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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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IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

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  • IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

    Hello guys, I am looking at going back to school for computer science and have been thinking about starting my education at IVY Tech since it close to my home. I am thinking about getting my associates there and bachelor's at Ball State. I plan to go full-time and the funding for it will be through the disabled Veterans program. I took the accuplacer and did well in all areas except I will need a refresher course for Math. Anyone have any ideas or advice?

  • #2
    Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

    I was in the CIT program at Ivy Tech, graduated from there in 2011 with an AAS in Computer Security. I loved it. I preferred the hybrid classes myself (half online, half in class labs). I took classes downtown and at Lawrence mainly with some scattered in Avon...what advice are you looking for?


    @Pacers24Colts12

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    • #3
      Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

      I have been at Ivy Tech since 2012 for my Business degree. I am taking 4 online classes this summer to finish that up. I loved it. So affordable and my advisers and teachers have been terrific. I do not like online classes. I learn a lot better in the classroom setting, but with my travels online was the only option for me this summer.

      I had to take a 0 level math class as well. Just work hard and you will do good. I still have a 4.0 GPA somehow. I went to the free tutoring they provide and it really helped me get through the difficult(at least for me) Math classes. If you want it. You will be fine.

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      • #4
        Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

        Being an older guy at 42 and have been out of school a while. Do you think IVY Tech is a great place to get re-acclimated to being in school? I would be interested in the free tutoring for Math being dyslexic math is always hard for me to learn. I am looking at the computer science degree. I had originally thought that to get where I want to be I would need to finish at Ball State with a bachelor's degree, but is an associates degree enough to get into a good IT position or would I be better off doing the bachelor's degree right after getting my associates? I will be doing a lot of my classes in Anderson or close by since I live there but would consider the downtown one and Muncie and Marion. I am in a very lucky position being a disabled Veteran and involved in the vocational rehabilitation program. They cover a lot of the costs and give me a living allowance too but I will need to keep at least a 3.0 average. I think I am worried the most about the first semester or two. Also are they flexible with family situations that might come up? I have a child with cystic fibrosis who is on average hospitalized twice a year for up to 3 weeks at a time. I would say like missing one day of school during each hospital stay.

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        • #5
          Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

          This is non Ivy Tech-specific advice, but advice I give anyone going to college/tech/vocational school: make sure your projected career earnings/gain outweigh the cost of education.

          I have friends who spent $60k on degrees to get $30k/year jobs. That's just bad math. Not that we can always help it, given economy and just dumb/bad luck sometimes, but you want to make sure your career field is worth the cost of your education.

          I totally lucked out with mine. Mine should have maybe broken even at most, but I've had some dumb luck I don't really deserve, and have just worked hard every day since to try to keep it in my favor.

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          • #6
            Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

            Originally posted by jeffg-body View Post
            Being an older guy at 42 and have been out of school a while. Do you think IVY Tech is a great place to get re-acclimated to being in school? I would be interested in the free tutoring for Math being dyslexic math is always hard for me to learn. I am looking at the computer science degree. I had originally thought that to get where I want to be I would need to finish at Ball State with a bachelor's degree, but is an associates degree enough to get into a good IT position or would I be better off doing the bachelor's degree right after getting my associates? I will be doing a lot of my classes in Anderson or close by since I live there but would consider the downtown one and Muncie and Marion. I am in a very lucky position being a disabled Veteran and involved in the vocational rehabilitation program. They cover a lot of the costs and give me a living allowance too but I will need to keep at least a 3.0 average. I think I am worried the most about the first semester or two. Also are they flexible with family situations that might come up? I have a child with cystic fibrosis who is on average hospitalized twice a year for up to 3 weeks at a time. I would say like missing one day of school during each hospital stay.
            Most of the teachers I have had are totally understanding of family situations. If you let them know the situation they will work with you. I know my Econ teacher worked with a few students. The class started at 5:30 and a student didn't get off work until 6:30 and he never penalized the person, and in fact waited on them to do tests. Most of my teachers have been very understanding. Most of my class mates were around your age, the school is more geared toward the adult learner opposed to someone of my age.

            The only complaint I have is how they try to rip you off with books. They have these special Ivy Tech editions and loose leaf paper only books that really get costly. I would say go for it, if you are committed to it you will make it through. I will tell you I was in your position. I took a semester off after HS(I planned to start the next spring). I enrolled in class but ended up dropping because I was not ready for college yet. I ended up staying out of school for nearly 2 years. But if I wouldn't have take the time to fully commit to college I would have probably dropped out after my first semester.

            If you take classes downtown one of the main IT professors is the Ivy Tech Basketball coach. He is a great guy and loves his basketball.

            I am sitting here right now writing a few papers for class . Funny thing is I dreaded HS but I love school now. Taking classes I get to pick and will actually use in the real world. Plus picking my schedule has made learning fun for me.

            Good luck if you decided to do it. It will be worth it.

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            • #7
              Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

              I say go for it! I started back at IUPUI January of last year and I honestly wish I would have done it sooner mainly because I would have been able to use my GI Bill. Without a long and drawn out back story, for me school has been much easier this time around. It's amazing how big of a difference of wanting to be there makes.

              My advice would be to make sure you talk to an adviser and they should be able to answer any questions you have and I would start off slow. You can always add classes in later semesters if your course load isn't enough. I've been going part-time because it allows me to obsess over the two classes I'm taking and learn everything I possibly can about the class. Granted it's going to take me forever and a day to finish school, but I like being able to find ways to apply what I'm learning in real life and that has helped me out a lot.

              Like you, I needed a math refresher too and had to start in the lowest level math that IUPUI offers. It was a nice way to ease back into math classes. There's also a bunch of websites that you can use for math to help you out too. I started using Khan Academy before I started back to help get my mind turning again. It's a free site and they have every level of math you'll need. Plus it's a great site if you get stuck on something and just need to hear it from someone different.

              Good luck man, you can do it!

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              • #8
                Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                ^^^ Khan Academy is a great resource, and the best thing the free internet has to offer.

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                • #9
                  Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                  Originally posted by Dr. Hibbert View Post
                  ^^^ Khan Academy is a great resource, and the best thing the free internet has to offer.
                  Agreed. I used his videos a lot to help me in math snx even a few business classes. Plus YouTube is a great resource. A lot of teachers post lectures on there. I also used ITunes University quite a bit. If you need help there are tons of resources.
                  Last edited by pacer4ever; 06-13-2014, 05:01 PM.

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                  • #10
                    Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                    YouTube is awesome too, that's how I passed my Econ class. This chick had a lecture on everything we were covering in class and it just made it 10 times easier to understand the material. If the internet was like it is now back in 2000, I would have finished college the first try.

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                    • #11
                      Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                      I met with my academic advisor yesterday and developed a fist semester of classes to include math 080 (need a remedial class), Math 111, Database design and management, and Informatics fundamentals. Now to the surgeon later this morning and contacting my voc rehab counselor to get things going.

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                      • #12
                        Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                        Originally posted by jeffg-body View Post
                        I met with my academic advisor yesterday and developed a fist semester of classes to include math 080 (need a remedial class), Math 111, Database design and management, and Informatics fundamentals. Now to the surgeon later this morning and contacting my voc rehab counselor to get things going.
                        good for you, now they are even doing classes where you can take 080 and 123 together(not sure if they do 080 and 111 together). 123 is the new Quantitative Reasoning(it replaced 118). I just took that class, and it was pretty easy, but the reason they added 123 is it transfers to other colleges and 118 doesn't. I also found my best advisor was my business teacher. He recommended I don't see the school advisiors because they don't know as much about the specific degree as the advisers in the particular major.


                        080 won't be that bad it is just basic concepts. I breezed through that class same with 123, believe it or not the hardest class I took at Ivy Tech was 023 (I really didn't may attention in HS algebra so it was really hard for me)


                        If you are open to going to Indianapolis for 080 I had Doug Nearing for 123(he teaches 080 as well), he was my favorite teacher at Ivy Tech. He was really understanding, and really wanted his students to succeed. Just his passion for teaching got me excited lol.


                        Good for you and stick with it you will do great!!

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                        • #13
                          Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                          I start August 25th at the Anderson IVY Tech. Taking 2 math classes, 1 English, informatics and database design and management. I am super excited about it. The VA is paying for it all and giving me 926 a month in addition of my VA disability check to live on so I don't have to work. It kind of sucks that I have to quit my job at AutoZone but they just implemented a mandatory limit on how many hours a week I can work, a maximum of 25, so I will be putting in my resignation on the 16th so they can have a month to find a replacement. I think that is a fair amount of time to find a manager.

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                          • #14
                            Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                            I am starting school Monday at the Anderson IVY Tech. Anyone else out there starting too?

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                            • #15
                              Re: IVY Tech Students or Grads Out There

                              I'm starting back at IUPUI tomorrow. Sadly, I don't enjoy having the summers off because I get bored and drink way too damn much. Good luck on your first day back in a long time!

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