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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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Artest To Sign With Lakers

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  • #76
    Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

    I love how we're still ignoring the basketball reasons this is a bad move.

    Comment


    • #77
      Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

      Yup. Artest will definitely break the Triangle on occasion. But it's not
      just a matter of jacking up ill-advised shots as he's want to do. He also
      loves to pound the ball. The Triangle's success is predicated on keeping
      it moving.

      On the other hand, fwiw, he will give them an additional guy that can
      post up.

      Comment


      • #78
        Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

        Larry is laughing and crying all at the same time.

        Comment


        • #79
          Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

          If you guys don't think that the Lakers got even better w/ the addition of Artest, well, you're just kidding yourselves. I can see at least two to three championships coming from this squad: Kobe, Artest, Bynum, Gasol, Fisher, and maybe Odom too. Come guys, get real......................
          What you own is your own kingdom
          What you do is your own glory
          What you love is your own power
          What you live is your own story

          Comment


          • #80
            Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

            Originally posted by ilive4sports View Post
            And the trend of the rich getting richer continues. Spurs get Jefferson, Cavs get Shaq, Magic get Carter and now the Lakers get Artest. The NBA is getting a whole lot tougher it seems like.
            Yep and I called this yesterday when the reports came out that the Lakers were probably not going to re-sign Ariza.

            http://www.pacersdigest.com/apache2-...1&postcount=11

            The Lakers just got a lot better with this one move. Makes me wonder if they'll even re-sign Lamar Odom now.

            Comment


            • #81
              Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

              I don't understand why the Lakers would breakup a championship winning chemistry that was only improving.

              I guess I shouldn't be upset since this keeps Artest off of East teams and only makes an already excellent team worse.
              Last edited by rexnom; 07-03-2009, 11:14 AM.

              Comment


              • #82
                Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                Originally posted by Naptown_Seth View Post
                Here's to open mindness and the death of prejudging situations.

                Hicks, seriously, let me put mine out there too then.

                If Hansbrough doesn't flop it will surprise me. There are some wildcards though:

                1) The Pacers play up-tempo which means good chances for bigger stats

                2) The Pacers are front-line weak which means he'll get playing time regardless.

                3) Pacers fans love a hustle player and will rate and support him higher than his actual talent output.

                Won't change my opinion that he's not an NBA player though.


                Yes, it does sound reasonable doesn't it.


                People do this stuff all the time, they justify an unreasonable POV because the person "deserves it". I'm not saying you must love Ron. I'm saying let him continue to earn his old rep, or let him earn a new rep.

                Let him earn whatever view you have of him rather than making a list of reasons why you don't have to let him prove you wrong. I mean frankly if he's the guy you think he is then he will cause a problem. When that happens I'll go back to saying he was the same old disruption he always was and that your opinion turned out to be correct.

                What bothers me is the number of people covering their butt with "even if you are right I'm not going to agree because of my list of qualifiers".

                The qualifiers don't even work anyway because you are saying that if Ron has a coach that deals with him the right way he's fine, true for most players, and that if Ron has a good leader he's fine, true for a lot of players.





                btw real example from me - I have criticized JOB plenty, but if you were to review my comments you'd see MANY posts where I have said that the bottom line is that JOB will have a shot to prove me wrong with what he gets the team to do. I think he's a flawed coach, but he gets the chance to prove me wrong.
                Different situations. How Tyler does on the court should have the opportunity to change how you think of him as a player on the court. How Artest does on the court, in a perfect situation on a team that would probably have won a championship without him, doesn't have beans to do with how he behaves to the Indiana fan base.

                So, no, there's not much Ron can do playing for the Lakers that would change my opinion of what he did to the Pacers and would do again if given the chance.
                BillS

                A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
                Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

                Comment


                • #83
                  Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                  Originally posted by SoupIsGood View Post
                  But the qualifiers do have some merit. Waltzing into a perfect situation in LA, laying low for one year and winning a championship that LA probably could've gotten w/o him does not even approach all the idiotic things he has done in the past, proportionately, in terms of degree of good act weighed against degree of bad act kind of thing. I imagine there are things Ron could do in order to "prove wrong" posters like Hicks et. al, but there would have to be more—probably starting with a heartfelt apology to all the fans of franchises he's screwed over, actually making good on his promise to buy back everyone's jerseys (I don't own one btw), honing in his idiotic shot-selection, etc.

                  You stab me in the back, two years later you donate $100 to the homeless. Is my opinion of you going to change drastically? And is it unreasonable if it doesn't?
                  Exactly. I may be happy that you have changed and that you are a better person, but that does not change the fact you stabbed me two years ago.

                  I was one of Ron's biggest fans before he went crazy and decided he wanted to have 21 split personalities, so excuse me if I do not want to see him win a ring.

                  As BillS just said, nothing Ron does on the court is going to change the past. Could he have changed? Sure. But like I said before I would be willing to bet if we gave him another chance we would get burned one way or another.

                  I am going to stop now because I am starting to sound like Jay

                  Comment


                  • #84
                    Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                    I think that the Artest talk with Lebron did not help out much, maybe Lebron could not garantee that he was coming back next year and Artest decided to go to a team were at least he knows that Kobe is going to be there for three more years according to reports.
                    @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

                    Comment


                    • #85
                      Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                      Originally posted by Naptown_Seth View Post
                      Here's to open mindness and the death of prejudging situations.
                      I stopped reading your post right here. Equal amount of respect being returned.

                      Comment


                      • #86
                        Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                        Marc Stein is reporting Jackson will be back full-time.

                        Source: Jackson intent on return

                        By Marc Stein
                        ESPN.com news services


                        The Los Angeles Lakers' commitment to sign the mercurial Ron Artest would appear to make retaining Phil Jackson even more imperative than the team believed when the NBA's free-agent period began.


                        It shouldn't be a topic of discussion much longer.

                        Jackson's presence on the bench next season, according to one NBA coaching source, is "99.9 percent" assured, with another source indicating that Jackson's return will be publicly confirmed by the Lakers by early next week at the latest.

                        Sources said Jackson returned to his offseason home in Montana on Wednesday after completing a positive series of medical check-ups following the Game 5 victory in Orlando on June 14 that clinched the 15th NBA title in franchise history.

                        In a recent radio interview with 710 ESPN Los Angeles, Jackson said his 2009-10 status would be made official by "early July" and insisted that health concerns would be the only factor that could keep him from completing the final season of his contract in 2009-10, worth an estimated $12 million.

                        Since originally joining the Lakers for the 1999-2000 season, Jackson, 63, has endured an angioplasty and gout in addition to two hip surgeries and occasional back and leg problems.

                        In the radio interview, Jackson acknowledged the Lakers have "toyed around" with the idea of letting assistant coach Kurt Rambis coach the Lakers in more road games to ease the wear and tear on Jackson, as seen in April when Rambis stepped in for Jackson in a road loss at Portland on the second night of a back-to-back set.

                        But Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak subsequently announced that Jackson would "come back and coach both home and away games" if he indeed returns.

                        "During my discussion with him," Kupchak said, "it was pretty clear that that type of scenario doesn't work. And that's his opinion as well."

                        One theory already in circulation holds that Lakers owner Jerry Buss wanted to sign Artest in part to entice Jackson with a challenge to come back after winning his record-setting 10th championship ring as a coach, breaking his longstanding tie with Boston Celtics patriarch Red Auerbach.

                        The ability to keep Dennis Rodman plugged in with the Chicago Bulls, something only Jackson and Michael Jordan managed after Rodman's early days with the Detroit Pistons, helped him win two of those rings.

                        Asked during a SportsCenter appearance Thursday if he believes he'll be playing for Jackson when he reports to Lakers training camp in October, Artest said flatly, "He's my coach."

                        Artest also told the Los Angeles Times: "I had a great talk [Thursday] with Phil. I'm a huge fan of his and I can't wait to show him what I can do."


                        http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4304612

                        Also... no link for this, but ESPN Radio just reported that Artest is weighing two contract options from the Lakers a 5yr/$33mil and a 3yr/$18mil (at least those were the numbers I thought I heard). If I find a link, I'll post it.


                        EDIT: found it

                        The Los Angeles Lakers and Artest have struck an agreement in principal on a multiyear contract that, according to sources close to the process, will total roughly $18.7 million over three years or $33.5 million over five years, depending on which contract structure Artest ultimately prefers. But they had to let Ariza go to create the financial flexibility to do so.

                        http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4303679
                        Last edited by avoidingtheclowns; 07-03-2009, 01:02 PM.
                        This is the darkest timeline.

                        Comment


                        • #87
                          Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                          Any reason why he wouldn't take the 5 year deal?

                          Comment


                          • #88
                            Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                            Originally posted by Hicks View Post
                            Any reason why he wouldn't take the 5 year deal?
                            Retire early and become a boxer.

                            Comment


                            • #89
                              Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                              Originally posted by Hicks View Post
                              Any reason why he wouldn't take the 5 year deal?
                              More likely to get another deal in three years.

                              Comment


                              • #90
                                Re: Artest To Sign With Lakers

                                The difference is that Rodman was sane, but weird and only in it for himself. Rodman could be reached with logic, if you could explain to him what his personal benefit/ gain was.

                                Ron is not sane, and what he wants varies about as much as the midwestern weather. To declare "Ron is focused on winning a championship" is patently absurd.

                                I've wanted a Kobe-Ron-Phil combination for a long time. I'm looking forward to watching the pending implosion. Phil has met his match, and he'll soon discover the difference between a mentally healthy attention whore and bipolar disorder.

                                HA!!

                                EDIT - I hope he's taken notes from the Isiah Thomas school of "Treat Ron like a coach would treat Dennis". That really worked. Do it Phil!!
                                Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                                Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                                Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                                Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                                And life itself, rushing over me
                                Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                                Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

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