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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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Thanks Ratio

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  • Thanks Ratio

    We all like Stats here right? I think it would be neat if there was a top 10 list or some other posting that was updated every month or so showing which members have the best thanks to post count ratio--as could be easily calculated from posts in our stats. I personally think this is the best measure of how good a poster is for the community, within the rules. It would be fun and encourage good behavior and rule following.

    Sorry if I should have posted in the sticky. Doesn't seem like there is a ton of traffic here so I thought this might be a better place to discuss this or similar ideas.

  • #2
    Re: Thanks Ratio

    We can show those stats any give second, we can also setup ladders and scoreboards, but we feel (and we as in we administrators) that it takes away from what PD is, you write to share an opinion, discuss a matter or share happiness or sadnress but not to get the best grade of the class or to be the best debater on the board, so we stay away from any and all types of score keeping, sorry

    A
    So Long And Thanks For All The Fish.

    If you've done 6 impossible things today?
    Then why not have Breakfast at Milliways!

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Thanks Ratio

      Really? We don't try to see who is the best or most popular? So we don't have PD awards? We don't allow some longstanding posters to start their own post-game/commentary threads separate from "THE" postgame thread simply because they've earned some credo? Showing the "thanks" in itself is score keeping. Showing post counts is score keeping. I didn't say anything about making this a contest of who can be the best debater or doing anything connected to the content of the posts to see who is the "best." I think the quality of the board has gone down as of late. I don't think I'm in the minority in having that opinion. With thread after thread reminding people "well you can set a user to ignore," and we didn't have the need to point that out continually in the past. We all know that the ignore option is a bit silly anyway. You ignore people and threads stop making sense...then you have people quoting ignored users and you have to make that tough decision..do I reveal the post or not?

      Maybe a "Top Ten" is too much and too competitive and potentially another thing to divide the board or make people mad, I hear that. But if these stats are so readily available, why not put something like a thanks ratio under the post count? Or even simply a total tally of thanks? I would MUCH rather see that than a post count.....or an avatar...or a quote or a location or someones favorite teams (although I'm not rallying against any of those features, I only think THIS feature would be more helpful) Would posters be less likely to start "beef" with a poster who clearly brings many appreciated posts to the table? I think so. Also, if someone has 10k posts and 3 thanks...maybe that will make it abundantly clear WHO we should be putting on ignore.

      I'm sure policing the board is tough, and recently the rules have been "emphasized" but I still see threads full of borderline situations going unaddressed where posters are being repetitive, antagonistic, thread-jacking, name calling, opinion bashing, and simply starting fights. Everyone here is a fan of competition...we've all got some degree of competitive spirit as sports fans...I don't think there would be anything wrong with keeping score on politeness and positive contribution to the board under the rules, and the thanks is an imperfect but close way to measure that. Absolutely nothing about the board encourages polite behavior, coherent intelligent contribution, or discourages trolling, other than the threat of a ban or various degrees of wrist slapping. But you don't typically see posts that break the rules getting more than 1 or 2 thanks TOPS. But displaying the post count encourages every kind of post we DON'T like, and people take advantage so they can get above a 4 digit post count and be seen as someone who contributes enough that their opinion MUST mean something. Posters seem more entitled the more/longer they've abused the board. And we have so many intelligent basketball minds here! It's frustrating.

      And I'm not saying the mods do a terrible job at recognizing when a regular contributor should be cut some slack for toeing or stepping over the line, I think they do their best. But this kind of feature might make it easier for EVERYONE on the board to recognize when someone is here to start problems and when someone is generally a legitimate contributor but has gotten a bit over emotional, etc. I think it'd help the board police itself.

      For the posters who are so focused on getting in their two cents, and then ramming it down everyone's throat 15 times in a thread to raise their post count...maybe this would be a nice little disincentive. "Oh I see you have 5,000 posts but you're only thanked in 2% of them....or you only have 20 thanks in 8,000 posts." It would make it a lot easier to identify those who are quality members of the community but who post less. The people who maybe don't even feel the need to chime in with their two cents but consistently bring interesting and relevant articles, tweets, etc. to light. Why not implement something that rewards that behavior more than a post count that encourages verbal diarrhea and repetition of identical opinions and statements made by other posters?

      Quite frankly, I think the mods don't always have a lot to go on when they're deciding if they are going to reprimand a poster or remove a post. It seems to me that under the rules they could be doing it a lot more than they do. And I think that the posters who have high post counts, are highly vocal in EVERY thread, and who have signatures, avatars, etc (because their posts stand out) are more easily recognized as regular contributors on the board and they are given more leeway with what they can get away with. I don't blame the mods for this...it's a natural reaction. But I think that causes a cycle where quality posters would rather lurk instead of get into the mud with the pigs. We have tons of great regulars but also several not so great regulars. We have people who clearly never read the threads but always have to chime in, even if what they're saying has been said 43 times verbatim. It's a bummer that because I don't take the time to waste bandwidth with a signature, avatar, and a "me too" post in every thread I read that I'm not allowed that same leeway. But I don't want to make this about me. I don't feel victimized (lately) but I know the community could be improved...and this idea or a tweak on it seems like an easy thing to at least try out.

      Your opinion is your opinion and I know this is your board and you'll do as you see fit. Respect that. But I do think that you've been a bit dismissive of what could be a helpful idea. Maybe a top 10 was a bad idea but to have some kind of thanks stat or tally shown by the post count would be nice. I'd love to hear what others think about this. Able I know we've butted heads in the past, and I have with Hicks too, but I'd still like to hear what you both think of my "revised" proposal as well as any other mods. I feel like I can't be alone in my sentiments here. Is there a way to summon Hicks? Would love his two cents even though dude probably doesn't like me. I haven't always been a model citizen here, and I'll admit that. And I got privately called out for it. But I very much love and appreciate the community and I'd like to improve it.

      Maybe posters could choose to display these stats INSTEAD of their post count, favorite teams, avatar, etc? If you're trying to reduce clutter, that would be an idea too.

      While I'm at it...showing how often someone GIVES thanks is helpful too. (I realize this is all on the profile pages...but that is so many clicks away). I for one have MUCH respect for posters who simply click "thanks" rather than quoting a long post and saying something along the lines of "Yeah me too!!!1!!" So many threads with 10 pages of posts have only 2 pages of content...

      Rant over. Soapbox dismount.

      Appreciate the consideration.
      Last edited by Lurkster; 02-22-2014, 03:57 AM.

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      • #4
        Re: Thanks Ratio

        Personally, I saw the forum awards (I don't think they even happened the last year or two?) as a bit of (mostly harmless) fun that carried over from the Indy Star forum days, but yes they were essentially a popularity contest.

        When the Thanks button was added however many years ago, it was meant as a way to simply show support of a post without having to actually reply with a 'yeah I agree with PosterX' response (usually quoting some long post to do it, as you say). The statistics side of it just didn't really matter in the spirit of why it was added, and when displayed (we tried it once early on) it actually did have (IIRC) score boards/leader boards those kinds of things built into the way they were displayed, now that I think about it, along with number of thanks given/received (don't recall if it had a ratio of posts/thanks or not; it might have).

        In my opinion, it won't be nearly as good for the board as you think that it would (I just don't see too many people treating the stats the way you did, and that leave it as a net-zero for the rest at best, or adding another layer of cliche around here at worst), so I feel like it should stay as it is. But I see why you would want it differently; I do.

        That having been said, there is a bit of stats left over in each person's profile page, under the 'About Me' tab. You can see total # of times they were thanked, as well as links to posts they thanked or posts where they were thanked. So there's that.

        As for enforcement of the rules, it's never going to be done in a way where everyone goes 'yep, they're doing it right!'. To you, we under-moderate. A month or two ago, there were cries of over-moderation. So there's no satisfying everyone with how that's handled, but with that having been said the overall goal is to make posting here be about sharing opinion, having conversation without being hostile, and showing at least some respect (preferably friendliness), while we (the admins) try to make a point when we feel we need to while at the same time not being too nit-picky, either. And yes, we do weigh reputation into that, in both directions. So it all adds up to a method that mostly works, but is admittedly flawed as well. If there's a perfect method, we'll do that. I doubt it exists, though.

        P.S. if it's as bad as you say with how people are treating one another right now, and you want to see a difference, consider rounding up some examples of who/what/where you're seeing it, bring it to our attention, and then we can review and discuss it to see if there's something we feel should be done. It won't get better if no one notices or says anything.

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