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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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Pacers rocky road to playoffs

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  • #1

    Pacers rocky road to playoffs

    Read more NBA news and insight: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?...#ixzz1GObjwvHS

    At the end of January, Frank Vogel took over from the then Indiana Pacers head coach Jim O'Brien with a 17-27 record and watched his team beat the Toronto Raptors 104-93 at home for his first win. After a 10-5 start under Vogel, the Pacers went from one of several Eastern Conference playoff wishfuls, to a team legitimately in the playoff picture.

    "I think that we are a good team no matter what coach we have," explained rookie guard Lance Stephenson. "Coach Vogel changed it around and made it a little bit easier for us. Now we just use pick and rolls and try to get everyone involved within that system."

    "It's the same lineups. I don't think the change of culture made us better. It was just that we were struggling at the beginning of the season."

    Since that solid start under Coach Vogel, the Pacers have started struggling again and are losers of their last six games in a row, most recently to Toronto on the road 98-108, but the team has not lost sight of their goal.

    "Obviously we have hit a bit of a speed bump in the season," said the Pacers 11-year veteran Jeff Foster. "A lot of guys are playing with a lack of confidence, but we have 17 games left to go and are hanging in there for the eighth seed in the playoffs.

    "Our goal at the beginning of the year was to make the playoffs and we still have that opportunity and guys still have an opportunity to bounce back and finish the season on a strong note."

    "We still have our eye on (eighth)," said the Pacers' leading scorer Danny Granger. "As bad as we've been playing, it's still right there. Right now, it's ours to lose. We are losing right now but we have to make a change soon. It's very important. We've been out of the playoffs the last four years so this would be big for us. It would be big for our young guys to experience it as we build for the future."

    The Pacers are making their playoff drive with at least six players on expiring contracts and a roster stocked with youth. The uncertainty for players without contracts for next season and inexperience is combining for challenging times in Indiana.

    "We have two rookies in the starting lineup," said Granger. "Tyler, who didn't play last year because he was hurt, and Paul George, one's 22 and one's 19 or 20. Roy Hibbert's in his third year, he's 23 and Darren Collison is in his second year, he's 22. The only two veterans that we play are me and Jeff Foster and I play the bulk of those minutes - so growing pains, you are going to go through them.

    "We are young. How many teams are in the playoffs are starting rookies and second year players – none, it's all veterans that win in this league."

    "It's my fourth year," said the 24-year-old forward Josh McRoberts who is a significant part of the Pacers rotation. "My third year here in Indy. I am a free agent after this season.

    "I think that it is a little bit of the CBA and I think they planned it that way. I think they planned it that way so they could go out and get guys they want. Hopefully I am part of the plan but I don't know."

    There is no doubt the Pacers have set themselves up for next season under a new and uncertain collective bargaining agreement. The team has less than $35 million in player salary commitments for next year. It is also clear that most of the team's veterans are not playing very much or very often.

    "(I am) thinking about getting us into the playoffs," said Vogel. "And playing the guys who we think gives us the best chance of getting us into the playoffs and that's a lot of young guys."

    "(Playoffs) should be their focus, and if it's not, they shouldn't be on this team," said Foster. "We always play to get to the playoffs, that's the only reason you play, and to someday win an NBA championship, and if that's not a guy's ultimate goal, they have no place on this franchise.

    "There are highs and lows with young guys but if you are going to continue to put them out on the floor, you have to have more highs than lows. Some guys are progressing and having really good years and other guys are like a roller coaster. It's part of the growing pains and we are experiencing a growth spurt right now.

    "There are certain guys who are focused on right now and there are certain guys who are looking forward and getting out of here.     You have to find a way to even that out and just come out and do your job every night. Our job is to win basketball games and do what we are coached to do by the coaching staff and if we don't achieve it, it's our fault and our fault alone."

    That the Pacers as a group want to be in the postseason is a certainty, but even if this group of talented young players falls short of their goal, the team will still gain a lot from this experience.

    "It's a big preview," said Granger. "We can be a force. Tyler is really good. Roy is really good and Darren. As we get it together and grow together, we will be good."

    "We have a lot of young talent on our team just waiting to have a breakout year," said Stephenson.

    "Paul George has an opportunity to be a great player in the NBA," said McRoberts. "He could be scary good in just a short time."

    "The future is bright for us," said Roy Hibbert. "We are young and need time to mature but we need to win now and we are in a place where we can win now.

    "We know the schedule comes around," said Vogel. "We have been on the road a lot and playing tough teams and (the players) know that they are still the eight seed. We looked at the standings and it's a one-eight matchup with Boston, we know that it's right there."

    Even on an extended losing streak, Coach Vogel still has his Pacers in contention and none of the teams that are chasing them has done better than 5-5 over the past 10 games. So whoever takes the eighth seed in the East this year will have traveled a very rocky road on the way there, but as Granger points out, "Right now, it's ours to lose."
    I think Foster was talking about DC
    Sittin on top of the world!
    Tags: None
  • #2
    Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

    Originally posted by 90'sNBARocked View Post
    I think Foster was talking about DC
    With his quote about players looking forward to getting out of here?

    Sadly, I agree, but he's not really helping his cause, there aren't going to be too many teams wanting him if he's playing the way he's been playing the last month. Better step it up.
    PSN: bhm184

    Comment

    • #3
      Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

      I think he was talking about DC when we he mentioned some players losing their confidence
      Sittin on top of the world!

      Comment

      • #4
        Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

        Heh... on a related article from that website:

        Originally posted by Hoopsworld
        Orlando's New Defensive Stopper: When Earl Clark checks into games, he's usually given the same set of instructions. Stan Van Gundy tells him who he'll be guarding and almost always adds, "We're not going to double."

        Clark has emerged as the Orlando Magic's best perimeter defender and has been asked to guard some of the league's elite scorers since being acquired from Phoenix in December. LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, Carmelo Anthony and Amar'e Stoudemire are just some of the players that Clark has been assigned to slow down this season.
        He has long arms and quick feet, which allows him to defend wings. But his six-foot-eleven frame and athleticism gives him the ability to match up against big men as well. Clark has displayed his versatility all season, which is why Van Gundy trusts the 23-year-old on the defensive end.


        Read more NBA news and insight: http://www.hoopsworld.com/Story.asp?...#ixzz1GPf1d0GJ

        Somehow I wish we still traded for Earl Clark. I was and still am very high on him. sadface

        Comment

        • #5
          Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

          Originally posted by 90'sNBARocked View Post
          I think he was talking about DC when we he mentioned some players losing their confidence


          I have to believe Foster was also alluding to Hibbert too.

          Comment

          • #6
            Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

            Originally posted by flox View Post
            Heh... on a related article from that website:




            Somehow I wish we still traded for Earl Clark. I was and still am very high on him. sadface
            I still think Clark would be a great combo forward to work behind Granger and Hans, and potentially be our starting 4. I also wish we had moved for him, but as soon as he was shipped here, I knew we wouldn't be able to get him from the Magic.
            witters: @imbtyler, @postgameonline

            Originally posted by Day-V
            In conclusion, Paul George is awesome.
            Originally posted by Slick Pinkham
            Our arena, their arena, Rucker park, it just doesn't matter. We're bigger, longer, younger, faster, and hungrier.


            Comment

            • #7
              Re: Pacers rocky road to playoffs

              I really hope that Josh would be willing to come back to Indy after this year, even if it's for less money. It sounds like he enjoys playing here (who wouldn't?), or at least being on his home team. I would hope that means he's willing to stay with the team. At the same time, I hope Bird (or whoever Mr. GM will be) is going to want to bring him back.

              Foster sounds a bit bitter towards something in general. Despite my lack of interest in him, I noticed he was showing some effort last night, so maybe he's getting irritated at players who aren't visibly hustling (DC, Danny, Roy). That is one of the features of a veteran.

              There seems to be blame falling on the younger guys, but to be completely honest, neither of our vets are doing a substantial "veteran" job, in my opinion. At the very least, it gives me hope for as early as next season, when our guys will be a little more toned.

              Do they really think that they'll be able to make it out of the first round playing like this? Especially with the eighth seed, potentially going against either Chicago or Boston, we'll be lucky to win a single game at the rate we're going.

              Of course, at the rate we're going, we won't even be in the playoffs.
              witters: @imbtyler, @postgameonline

              Originally posted by Day-V
              In conclusion, Paul George is awesome.
              Originally posted by Slick Pinkham
              Our arena, their arena, Rucker park, it just doesn't matter. We're bigger, longer, younger, faster, and hungrier.


              Comment

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