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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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Batman the Dark Knight Rises & other Batman topics thread

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  • Re: Batman the Dark Knight Rises & other Batman topics thread

    Originally posted by cdash View Post
    Not necessarily a plot hole, but I love that a nuclear bomb was roaming the streets of Gotham ticking away and Batman decides he has time to fashion a bat symbol on the side of a bridge in lighter fluid or whatever it was that caught on fire. It was an awesome moment for me in the theater and in subsequent viewings, but man that must have been time consuming as all hell
    Yeah its not like you can pay some punk kid $50 to do it. Bane would kill you for it. And the price would be too much for Wayne's empty wallet. Ah well great point of the film.

    Comment


    • Re: Batman the Dark Knight Rises & other Batman topics thread

      I read this guy's great idea for a restructuring of this movie. Courtesy of gothamknight from fanedit.org forums:

      What didn't work for me. A major problem with TDKR--perhaps the worst problem--was that too many characters and subplots were packed in for the film's own good. This juggernaut clocked in at 2:45, without having the proportion of Batman-in-action that I'd expected going in. Several elements detracted from Batman's own story.

      Bane was cool--but improperly portrayed. Tom Hardy turned in a great performance in the role of my favourite Bat-villain. And while I share Nolan's preference for faux-realism, even within that context there was no good reason to change the rationale for Bane's mask and drug-hookups. As many of you will know, in the comics Bane uses "Venom," a super-steroid. Surely Nolan could've come up with a plausible, science-based version of that. In effect what we got was a Bane who is intriguing because of his medical issues as well as his League of Shadows involvement--but who, as a fighter, is really just very good, rather than a juiced fighter.

      Talia. Ah, but the reason for the above element was Talia al-Ghul, the daughter of Batman Begins' Ra's al-Ghul, head of the League of Shadows. Nolan turned Bane into a medicine-dependent warrior who needed that medication because he'd become crippled by pain as a result of fending off fellow inmates in the process of helping Talia--not Bane himself--escape from the underground prison. This also tosses out another major element of Bane's story in the comic-book world: part of his mystique is that he morphs himself into a powerful warrior who takes over the prison culture, and then escapes the prison itself. But in TDKR Nolan had Bane help Talia escape, and then her father rescues Bane, now dependent on pain-alleviating drugs.

      Bane's demise and Batman rescued by Catwoman. The dramatic effect of Batman making his comeback and defeating Bane is lost, or at least weakened, by the reveal of Talia as Bane's partner in the League. She literally stabs Batman in the back, taking him by surprise--so much for Ra's's counsel in BB: "Always be mindful of your surroundings"!--rendering the defeat of Bane pointless, because now Batman's on the ground and Bane is returned to the controlling position. He's about to kill Batman with a shotgun--only to have Catwoman burst in on the Batpod and shoot Bane with the cycle's cannons. This is a lame way for Bane to exit, and it's just as lame that Batman needs Catwoman to save his butt.

      Therefore Talia al-Ghul should never have been in this story.

      John Blake. I actually liked this character and his plotline in and of itself--but it still undermined the overall structure and impact of the film. It crammed extra story-telling into the movie, taking away from Bruce Wayne/Batman. And it also asks us to believe that this guy, while a decent fighter and a sharp rookie detective, can somehow just take over as the new Batman despite lacking the intensive training Bruce underwent in BB. I didn't like movie-time being used up by this character, and didn't buy his taking on the mantle of the Bat at the end.

      Bruce held in Bane's old prison. This middle act of the film didn't work well for me, either. I understand and appreciate Nolan's attempt to challenge Bruce in this way, but it lacked a sense of realism. (a) There was no prison culture, such as Bruce experienced near the start ofBatman Begins. If Nolan was going to go this route, he should've depicted a brutal, life-threatening prison culture in which Bruce was constantly in danger. (b) I can't buy that Bruce's back could've got fixed as easily as it was, and then he somehow was able to rebuild his body so as to climb out of that deep pit. Nobody down there would realistically have had much to eat; conditions would've been similar to those of a concentration camp.

      Some ideas for a reedit. I'm tentatively planning to have Knightrise open with a montage of Bruce's training from BB, along with Batman's introduction to Gotham--spliced with whatever shots I can cannibalize from TDKR showing Bane's own rise to power in the criminal underworld. I'll jump back and forth between their respective paths, to show them as mirrors to each other.

      I'm also hoping to reintroduce the comics' Venom as the drug that gives Bane super-strength. I believe this could be done by using fake newspaper headlines referring to steroid-use by athletes (e.g., a player for the Gotham Rogues gets booted for steroids), science journals or Youtube medical conference videos depicting research into adrenalin (e.g., ordinary people being able to lift cars when under extreme stress) and possible military applications of synthetic adrenalin. And possibly there could also be a news report of a scientist involved in such research being kidnapped, or disappearing--perhaps it's even known he's been taken by Bane. These elements would also dovetail with Bruce's training and Batman-intro montage.

      Batman is still in action, though wanted for murder. I didn't like the erratic structure of TDKR: Bruce is broken/retired, comes out of retirement, gets defeated by Bane, comes back from defeat, gets back-stabbed by Talia, rallies himself to finally save Gotham. Up-down-up-down-up-down. Knightrise will have Batman still in action, without any mention that it's been "eight years" since TDK. And there won't be any Gotham "peacetime," as one character referred to it when he said the mayor was about to fire Gordon as police commissioner.

      Bane comes to Gotham with a 2-stage plan: (a) ransack the wealthy residents of the city, primarily by hitting the stock exchange--because the League of Shadows needs funding! (b) Carry out what the League failed to do in Batman Begins: the destruction of Gotham. Therefore this reedit will not open with Bane's hijacking of the plane and abduction of the nuclear physicist; that will come later. Now here's where it gets tricky (if you didn't think I'd already made it tricky enough for myself): I can keep Bane's introduction to Gotham the same as it stands in TDKR, with Gordon chasing Bane's thugs into the sewer system, getting injured by Bane's men and ending up in the hospital. OR: Contrive to get Batman underground to confront Bane without Gordon himself having yet seen Bane.

      It would be very simple if I weren't intent on retaining one very excellent scene from TDKR: the brief exchange between Bruce and Gordon in the hospital where the latter begs Batman to make a comeback to save Gotham. I want to save that for the middle frame of my reedit--but that requires either having Gordon go into a year-long coma after earlier encountering Bane in the sewers, or somehow delaying Gordon going into the sewers until after Bane's already defeated Batman—and it’s Gordon’s hospital-bed appeal that motivates Bruce to come back in the third act.

      Bruce's comeback. Since I didn't like the prison element, I'm going to ditch it. At the beginning of Knightrise you won't see a crippled, retired Bruce Wayne--that's going to be my broken-by-Bane version of Bruce Wayne. It's in the middle act of Knightrise that we'll see the crippled Bruce: able to walk but hardly fully recuperated from the back injury given him by Bane, and certainly not in condition to function as Batman. There's a point in TDKR where Bruce says to Lucius Fox, "I need you to get me back in the game." It's after that dialogue that I'm going to insert the scene where Bruce gets a leg-brace from Lucius that enhances his leg strength--which fits nicely with the moment in the second Batman-Bane fight in which Batman kicks Bane through the doors of City Hall. If I set things up this way, I won't be able to depict Bruce's back getting fixed, but I think that much can be assumed just from the fact that we're seeing him back on his feet, without undue damage to the flow of the narrative.

      Talia al-Ghul . . . will not exist in this reedit. Oh, Miranda Tate will be in there--but only to have it revealed that she's an infiltrator for the League of Shadows--no mention of her being Ra's al-Ghul's daughter. I will cut the Bane-Batman fight scene just before Miranda/Talia stabs Batman. After the last time Batman demands to know where the nuke triggerman is, I'll cut to Miranda running out of the building, thus implying to the viewer: Ah-ha! she's the triggerman! So that also means I won't be having Catwoman bursting in to save Batman's life--cuz the Bat doesn't need it! Bane lies in defeat, and the next cut of Batman we see is when he and Catwoman are going after Miranda (not Talia!) and the nuke.

      John Blake . . . will be almost nonexistent in this reedit. I'll retain just enough of his scenes to help the narrative (e.g., when he's participating in the hunt for Bane, and when Batman pounces on the terrorists just before they're going to execute Blake). He doesn't figure out who Batman is, there's no orphanage, etc.--and he certainly doesn't become the new Batman. I suspect even his name won't be heard in Knightrise.

      Batman's faked death. I found it rather disturbing, in terms of trying to view Bruce's character positively, that he would let his best friend and surrogate father Alfred believe he's actually dead, and go through the funeral and a period of mourning. Therefore I'll cut the brief part where Alfred breaks down at the gravesite; I want to find a clip of him outdoors but looking thoughful--so as to imply that either he knows Bruce isn't really dead, or he's at least skeptical, rather than in mourning.

      Closing scene. Since I've cut John Blake down to size, the closing scene can't be him in the Batcave! Instead, my final shot will be Alfred at the sidewalk café, looking up and becoming surprised when he sees . . . who??? Cut to end-credits.
      If he can pull this off it will definitely replace the official release in my collection. Any thoughts?

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