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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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OT Are you watching the Olympics

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  • #16
    Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

    Are you watching the Olympics at all, and if you are how much. Do you just watch certain sports or do you sit down in front of the TV and watch for hours on end no matter what sport is being shown.

    - eternal channel surfer, if there is nothing on the olympics are a nice stopgap

    Are you only a basketball and football guy.

    - no, baseball, basketball, football and with some appreciation of t&f

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    • #17
      Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

      Originally posted by Vicious
      Hey skyfire, is Andrew Gaze still kicking around the Australian bball team?
      Nah, he decided to sit out this Olympics, he just turned 39. He is still playing in the NBL though..

      Comment


      • #18
        Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

        I'm in Copenhagen Denmark at a business meeting.

        Here they are showing the sports that the Danes are OK at: handball, badmitton (lots of that!), and they do show some gymnastics.

        Hard to keep up on the US side of things except going to espn.com and getting updates on the TV from CNN international.

        But there are other things to do here besides watch TV or post here, so...

        off I go.
        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


        • #19
          Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

          Hey ABA, I'm sorry I missed your comment earlier, but what was the nature of your involvement with the Olympics?
          "If you ever crawl inside an old hollow log and go to sleep, and while you're in there some guys come and seal up both ends and then put it on a truck and take it to another city, boy, I don't know what to tell you." - Jack Handy

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          • #20
            Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

            As far as beach volleyball versus regular, i like them both. I think they bring different elements from each other and are equally cool to watch.

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            • #21
              Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

              I thought the team men's Gymnastics last night were very entertaining. I even knew beforehand who got the gold and who got the silver but still enjoyed it a lot.

              For whatever reason I like Men's Gymnastics better than the womens. The girls seem like they are about 15 years old, and are phsycially incable of doing the power and strength things the men cao do. I can't help but think that the girls should be eating something and having fun at high school. It is difficult for me to watch it.

              Comment


              • #22
                Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

                Ratings are up from 2000. You won't hear much about this, but if the ratings were down you would hear a ton about that and about how "no one watches the Olympics anymore"


                Swimmers, gymnasts lift NBC's early ratings
                Boosted by strong results from U.S. gymnasts and swimmers, NBC's ratings for the Athens Olympics' first four days have topped the disappointing viewership levels of the 2000 Sydney Games.
                The 16.6 national rating (percent of the USA's TV homes) for Monday's prime-time show was the highest of these Games and 20% above the comparable night for Sydney. It moved NBC to a four-day average prime-time rating of 14.7, 2% ahead of the Sydney Games after four days. (Related item: NBC upbeat)

                "The story of the Olympics has always been that if the athletes are compelling and exciting, you'll have a big success," NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol said Tuesday. "When our gymnasts struck out in Sydney, we were hurt by it. I'm very happy this will be the most-watched non-U.S. Olympics ever."

                The four-day average for Athens also was higher than the 14.5 rating NBC had guaranteed most advertisers, eliminating an early move to provide make-good ads, as occurred in Sydney.

                Steve Sternberg, director of audience analysis for Magna Global ad agency, who had predicted a 12.5 to 13.0 average prime-time rating for Athens, said Tuesday, "I think it's going to be higher because the story lines are very good. The U.S. men's gymnasts won the first medal in 20 years, and the U.S. women's gymnastics team (which won a silver medal Tuesday) will also give them a boost."

                Considering the increased number of viewing choices compared to four years ago, Initiative ad agency executive vice president Tim Spengler said, "We're pleasantly surprised that with more Olympics (cable) channels than in Sydney, the mother ship is holding its own." Initiative has Home Depot and Samsung as Athens sponsors.

                Other ratings factors:

                • The move to six Olympic cable networks, compared with two in Sydney, appears to have helped NBC's prime-time audiences.

                "It's increasing interest in viewing the Games rather than diminishing interest," TV consultant Mike Trager said.

                Pushing people who have been watching Olympic events on cable to NBC's prime-time show "was all well thought out," Ebersol said.

                • The time difference between Athens and the USA is not as dramatic as the one between Sydney and the USA.

                "Historically, European Olympics have rated higher than Asian ones," TV consultant Neal Pilson said. "And the fact they are in August instead of September (as with Sydney) means they have no competition from NFL and college football."

                • NBC has sped the show's pace by cutting back on features and expanding action.

                "The broadcasts seem to have more intensity than four years ago," Pilson said









                NBC optimistic after four nights of Athens Olympics
                NEW YORK (AP) — Gyms worldwide were dark in anticipation of the Olympic gymnastics competition, NBC's Al Trautwig said this week in a dramatic introduction — then the cameras pulled back to reveal row after row of empty seats in Athens.
                Hype gone out of control? An embarrassment for NBC?

                Hardly.

                In the only arena that matters to NBC — living rooms across the United States — that Sunday night of gymnastics was a hit. It reversed an ominous trend; the first two nights in Athens, prime-time ratings were below the levels of Sydney in 2000.

                Monday night was even better. The Michael Phelps-Ian Thorpe swimming showdown and men's gymnastics final drew 26.9 million viewers, nearly 6 million above the comparable day in Sydney, according to Nielsen Media Research.

                "We're running well ahead of our internal estimates and well ahead of Sydney," NBC Universal chairman Bob Wright said Tuesday. "This makes this particular Olympics the most highly viewed outside the U.S. of all time."

                More importantly, he said, "I don't know of any advertiser with whom we have an agreement on audience where we are running behind."

                NBC has sold an estimated $1 billion in ads for the Athens Games and expects to make about $50 million in profits. If the network doesn't meet the ratings targets given to advertisers, sponsors are due givebacks and it cuts into those profits.

                Although Sydney was characterized as a disappointment, it would be a major accomplishment for NBC to top its ratings four years later, said Steve Sternberg, analyst for the ad-buying firm Magna Global. He said the results are even more impressive because the average home has more options today — 100 channels compared to 60 four years ago.

                "I think NBC should be pretty happy right now," he said. "Call me in a couple of days. It might be a different story."

                NBC's grand experiment this August is to flood its affiliated channels — CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo and Telemundo — with Olympic programming. They're showing 1,210 hours of coverage on the six networks altogether.

                Over the weekend, an estimated 23 million people checked out at least some of the games on cable. NBC was concerned the cable coverage might cut into NBC's prime-time viewership, Wright said, and so far it has had little impact.

                Critically speaking, the broadcast and cable Olympics seem to exist in parallel universes.

                NBC gears much of its prime-time to sports that women can enjoy — track and field, water sports and every last tumble that a gymnast makes. Boxing takes up three hours each evening on cable; you won't see a single punch on the network.

                The approach was infuriating in past years when fans of sports dubbed not ready for prime-time had no alternative. Now, they do. The only thing missing is the sense of random discovery; you have to seek out the oddball sports out — they won't find you.

                Seeing a volleyball match unfold in front of you — instead of in a five-minute package of highlights — is fun, although NBC is still prone to some abrupt cuts on events that aren't carried live.

                With at least a seven-hour time difference, none of prime-time is live, so NBC has held back showing some of its big events. So far, the network hasn't unnecessarily teased viewers. American swimmer Michael Phelps' two biggest races were shown an hour into five-hour broadcasts, instead of being held until late.

                In the early days, the swimming broadcast team of Dan Hicks and Rowdy Gaines has been NBC's most impressive, offering the right combination of enthusiasm and information.

                "He just took off the headphones," Hicks said as Phelps approached the pool before Monday's race. "We understand the rapper of choice for these games is Eminem."

                Trautwig's gymnastics team, by contrast, has fell off the beam a few times. The competitions, even relatively meaningless early ones, were over-hyped and made Trautwig sound like a bad actor in mawkish production pieces.

                NBC has otherwise made its production pieces less sappy, and more integrated with the competition. A particular winner was Monday's profile of American swimmer Natalie Coughlin shown before she won the gold in the backstroke.

                Perhaps because of the additional hours, the Olympic telecasts have been less America-centric than in the past. That may be good planning or good reaction, since American athletes have generally gotten off to a slow start in Athens.


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                • #23
                  Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

                  Originally posted by Vicious
                  Hey ABA, I'm sorry I missed your comment earlier, but what was the nature of your involvement with the Olympics?
                  I was on the staging staff for 3 teams. Primarily making sure everything is in order prior to them leaving for the Olympic venues. A lot of paperwork stuff. Passports, visas - things like that. Temp job with ABC sports as a researcher for the 1984 LA Games working at the international broadcast center. Tough job - trust me.

                  The best exercise of the human heart is reaching down and picking someone else up.

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                  • #24
                    Re: OT Are you watching the Olympics

                    I loved the Olympics!! I have been watching as much as I can as well. It is sooo exciting and fun to watch different sports that usually don't get much attention. I think a lot of the interest has died down becuase of the end of the cold war. The Olympics where really one of the few visable battlefields for the cold war. I think it is the same rason why no one even cares when a rocket goes out to outer space. We live in the world after the cold war...

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