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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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The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

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  • The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

    Most people won't give a ****, but the editors of the Indy Star sports pages hit a new low today as far as I am concerned.

    They edited out references to the Indiana Pacers in a story carried on the sports page written by Phil Sheridan, an Associated Press writer, on the trading deadline this week in the NBA.

    Sheridan listed the Indiana Pacers as being one of the teams most likely to be interested in a trade. He also listed Ron Artest as a player whose name is being bandied about in trade rumors.

    The Star carried Sheridan's article word for word. Except, references to the Indiana Pacers and Ron Artest were deleted from the story.

    Who is running the Star sports page? A former editor of Pravda?

    Sheridan's actual story:

    Along with the Timberwolves, the Sacramento Kings, Toronto Raptors, Indiana Pacers, Memphis Grizzlies, Portland Trail Blazers, Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers are the favorites to make something happen before the league's trading deadline passes Thursday afternoon.

    Sacramento's Chris Webber, New York's Kurt Thomas, Toronto's Jalen Rose and Donyell Marshall, Indiana's suspended Ron Artest, Memphis' Bonzi Wells, Portland's Damon Stoudamire, Nick Van Exel and Ruben Patterson, Miami's Eddie Jones and the Lakers' Lamar Odom were among the names being bandied about in trade rumors over the weekend.
    My emphasis on :Indiana Pacers and Ron Artest. Not Sheridan's.

    If you care to check, you will see the Star ran the same article verbatim, except Sheridan's inclusion of the Indiana Pacers and Ron Artest were deleted.

    Yuk! Extremely dishonest and insulting to Pacers fans who look to the Star for insight and information.

    If the editors disagreed with Sheridan's analysis, which I do by the way, why did they bother running the article in the first place? It was, after all, mostly a summary of trade rumors that anyone of us who follows the NBA daily on the Internet could have written. He broke no new ground.

    I originally wrote that this is a relatively small matter. But, after additional review, I really don't believe that. If a newspaper sports section has no credibility on something insignificant like this, what the heck will it do when faced with something important where honest reporting is needed.

    I try not to be a cynic. But what the Star sports editors did to Sheridan's story was incredibly stupid and wrong. They at least owe their readers an apology. And the person responsible for the deletions deserves a suspension without pay at least as long as that given Jermaine O'Neal.

    As far as I am concerned, what the Star did, given their responsibility in the community, was worse than Ron Artest going into the stands in a fit of rage after a drunken fan.

  • #2
    Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

    Do a search on sportspages.com for the Pacers and you will find Sheridan's story was carried by many newspapers across the country. You'll find what I say about the deletions to be true.

    http://www.sportspages.com/content/nba/nbacentral.shtml

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

      Maybe the Star knows the Pacers are not going to trade Ron so they see no sense in running rumors that they know aren't true.

      The Pacer's have steadfastly said they aren't trading Ron.

      Hence I have no problem with them editing that particular rumor out.

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

        Originally posted by Will Galen
        Maybe the Star knows the Pacers are not going to trade Ron so they see no sense in running rumors that they know aren't true.

        The Pacer's have steadfastly said they aren't trading Ron.

        Hence I have no problem with them editing that particular rumor out.
        I'm thinking the same. It's probably because they know it's not happening, why keep that section and risk creating uncertainty.

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

          Originally posted by Will Galen
          Maybe the Star knows the Pacers are not going to trade Ron so they see no sense in running rumors that they know aren't true.

          The Pacer's have steadfastly said they aren't trading Ron.

          Hence I have no problem with them editing that particular rumor out.
          If the Star knows the Pacers for certain are not going to make a trade, then they ought to write the story instead of changing a guy's column and not telling us they changed it. Or they could say the guy is full of ****.

          To edit out Pacers references in a column comes way too close to censorship. The truth is there have been Artest rumors floating around and there have certainly been stories about the Pacers having interest in certain players. Whether the rumors become reality doesn't matter. To in effect deny that there have been rumors about the Pacers --- when you print a story about trade rumors --- is dishonest and is not simply editiing.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

            I've always found it somewhat peculiar when they would take a "national" article and add to it. You know, the whole, "Mark Montieth and Sekou Smith contributed to the above article" type of notation. But I guess that's commonplace.

            Ethically, since they didn't reproduce the entire article, don't they have an obligation to at least mention that they selectively "sheltered" thier readers from some of the information that other readers of the article in other markets received?

            These are the types of decisions that get people fired from journalism/ editor-ship jobs.

            It isn't about, "We [the Star] know the Pacers aren't going to make a trade", its about the responsibility of media in a free society.

            They would've been better off reprinting the entire article and adding quotes from someone in the Pacers organization that "nothing is happening". That should be easy for them to do, since that's what DW says even if something is happening.
            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


            • #7
              Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

              Why doesn't somebody just go over there and ask them? Ask Rick Montieth about it. I won't, because I can't stand the place.

              I find it disturbing that there are people who don't think this is anything to be concerend about, but that's your opinion and you're entitled to it.

              Not that these two things are equal in importance, but an analogy could be the star edited out references to WMD because there aren't any.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                Jay - I agree 100%. Removing information is not journalism, it's censorship. If they wanted to refute the information, they can refute it. Or just don't post the article at all. Selectively removing passages without explanation is insulting to the readers and just bad editorship in general. I'm losing a lot of faith in the Star (not that I had much to begin with.

                Maybe someone whould ask/call out montieth's q&A on this.

                Volunteers?
                “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” - Winston Churchill

                “If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to serve as a horrible warning.” - Catherine Aird

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                  I would leave the Star alone! They don't make trouble for us when we use whole columns, why make possible trouble for them?

                  I see no reason not to ask about it though.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                    Had they taken the "high road", I think they would have printed the article as written and added a paragraph afterwards stating that Pacer officials, when contacted, stated that the Pacers have no ongoing discussions involving trades.

                    But I hardly think this is a major offense, certainly not near the level of Jermaine O'Neal's.

                    Newspapers have the responsibility of publishing things that are true if they choose to publish them at all. Conversely, they also have the responsibility of not publishing things that they know are not true, at least without some form of retraction or explanation to accompany the article.

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                      If they had asked the Pacers to comment, that would have been very responsible and actually smart.

                      Instead, someone chose to take the lazy way out and just "edit out" Pacers references. That is both lazy and a little, at least, dishonest.

                      I can't help get the impression I don't want to have: The sports staff has a higher priority on getting along than getting it right.

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                        I totally disagree with Will's position. The Star had two options here and they made up a 3rd.

                        Either run the article as written or get additional input from the Pacers to add to the article to refute it... or at least dredge up a recent quote where the Pacers have said something about not planning any trades....

                        I'd probably have no real problem if they ran PART of the article and deleted a later paragraph where the Pacers were mentioned if the paragraphs were unrelated. IOW- run the first half but not the second half.... as long as nothing else is used after the deleted paragraph.

                        I do have a problem when the Pacers (or Pacer) are included in a list of teams and selectively removed.

                        -Bball
                        Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                        ------

                        "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, that’s teamwork."

                        -John Wooden

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                          Guess today's story in the Star about the talks with Toronto proves that AP writer Sheridan had it right about the Pacers participating in trade talks. Makes the Star's action yesterday look even more foolish. Hope the person responsible for the lapse in judgement was sentenced to a couple of weeks working in the obituary section.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                            The star has very little credibility in its sports section. The way they have treated Tony George with kid gloves proves that. Tony is ripe for a serious media beating but the star just does not do it. They go on pretending that the Indy 497 is still the biggest race in the world when in fact it is not even the biggest race held on that day.

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Re: The Star Deletes Pacers References in Trade Deadline Story.

                              Well, let me know the date when King Tony is going to be ****slapped by the star. I'll be there with bells on.
                              Let's make one thing clear. The newspaper business is just that -- a business. They're not some caped crusader enforcing justice and seeking truth. They're run by a cash register. If it's any consolation, TV news is even worse. If you doubt it, consider the last time a big advertiser was stung by a story.

                              Comment

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