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The Rules of Pacers Digest

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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.

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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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Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

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  • Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

    #colts sign FA G Trai Essex. Waive OT Mike Person and C A.Q. Shipley.
    Mike Chappell

    I'm guessing we saved some money by signing him as a free agent instead of claiming him off waivers. Just a guess.

    And I'm guessing there's another move to come.
    Last edited by Strummer; 09-11-2012, 12:00 PM.

  • #2
    Re: Colts sign FA OG

    O-line sitch is just BAD. Need major improvement or the rest of the offense is irrelevant.
    I'd rather die standing up than live on my knees.

    -Emiliano Zapata

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Colts sign FA OG

      He's from Fort Wayne and the newspaper there already has an interview with him.

      Reggie Hayes

      “It's kind of a homecoming for me with friends and family here, and obviously close to Fort Wayne,” Essex said. “I'll be with the same coordinator (Bruce Arians) and O-line coach (Harold Goodwin) that I worked with for a good portion of my career in Pittsburgh. I couldn't ask for a better situation.”

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Colts sign FA OG

        He should start in a few weeks after learning the offense. He is better then the other guards on the roster.

        Sad, when the Colts have to pick up a player out of his house!
        Garbage players get 1st round picks, (WTF)! All of the NBA must hate the Pacers! LOL

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Colts sign FA OG

          Well I hope he can come in and help protect Luck. He should already know the offense really well. I don't know though...the Steelers o-line has been a mess and they got rid of him.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Colts sign FA OG

            Originally posted by Strummer View Post
            Mike Chappell

            I'm guessing we saved some money by signing him as a free agent instead of claiming him off waivers. Just a guess.

            And I'm guessing there's another move to come.
            A veteran's salary is not guaranteed if he is signed after week one. (At least it was that way under the old CBA)
            Originally posted by Natston;n3510291
            I want the people to know that they still have 2 out of the 3 T.J.s working for them, and that ain't bad...

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Colts sign FA OG

              Signed an OT.

              #Colts sign OT Bradley Sowell from Tampa Bay practice squad.
              Phillip Wilson

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

                Don't be surprised if Wilson tweets we have signed former Colts Chris Hinton and Ron Solt we're getting so desperate.
                You know how hippos are made out to be sweet and silly, like big cows, but are actually extremely dangerous and can kill you with stunning brutality? The Pacers are the NBA's hippos....Matt Moore CBS Sports....

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Colts sign FA OG

                  Originally posted by Young View Post
                  Well I hope he can come in and help protect Luck. He should already know the offense really well. I don't know though...the Steelers o-line has been a mess and they got rid of him.
                  He couldn't beat out Ramon Foster, who wasn't exactly a good player so we drafted DeCastro. After DeCastro blew out his knee, and isn't due back for at least 8 weeks (if not all season), Essex still couldn't win a spot.

                  He's a better "T" than "G" as he's a bit better in pass protection than at pulling or creating a running hole. Better is a relative term. Having only started 28 times even though he's been with the Steelers from their last realy good OL from 2004-2006 all the way through the decline to this lousy bunch we have now, he still only mustered 28 starts. Trai Essex played a lot of Week #3 last season at RT, and the guy lined up against him (somebody named Mathis, you guys might know him) spent the entire game in the Steelers backfield bothering and rushing Ben into many mistakes. On second thought, maybe he is a better G than T?

                  I'm still surprised that we cut him, not because he's much of a player but with DeCastro's injury we're basically back to last year's line which isn't very good (to be generous). Rumor was that he'd be resigned to a nonguaranteed salary after clearing waivers and after week #1 until DeCastro is healthy. If that was their real plan, they certainly messed it up!!

                  Good luck, but just as when you signed De'Shae Townsend and Melwelde Moore, you're getting players deep into their decline so you should set expectations accordlingly.
                  Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                  Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                  Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                  Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                  And life itself, rushing over me
                  Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                  Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

                    When working with low talent, I generally believe in just letting a unit gel, even mediocre talent can gel into something somewhat serviceable if you just give it some time. I just hope they don't do a o-line carousel all year. The chances of us landing anyone worth a damn is pretty slim at this point, so what we have is what we have, find some guys and stick with 'em and work them up, as weak as they may be.

                    If we really need to pick and choose between a pass protection line and run-blocking line, they just need to focus on pass protection this year and keep Luck on his feet.
                    Last edited by Kid Minneapolis; 09-11-2012, 12:59 PM.
                    There are two types of quarterbacks in the league: Those whom over time, the league figures out ... and those who figure out the league.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: Colts sign FA OG

                      Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
                      He couldn't beat out Ramon Foster, who wasn't exactly a good player so we drafted DeCastro. After DeCastro blew out his knee, and isn't due back for at least 8 weeks (if not all season), Essex still couldn't win a spot.

                      I'm still surprised that we cut him, not because he's much of a player but with DeCastro's injury we're basically back to last year's line which isn't very good (to be generous).
                      I imagine he was just too expensive for the Steelers to keep. As a backup they figured it was more cost effective to carry a young guy than a player making the 8 year vet minimum. That's a pretty common decision.

                      I think the Colts were interested in him for his versatility. Sounds like he's got experience all across the line. That will come in handy as injuries cause us to mix and match the line. We're already doing that and it's only the first week.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

                        I think that's true about the salary, but we didn't even have a worthwhile young player. Foster and Gibson both got hurt Sunday night and Legursky and Adams weren't very good in there but they were the only two other players in uniform. Adams got better as the game progressed (first game jitters and I really don't think he's practiced at RT very much as LT was his job to win -- and he's not ready for LT yet.) Legursky is what he is... he's got a great name for an OL but not a great game for an OL.

                        As for versatility, yes, Essex has given up sacks from literally every position on the line.



                        Agree with Minneapolis, continuity is equally important on the line to raw talent. After all, it is the weakest link on the line that matters more than the strongest link.
                        Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                        Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                        Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                        Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                        And life itself, rushing over me
                        Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                        Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

                          Originally posted by ChicagoJ View Post
                          Legursky is what he is... he's got a great name for an OL but not a great game for an OL.
                          lol i was watching the game and i thought legursky was some kind of vet that had a great career...but was that a different legursky? or does legursky just really sound like a name that would be good at OL, but he isn't?

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: Colts sign FA OG Trai Essex and Tampa PS OT Bradley Sowell

                            Originally posted by dal9 View Post
                            lol i was watching the game and i thought legursky was some kind of vet that had a great career...but was that a different legursky? or does legursky just really sound like a name that would be good at OL, but he isn't?
                            Exactly. He sounds and looks like a great OG/C. But he's not. He's started some games for us over the past couple of years, including SB45 when Pouncey was hurt, and that's why he's got a minor amount of name recognition. But when he's starting, you know your OL is in trouble.
                            Why do the things that we treasure most, slip away in time
                            Till to the music we grow deaf, to God's beauty blind
                            Why do the things that connect us slowly pull us apart?
                            Till we fall away in our own darkness, a stranger to our own hearts
                            And life itself, rushing over me
                            Life itself, the wind in black elms,
                            Life itself in your heart and in your eyes, I can't make it without you

                            Comment

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