was an awesome article by Chuck Klosterman at ESPN.com about this. Let's see if I can dig it up. I don't have insider, so someone else will have to post it.

                              EDIT: Oh, Boo yeah. You don't need insider:

                              http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2...sterman/060111


                              "This fits into another psychological theory, which is called cross-race recognition theory," Gladwell says. "It suggests that when we mentally process the appearance of faces different from our own -- in other words, faces that we're not familiar with -- we categorize by race and color and ethnicity. But when we process faces from our own race that we're far more familiar with, we categorize by feature -- by eyes and mouth and hair and eyebrows. That's why the old adage about how all black people look the same to whites (and vice versa) is true: When we look at someone of another race, we're not remembering them by using the kinds of features that make it easy to distinguish an individual. We're just coding them as 'black' or as 'white.' My point? In basketball, the 'face' we're familiar with is black. We code black players by feature, so we can make endlessly subtle distinctions between players: There is a David Thompson 'type,' which is quite unlike a Grant Hill 'type,' which, in turn, is quite unlike a Gary Payton 'type.' But I think we code white players by category. They are simply 'white,' and we don't make the same kind of sophisticated distinctions among them. So we miss the 'White Gunner.' Does that make any sense?"
                              The Miller Time Podcast on 8 Points, 9 Seconds:
                              http://www.eightpointsnineseconds.com/tag/miller-time-podcast/
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