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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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The Wolf Game Rules Thread

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  • #46
    Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

    Originally posted by btowncolt View Post
    Veiled hints have always been a part of the game. I recognized a few of yours early on. The wolves didn't. You should have been eaten, you weren't, the humans won.

    The idea that "The wolves could trick everyone too!" doesn't work. Why? Because the instant one fake seer comes out, the real seer knows who a wolf is without having to waste a night. People would fall for it a maximum of one vote, realize they were duped, and at least a few wolves would be exposed pretty readily.
    Agreed. Veiled hints are a part of the game. That's what makes it fun, for a while I was just trying to call myself "innocent" and not a human because I was trying to make my character into a print who thinks he is simply better than the humans and doesn't see the wrong in his ways, but that sort of divulged when I got desparate.


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    • #47
      Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

      Originally posted by btowncolt View Post
      Veiled hints have always been a part of the game. I recognized a few of yours early on. The wolves didn't. You should have been eaten, you weren't, the humans won.

      The idea that "The wolves could trick everyone too!" doesn't work. Why? Because the instant one fake seer comes out, the real seer knows who a wolf is without having to waste a night. People would fall for it a maximum of one vote, realize they were duped, and at least a few wolves would be exposed pretty readily.

      Yes, the seer learns who a wolf is. The wolves learn who the seer is. The wolves will likely be forced to sacrifice 1 or 2 wolves to uphold the charade, but it's worth it to bring down the true seer. As long as you can fool the angel, you can nom nom nom the seer.

      I mean, if the seer has too much power... maybe the seer should have less power?

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      • #48
        Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

        Originally posted by binarysolo View Post
        Yes, the seer learns who a wolf is. The wolves learn who the seer is. The wolves will likely be forced to sacrifice 1 or 2 wolves to uphold the charade, but it's worth it to bring down the true seer. As long as you can fool the angel, you can nom nom nom the seer.

        I mean, if the seer is has too much power... maybe the seer should have less power?
        The balance of power has never been a problem until the basic rules have been changed.

        The seer's power grows only in proportion to how long he's left alive. If the seer leaves hints strong enough to encourage voting to go a particular way, he's easily picked off by the wolves. Part of the fun back-and-forth there has often been when the angel knows who the seer is and the wolves do too - who will the angel protect? Do the wolves think they can waste a night going after the seer or should they go after others?

        This game was human-friendly because the wolves didn't pick up on your role and forum members took advantage of forum tools that were and not technically supposed to be available under the normal playing of the game (which isn't a criticism of their doing so - it wasn't against the rules and I did the same). If there's a way to eliminate the use of those forum tools, you'll see the game shift back to where it's generally supposed to be.

        Much of the game depends on the strategy the wolves adopt early on and how well they execute it. TJ and Belli made a fatal error by adopting an extreme position that Piggy was being duped and did so together (meaning they were both gone if one proved to be a wolf). While this may have not been that much of a mistake because you had already seen them both, it was a tactical mistake. But by that point, it was already over. You had been left alive too long and people had done too much research anyway.
        Last edited by btowncolt; 07-02-2010, 11:22 AM.

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        • #49
          Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

          How about a Wild Card Role?

          1 seer
          1 angel
          1 Wild card role
          x humans
          x/4 (or /5) number of wolves

          The Wild card role could be another seer or another angel but its weighted most to be either human or wolf. This way there COULD be two people saying they are the seer and they be right OR it could just be the wild card wolf... Maybe give the extra wolf a special ability? Like choosing one person that can't be seen that night? It wouldn't have to be a wolf he chose but he could throw the scent off of himself and maybe make the seer waste a night or two trying to see the truth. I suppose if that were the case the seer would know the other "Seer" was the special wolf. What other abilities could a special wolf have? Could he "see" humans to try to find the angel or seer?

          I like this idea in theory? Any thoughts on the addition of a Wild Card Role?

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          • #50
            Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

            How would the gm pick what the wild card would be?
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            • #51
              Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

              Also I think that it makes things unnecessarily complicated.
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              • #52
                Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                Yep, I knew that if we didn't get the seer with btown, we were done. You can ask the rest of the wolves, my PM right after that night was titled "Well, we just lost"

                Seer can't live past like three or four nights, by then he has either found one or possibly two wolves while also building up a human alliance that is equal to how big the wolves posse is.

                What could be kind of fun and is a rule I've played before, is that once per game, the wolves can choose to "infect" a regular human rather than make a kill that night. Which makes their numbers stronger and also throws a wrench in voting strategies. The infected person becomes a wolf or recruited into the mafia whatever, and plays like that for the rest of the game.


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                • #53
                  Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                  Originally posted by Pig Nash View Post
                  How would the gm pick what the wild card would be?
                  A simple roll of a dice or drawing numbers out of a hat. The wolf wouldn't need special abilities I was just thinking out loud. A few people were talking about the power of the seer and this would be one way to diminish that knowing that there COULD be another seer out there trying to influence votes. Think of two groups of humans each with their own secret seer who's identity is still unknown going at each other's throats because they each have seen a wolf and the other side isn't budging. If there were ever two angels or seers then the wolves numbers would go up to compensate... 25% of the total players (ish) instead of 20% like in this last game.

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                  • #54
                    Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                    The ability to infect or convert also somewhat limits the seers abilities while also not crippling them, now when Ms. PIggy had come out and said she had been contacted we could have "infected" her and learned the identity of the seer.


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                    • #55
                      Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                      Reading about it on wikipedia, apparently the "angel" is typically not allowed to save the same person twice in a row. How's that for mitigating the seer's power instead of not allowing him to reveal himself?

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                      • #56
                        Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                        Infection seems cool but also powerful. What is the con to infection? Why wouldn't a wolf do that every night? Can they infect the seer/angel? Would trying kill either the wolf or the seer?

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                        • #57
                          Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                          You can only do it once per game TA, not every night. So you would have to save it. The goal with a wolf's infection would be to infect either a confirmed human or possibly the seer himself.

                          So once you use it though, it is gone to you, so it's kind of pointless to do it early in the game. Also, the angel role could protect someone from being infected just like dying, so if the angel protected you that night, the wolves would not be able to infect or kill you, and if the wolves use their infection (conversion, recruitment whatever) attempt on a night you are protected that counts as their one time use.

                          So it really would add another level of strategy to the game, mitigate the seer's power a little bit, and make it less likely that a confirmed human would out themselves in thread, as they would almost certainly be infected.
                          Last edited by Trader Joe; 07-02-2010, 11:36 AM.


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                          • #58
                            Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                            Originally posted by binarysolo View Post
                            Reading about it on wikipedia, apparently the "angel" is typically not allowed to save the same person twice in a row. How's that for mitigating the seer's power instead of not allowing him to reveal himself?
                            You're right - that was an original rule that has slipped through the cracks.

                            We'd had a situation where it became an issue before.

                            Good find on that rule - the not revealing still has to stand though, because I was enforcing that rule last time and the game was still ruined. The seer can come out and say "The following are wolves and not wolves:...." And they STILL have another night to find someone they think to be suspicious because the wolves can't get him that night.

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                            • #59
                              Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                              I guess I'm just cautioning against making dramatic rule changes to give the wolves more power based on how the last game played out. That game was an aberration where the puzzle was solved via means not intended to be available. The wolves have plenty of power - how they use it is more important than their needing more.

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                              • #60
                                Re: The Wolf Game Rules Thread

                                I do agree with that btown.

                                I think adding the one infection though would kind of spice up the game, I guess it would be up to each GM, but it adds a different feel.


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