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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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Do you agree with class basketball?

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  • #16
    Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

    For the record, I went to TH South (81). Hate it with a firey passion. Destroy it forever.
    http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-tr...nce-stephenson
    "But, first, let us now praise famous moments, because something happened Tuesday night in Indianapolis that you can watch a lifetime’s worth of professional basketball and never see again. There was a brief, and very decisive, and altogether unprecedented, outburst of genuine officiating, and it was directed at the best player in the world, and that, my dear young person, simply is not done."

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    • #17
      Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

      As a student athlete at North Central in Sullivan County ( a Class 1A school) , I would love to see it changed back to a single tournament.
      Last edited by Pacersalltheway10; 12-28-2011, 08:48 PM.

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      • #18
        Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

        I had the pleasure of playing in the last single class tournament and the first 4 class tournament. Class 1A. We graduated 47 students, including me, my senior year, so we were quite small.

        I'd rather have a single class tournament but I do see the advantages/pros of the separate class system as well as the disadvatages/cons.

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        • #19
          Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

          Class basketball is garbage. It rates up there with the BCS in terms of stupid ideas.

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          • #20
            Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

            Class basketball is the worst thing that has happened to the state of Indiana in the last 100 years.

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            • #21
              Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

              Originally posted by Since86 View Post
              Can we get a show of hands and see how many of you posters went to a small school? By small, I mean 2A or smaller.

              Me.

              I think hearing people from bigger schools talk about how watered down it is, is pretty funny. The last year of single class, Delta was the poster school for the "smaller" schools going toe-to-toe with the big boys. That's a nice little rosy picture and all, except for the fact that Delta graduates over 900 kids per class.

              My school (Monroe Central) had out best team ever just two years ago. Going to the 1A semi-state. Since 2002 we try scheduling 3A or 4A OOC teams, which is why teams like Muncie Central, Marion, New Castle, Jay County, etc are on the schedule. The year we went to semi-state, we beat Muncie Central at Muncie, and it was a very tight game. Muncie Central ended up winning their sectional, but I'm pretty sure they had a losing record when they did it, but they certainly exceeded all expectations. And yet here is my school, winning 19-20 games in the season, and struggling with a very small (and very mediocre) 4A. Now they're a large 3A.



              I've won two sectionals in class basketball, and to try and tell me that I don't appreciate it more than I should, because it's class is absurd. How in the hell do you know what it feels like to win one in class, or in single class for that matter? Even if you do know one, I seriously doubt you know both, and to try and compare them from an internet keyboard is pretty rich.

              You don't know the feelings of the players involved, especially if it's been 30 years since you even sat in a high school classroom.

              It would be like me trying to tell someone else how it felt to go through the Great Depression.


              I just find it funny listening to big school fans talk about how awful it is, and how it took away all the excitement. You mean beating up on schools that are 100 times smaller than you is exciting? Muncie Central and their 1000 class size playing Monroe Central, and our 76 class size, makes the single class system exciting?

              Uh, hardly.

              I vividly remember going to the Wigwam in Anderson in 1997 the year Delta went to the state finals against one of the Bloomington teams. (Purple was their color, so North??) That place was rocking. But Delta wasn't playing a Cowan, or a Wes-Del, when that place was jumping. They were playing New Palestine, you know, another large 3A school.


              Prior to 2000, Monroe Central won 2 sectionals. In 1967 and 1968. 32 years of horrible basketball, and by horrible I mean teams going 3-24. Since 2000, we have won 5 sectionals.

              I can tell you many stories about packed houses that we played in front of. They might not be packed of 9000, but when you're in a very small community, and you're going to play Winchester in their fieldhouse and it's loaded down with 3500-4000 people, and it's standing room only, you can't tell me I would be any more excited.

              Sorry, but you just don't know the feelings of playing in an atmosphere like that, and to try and cheapen my feelings that I had in those situations, because you don't like it, is insulting.


              Maybe if big schools stopped *****ing about the format, and actually continued cheering on whatever team they want, the excitement would still be there.

              But no, big schools struggle to get a couple thousand at their games, while we little schools have people scalping our tickets for 3-4 times face value.


              I'll never forget winning two sectionals and a county championship. And you can think "Oh, look at the little schools winning and it makes them feel good" with the mother tone of voice all you want, but that's what the system is designed to do. It works.

              It's just impossible for communities that only have a couple thousand in their total population to compete with schools from Indy and their hundreds of thousands in population. Or even Muncie with their population of 15,000. Can we compete with Muncie schools? Depends on the school. Ours? Most certainly, depending on the year. Schools like Dalevills, just outside of Muncie, are 1A schools who struggle to win 10 games while playing a small school schedule. It's down right impossible for them.


              Unless you come from a small school, and have had the opportunity to play in this system, how can you try and say what feelings it does or doesn't give?

              EDIT: And I say this system doesn't work, because places like Burris get to recruit and then win 13 of the last 14 2A volleyball state titles. There's no reason why they should be able to recruit and stay in 2A because they have the ability to control their class size.

              That was a very good account of something in which you obviously have first-hand experience. Thanks. The concerns you have should obviously be taken into account by everyone who has an opinion about class-basketball.

              For the record, I've been to plenty of tournament games since 1998 and I still think there is a TON of energy and excitement amongst fans. I've been to several Sections in Seymour (huge gym) and they are always very intense. I went to a New Albany (my alma-mater) vs. Brownsburg (I guess it was Semi-State?) game in Southport in 2008 and it was INTENSE. Southport has a gym of about 7K and there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Both of these schools were ranked in the top 5 that year (I think) and this was Heyward's Senior year at Brownsburg. It was a close game that Brownsburg won in-route to their state championship. I can't imagine that the game would have been anymore exciting had it been 1996 instead of 2008......

              Massive schools like Brownsburg and New Albany can still have exciting tournament games in the current system. Class basketball doesn't change that.

              But for the record, I'm only 24, so I obviously don't have a good memory of the old system. But I certainly can say that the games I've been to in recent years were plenty exciting. There is still plenty of magic to Indiana High School basketball in March.

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              • #22
                Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

                I don't hate class basketball nearly as much as a lot of people do, but then again I went to a Brebeuf and we got to play a lot of the big schools anyway and our basketball regional was played at New Castle before they moved to 4A which was always awesome. So I didn't have bad experiences. That being said, now that I've graduated and moved on, I probably wouldn't mind a single class system from a fun standpoint. It'd be cool to see Park Tudor go up against the 4A schools this year with Yogi and Blueitt. There's a lot of issues with class basketball from a recruiting stand point and also the way they separate the classes in terms of school size IMO.


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                • #23
                  Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

                  Also, Bloomington South is purple Since. North is like brown and gold I think.


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                  • #24
                    Re: Do you agree with class basketball?

                    Also, I always thought the atmosphere for class bball was still pretty good, but like I said Brebeuf vs. Chatard is going to be a big game regardless. I'm a big fan of the county and city tournaments. Those were always my favorite games of the bball season.


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