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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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Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

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  • Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

    Today Google and Verizon announced a plant to abandon the principle of Net Neutrality. Instead of facilitating all net traffic without bias, they now intend to speed up the flow of internet traffic for clients who pay a premium to them, and to slow it down for everything else.


    The Huffington Post says this is "the end of the internet as we know it."

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/craig-...html?igoogle=1


    PC World says it is just a new kind of net neutrality:

    http://www.pcworld.com/article/20292...html?tk=hp_blg

    The Wall Street Journal says there will be winners and losers:

    http://blogs.wsj.com/source/2010/08/...et-neutrality/


    What do you say?


    Please use this thread to post insightful news articles and blog posts relevant to net neutrality, and also to make you own observations about how this change affects you.





    .
    And I won't be here to see the day
    It all dries up and blows away
    I'd hang around just to see
    But they never had much use for me
    In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

  • #2
    Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

    the articles you've posted make it sound like Google and Verizon are being the bad guys...this one which i'm about to post makes it look like they are fighting for our rights as consumers...

    http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/g...or-an-open-in/

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

      Thanks, B-mo.



      Here's more from the same HuffPost link in the OP:

      What Google and Verizon are proposing is fake Net Neutrality. You can read their framework for yourself here or go here to see Google twisting itself in knots about this suddenly "thorny issue." But here are the basics of what the two companies are proposing:

      1. Under their proposal, there would be no Net Neutrality on wireless networks -- meaning anything goes, from blocking websites and applications to pay-for-priority treatment.

      2. Their proposed standard for "non-discrimination" on wired networks is so weak that actions like Comcast's widely denounced blocking of BitTorrent would be allowed.

      3. The deal would let ISPs like Verizon -- instead of Internet users like you -- decide which applications deserve the best quality of service. That's not the way the Internet has ever worked, and it threatens to close the door on tomorrow's innovative applications. (If RealPlayer had been favored a few years ago, would we ever have gotten YouTube?)

      4. The deal would allow ISPs to effectively split the Internet into "two pipes" -- one of which would be reserved for "managed services," a pay-for-pay platform for content and applications. This is the proverbial toll road on the information superhighway, a fast lane reserved for the select few, while the rest of us are stuck on the cyber-equivalent of a winding dirt road.

      5. The pact proposes to turn the Federal Communications Commission a toothless watchdog, left fruitlessly chasing consumer complaints but unable to make rules of its own. Instead, it would leave it up to unaccountable (and almost surely industry-controlled) third parties to decide what the rules should be.
      And I won't be here to see the day
      It all dries up and blows away
      I'd hang around just to see
      But they never had much use for me
      In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

        http://www.engadget.com/2010/08/09/g...sal-explained/

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

          Never, ever, forget that Verizon, as owner of some of the infrastructure (as well as any other companies that do as well), has absolutely no interest in doing anything that reduces cost for any end consumers at ANY time. Coupling that with Google as a portal / content provider who is acting in concert with the telecom companies, yes, this could spell the beginning of the end of the low cost (no internet is ever free -- somebody pays for every site and every access at some point) current internet model, and that could happen within a few years, but likely would actually lead to government intervention beyond what it currently is and would possibly decimate the telecoms yet again as the Telecommunications Act of 1996 did, despite the fact that few who had no connection to the telecom industry would understand what it did to both the telecom industry and the nation's economy as a whole.

          Bandwidth allocation is key to both end consumer satisfaction and overall utility of the internet. For those unwilling or unable to pay very much for bandwidth, or for those of us who live where the only broadband option is satellite service (which really is not sufficient these days unless the end consumer is willing to pay FAR more than they would otherwise due to the finite processing capacity of the aging satellite infrastructure), the internet will likely no longer be anything but a means to have glorified text messaging through e-mail and text based website access due to the ever increasing size of files and bandwidth required to handle things the majority of internet users currently take for granted.

          The term "Net Neutrality" is a bizarre concept, and I don't think the term comes close to describing what is being proposed.

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

            Originally posted by Brad8888 View Post
            few who had no connection to the telecom industry would understand what it did to both the telecom industry and the nation's economy as a whole.
            Like, me, for instance. I know that Indianapolis' Western Electric plant closed after the breakup of AT&T -- but that was actually well before 1996. So I don't have any idea that the Telecommunications Act did. All I know is that it marked the point after which US telecommunications infrastructure started to be inferior to that of other developed countries.[/quote]



            Originally posted by Brad
            The term "Net Neutrality" is a bizarre concept, and I don't think the term comes close to describing what is being proposed.
            Why bizarre? I've heard it likened to a library card that entitles me to check out any book in the library or a broadcast license that allows a radio station to broadcast whatever it wishes. Al Franken () has called Net Neutrality the First Amendment Issue of the 21st Century.
            And I won't be here to see the day
            It all dries up and blows away
            I'd hang around just to see
            But they never had much use for me
            In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

              Originally posted by Putnam View Post
              Like, me, for instance. I know that Indianapolis' Western Electric plant closed after the breakup of AT&T -- but that was actually well before 1996. So I don't have any idea that the Telecommunications Act did. All I know is that it marked the point after which US telecommunications infrastructure started to be inferior to that of other developed countries.




              Why bizarre? I've heard it likened to a library card that entitles me to check out any book in the library or a broadcast license that allows a radio station to broadcast whatever it wishes. Al Franken () has called Net Neutrality the First Amendment Issue of the 21st Century.[/QUOTE]

              My family has owned a company that has provided telecommunications (and occasionally power) construction in Indiana since the 1950's. The balkanization of the Bell system, while providing an incentive to reduce costs to cover the additional overhead of duplicate white collar workers as well as huge increases in advertising expense that customers eventually paid for with reduced service quality, in my opinion started telecom down the wrong path. Then, when those balkanized Baby Bells were forced to lease their lines at and below cost to competitors who did not bear the cost of the infrastructure as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, well paying jobs were lost throughout the industry for many years, both for union workers for the telecom companies themselves as well as in the ranks of contractor labor forces. Ultimately, coupled with horrific costs of healthcare (by the way, I, shockingly, as a conservative small business owner, am completely in favor of any effort that the Obama administration actually completes to change the system that has nearly bankrupted our family due to our loyalty to long term employees who happen to have health problems themselves or have family members who do, and has taken away our ability to be competitive in our shrunken marketplace) our family business is basically shut down because of the forces set into motion by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The incentive for expanding and upgrading facilities dwindled, and so did the cash flow through the sector of the economy that had been vibrant (with the exception of the recession of the early 1980's). Those telecom workers became displaced into lower paying jobs with reduced discretionary spending capabilities, as well as many being forced to begin liquidating nest eggs to keep up with a standard of living that they had been accustomed to, including securities in the stock and bond markets.

              I am afraid that the government will become involved in the whole Net Neutrality thing, too, with the unintended consequences being another degradation of ultimate service to the end consumers due to the desire of the government to "protect" the masses from monopolistic practices of infratstructure providers working in concert with portal / content providers, and because of government intervention there possibly being a reduction of profits to those providers, who, in turn, will reduce employment and benefits to counteract government actions that are intended to provide open access for all.

              Outside of all of that, there will be victors who become wealthy due to taking advantage of access paid for by advertising, mainly the advertisers, and those who provide such unique services that they pass by without being regulated for a while. I would love to figure out how to become one of those.

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

                Those who have money get better things than those who don't. Pretty much the same principle that everything is based on these days.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

                  Originally posted by Shade View Post
                  Those who have money get better things than those who don't. Pretty much the same principle that everything is based on these days.

                  Explain, please? because i think there is a difference.

                  As I understand it, the double-tiered internet of the near future will be determined by the providers buying better routing.

                  I can have more money that some porn-watching slob, but if the porn channel pays for better routing then it will move fast while Pacers Digest or the theology discussion group I like to read load at 300 baud per second.

                  What this decision means, it seems, is that I won't be allowed to choose better internet service except by choosing the content that Google and Verizon have awarded the routing priority.
                  And I won't be here to see the day
                  It all dries up and blows away
                  I'd hang around just to see
                  But they never had much use for me
                  In Levelland. (James McMurtry)

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Re: Net Neutrality and the end of the Internet

                    why can't they leave our precious internet alone? they have to turn everything into crap.

                    Comment

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