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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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Lockout News and Discussions thread

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  • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

    Comment


    • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

      Originally posted by Shade View Post
      2012 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

      2011 PD ABA Fantasy Keeper League Champion, sports.ws

      2006 PD ABA Fantasy League runner up, sports.ws

      Comment


      • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

        Originally posted by GrangeRusHibbert View Post
        It took 12-hours to find progress on the three of the five issues. I'm no mathematician, but I believe that works out to four-hours-per-issue (thankfully I'm not wearing any socks or shoes). Two more issues... eight more hours. Another two-hours to wrap it all up; 10-hours in total. The meeting begins at noon, so I'll say a deal is reached at approximately 10 P.M. Thursday night.
        Okay 4 hours per issue.... 12 hours. 2 more issues.... 8 hours. And I'll give only 1 more hour for lunch, breaks, etc. I'll go for 9 hours today for 21 total hours because everyone knows that a good man can only count to 21.

        Let's just hope we got a lot of good men in the room.

        Comment


        • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

          **sigh** This is just
          Garbage players get 1st round picks, (WTF)! All of the NBA must hate the Pacers! LOL

          Comment


          • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

            I realize it was after 1 AM, but I wished I had stayed awake another 20 minutes and if I had maybe my attitude last night would have been like most of you.

            But come on, there were three possible outcomes last night. Deal, no deal, meet tomorrow. Meet tomorrow is OK, lets not panic, that is better than no deal and no talks planned. If no progress was being made, they would not meet today and the tweet by Bucher is idiotic, yeah right they are just meeting to make it look good. Yeah right - and how much do the lawyers in the room charge per hour $500? probably, yeah that's right, lets just sit here in a nice hotel boardroom and look good. Is Bucher that stupid to tweet that

            Cheer up everyone.
            Last edited by Unclebuck; 11-10-2011, 08:22 AM.

            Comment


            • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

              http://sheridanhoops.com/2011/11/10/...ped/#more-1885


              ESPN.com’s Henry Abbott may have witnessed a clue at to where this is headed.

              “As he left the news conference early Thursday morning, after 12 hours of bargaining, Stern stopped in the crowded hallway to converse with union economist Kevin Murphy, who says he is trying to arrange his schedule to be here for the next session to start at noon. Stern encouraged Murphy to show up, saying, “It will be a good day to be here.”

              It was late. Stern was tired. The comment was vague. It didn’t sound like a real promise of a deal,” Abbott wrote. ”But it certainly didn’t sound like a guy preparing to blow apart the talks with a dramatically lower offer, either.”

              The sides had identified five key system issues on which they were still apart (David Aldridge of NBA-TV and Turner Sports, and Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported progress was made on three of those issues), but in actuality there are a plethora of lesser issues that still must be agreed upon — things such as player discipline, the draft, age limits, minimum veteran salaries, etc.

              “There are many other issues of importance, and so it just behooves us to make sure that all of those issues are put on the table, together with system and economic split, and see from that rather lengthy list whether we can make a deal. We are not failing and we are not succeeding,” Stern said. ”We felt we should get a good night’s sleep and resume tomorrow.”
              As it says above: To be continued.

              Comment


              • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                Reason to be upbeat.

                http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...lockout_110911


                NBA moves closer to labor deal

                By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports 5 hours, 22 minutes ago


                NEW YORK – After several days of NBA ultimatums and threats, owners and players made significant progress toward a collective bargaining agreement that would end the lockout, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

                With the Players Association agreeable to a 50-50 split of revenue, the sides also made progress on three of the five system issues that union officials said needed to be resolved to complete a deal, sources said. The players are determined to keep system issues which allow them freedom to move to luxury-tax teams, among other issues involving the tax and escrow systems.

                After more than 12 hours of negotiations, the two sides broke early Thursday morning and will resume talks at noon ET.

                We can get there in the next day or two,” one high-ranking league official briefed on the talks said. “But it’s still a volatile process, and egos can still get in the way. …But there’s a lot of reason to be hopeful.”

                NBA commissioner David Stern had vowed to “reset” the owners’ proposal to a worse offer if a deal wasn’t reached by 5 p.m. ET Wednesday, but the deadline passed early in the negotiating session without action.

                “The clock is stopped,” Stern said after the talks ended at 1 a.m. ET Thursday. “And we’re trying to see if there’s a reason why we can get something to go back to our respective sides with.”

                Stern has some ability to negotiate through the deal points of the system issues, but he also has a group of owners largely split over how much they need to cede to the players on system issues. The owners have watched the union give back in unprecedented ways, and there’s a significant faction that thinks Stern can get a deal done without yielding much more to the players.

                If the talks break down in the next 24-48 hours, agents are prepared to move rapidly toward decertification of the union or a variation of it, disclaimer of interest.

                After player team representatives strongly pushed union executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher at a Tuesday meeting about securing favorable agreements on the several system issues, the union’s leadership will still likely have to sell the rank-and-file on a largely scaled-back model of the players’ wish list if they want to get a deal done by the end of the week.

                [So many of the system issues are linked, making it a high-wire act of give-and-take to get them ironed out.

                Comment


                • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                  Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post
                  Reason to be upbeat.

                  http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_yl...lockout_110911


                  “But it’s still a volatile process, and egos can still get in the way. …
                  This is why I'm not very hopeful.
                  Passion. Pride. Patience. Pacers

                  Comment


                  • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                    Originally posted by Unclebuck View Post

                    Originally posted by Woj
                    ...

                    The players are determined to keep system issues which allow them freedom to move to luxury-tax teams, among other issues involving the tax and escrow systems.

                    ...
                    As bad as I want my Pacers and NBA, I really hope the owners dont give up on this issue, because for the next 10 years, your gonna see Miami, LA, NY, and Boston having super teams, and the other 26 teams will suffer in mediocrity once again.
                    Last edited by BoomBaby33; 11-10-2011, 09:03 AM.

                    Comment


                    • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                      I feel like yesterday we are looking at a 50% chance of getting a deal within this negotiating cycle. Just my opinion. Things can breakdown at a moments notice and both sides are ready to bolt and that is why I think Stern and Hunter are the key figures at this point.
                      Last edited by Unclebuck; 11-10-2011, 10:43 AM.

                      Comment


                      • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                        Originally posted by Shade View Post
                        BEST.
                        SHOW.
                        EVER!!!!

                        Comment


                        • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                          Originally posted by Shade View Post
                          I can see it now...

                          Shade wakes up today only to find his computer has been smashed to bits.. He only recalls a out of control panda and Jon Stewart.
                          Last edited by Gamble1; 11-10-2011, 10:01 AM.

                          Comment


                          • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                            Originally posted by Peck View Post
                            I must be living in bizarro world.

                            I see Charles Barkley on CBS tv come down squarely on the side of the owners and in particular against the large market teams and super teams.

                            Then I see Reggie Milller on NBAtv coming down squarely on the side of the players and against most small market teams & pretty much telling Michael Jordan that he should shut up.

                            If you would have asked me before I would have sworn that the roles would have been reveresed here.
                            Well, Barkley is MJ's best friend and Reggie never like MJ that much.
                            @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

                            Comment


                            • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                              Originally posted by BPump33 View Post
                              This is why I'm not very hopeful.
                              Stern did the same thing he has been doing all along. Come out with a hard stance and very slowly give in on some issues. The fact that he gave the ultimatum with a 50-50 split and very hard system issues tells me he's half way there. The BRI is largely agreed upon and 3 out of the 5 system issues are agreed to.

                              The last 2 sticking points are last dominoes left to fall. Certainly today is the day they agree on a deal.

                              Comment


                              • Re: Lockout News and Discussions thread

                                The players need to be broken on this idea of making it easy to leave your team to join a super team as soon as possible. If you have a guaranteed contract form a Team A, why do you think you should be allowed to undermind your team force your way to NY or LA, etc...

                                We have players today who openly come out and say I don't want to play for you anymore send me to New York. The once this lock out is over, the owners need to commit to practicing a policy that if any player publicly requests a trade, then they will sit that player for the remainder of the season, and impose fines against them if they speak ill will of the franchise.
                                You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

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