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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.

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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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Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

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  • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

    now i don't watch a lot of college ball, hardly any in fact. but could someone do a quick sum up of a comparison between Love and Thabeet?
    I think KP is a Captain Planet fan. He believes that the collective will of five decent starters can outweigh the power of top-level talent. Too bad Herb won't cut the check for their Planeteer rings.

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    • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

      Love: Unathletic but extremely smart and basketball savvy.

      Thabeet: Extremely athletic but unintelligent.

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      • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

        Originally posted by HeartlandFan View Post
        Love: Unathletic but extremely smart and basketball savvy.

        Thabeet: Extremely athletic but unintelligent.
        Because LB has stated numerous times that he wants an exciting team, I'm guessing he 'd pick the second over the first and has Thabeet ranked higher than Love then.
        I think KP is a Captain Planet fan. He believes that the collective will of five decent starters can outweigh the power of top-level talent. Too bad Herb won't cut the check for their Planeteer rings.

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        • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

          Naptime, what are your impressions of Boston College's own Tyrese Rice?

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          • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

            Originally posted by d_c View Post
            Paul is literally about a once in every 20 years PG. He's just that good. Augustin will have a place in the NBA, but he's probably going to be a lot closer to Jameer Nelson than Paul.

            Hell, I bet if you were to pull up some of Nelson's numerous feel good articles from 2003/2004, you could probably substitute Augustin's name in for Nelson and they'd pretty much turn into the identical articles that we're now reading about Augustin.

            I would be happy with a Nelson type player and know how special Paul is I personally could not believe he went 4th in the draft that year I would have jumped all over him if I was the Raptors. But you never know DJ may exploide on the seen in the NBA and I can dream he turns into the next CP3

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            • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

              Originally posted by esabyrn333 View Post
              I would be happy with a Nelson type player and know how special Paul is I personally could not believe he went 4th in the draft that year I would have jumped all over him if I was the Raptors. But you never know DJ may exploide on the seen in the NBA and I can dream he turns into the next CP3
              The Raptors I believe had the 7th and 16th picks and I'm sure they offered them both to move up to either #3 or #4 in the draft but were probably denied.

              They were probably looking to get one of the elite PGs, but the teams already in position to get them were simply not going to pass up the oppurtunity.

              I think Augustin will be a fine PG. Not in the Paul/Williams echelon, but he'll make some team happy.

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              • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                Paul slid to #4 because ATL was clueless and took Marvin Williams
                instead at #2. Ya think that maybe Billy Knight would like to have
                that one back.

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                • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                  Originally posted by Rajah Brown View Post
                  Paul slid to #4 because ATL was clueless and took Marvin Williams
                  instead at #2. Ya think that maybe Billy Knight would like to have
                  that one back.
                  That is very true, but then again, if they landed the #1 or 2 pick in this past draft, maybe it wouldn't be so bad. With Paul there, there would be no way they'd be bad enough for a shot at one of the top 2 picks.

                  Remember, Portland passed up on Paul and Williams too. They traded out of the #3 pick down to #6 to get Webster.

                  If Portland had Paul, no way do they get both Aldridge and Oden in subsequent drafts. They would have been too good. Instead of those two guys, they'd probably have something along the lines of Saer Sene and Al Thornton.

                  If Atlanta lucked out the way Portland did, then maybe they wouldn't be saying passing on Paul was a fatal mistake. Food for thought.

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                  • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                    Originally posted by PacerGuy View Post
                    Well we know that won't happen, as only the first 3 picks are truely "Lottery Picks", & after that (4-13) it is by record.
                    If we do not score a top 3, we will likely be picking from 8-11 (9-10 most likely, & where we are currently). Of the players projected there (Our projected pick highlighted):

                    When I posted about getting the 4th pick I was just moaning about how even if we had good luck, it would probably be the worst possible good luck. I know we can only move up to the top three.

                    However, after the way we let every point guard with a little speed drive the lane, I'm pretty happy with where we are likely to finish since we will probably have a shot at a quick point. (Augustin, Collison)

                    What I'd really like though is to get at least two lottery picks so we could pick a point and a center.

                    I sometimes play around with draft and trade scenarios just to see how it would improve our lineup. Early this morning I was playing around with this scenario.

                    It's rumored one of the reasons New Jersey wants JO is because his contract expires the same year Labron James' does. Thus NJ would be enough under the cap they could sign James. Plus we know James has friends there and wouldn't be adverse to moving to the big apple. (NJ is moving to Brooklyn)

                    NJ got two draft picks from Dallas in the Kidd trade. One this year which is lottery protected and another in 09 or 2010 depending on a bunch of if's.

                    So assuming Dallas isn't in this years lottery and NJ is, I think we could get at least one of those picks from them, maybe both depending on the trade.

                    Right now I think Atlanta is going to get the 8th playoff spot in the east unless the return of JO somehow gets us by them. Even then it doesn't matter that much since we will still be picking in the same vicinity. (10-15)

                    Say we trade JO and either Williams or Ike to NJ for Carter and Hassell, and their two first round picks. (Either trade works both this year and next)

                    We would then have 3 picks in the vicinity of 9-17. We could probably then draft Augustin, Love, and Thabeet. I'd love that draft!

                    Other possibilities are if Memphis gets the 2nd pick. I don't see them keeping it and drafting Rose, not with three young point guards already on the team. So it's possible we could trade NJ's picks to Memphis and draft Rose with their pick and Love with our pick. I'd love that draft too.

                    Yeah, 'SIGH' I know I'm dreaming! Neither of those scenario's is likely.

                    Anyway here's who I like with the picks we are likely to have or obtain. Dreams picks included.

                    Pick's 1-3, Rose, Bayless, and B. Lopez. I think if we got #1 we would trade it and still wind up with one of the three I named.

                    Pick's 9-14, Augustin, Love.

                    Picks 15-18, Thabeet, Collison.

                    Picks 39-45, Robin Lopez was in this vicinity, but Ford has moved him way up on his top 100. He might stay in school for another year if he doesn't move into the first round. I don't have any other favorites here.

                    We will probably wind up with picks 11 and 41. Why? Because that's a worse case scenario.
                    Last edited by Will Galen; 03-27-2008, 10:12 PM.

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                    • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                      Originally posted by d_c View Post
                      The Raptors I believe had the 7th and 16th picks and I'm sure they offered them both to move up to either #3 or #4 in the draft but were probably denied.

                      They were probably looking to get one of the elite PGs, but the teams already in position to get them were simply not going to pass up the oppurtunity.

                      I think Augustin will be a fine PG. Not in the Paul/Williams echelon, but he'll make some team happy.
                      I had the wrong draft the bucks had the #1 and took Bogut that year Raptors had the #1 the next year and got the Euro Belinelli.

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                      • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                        Who we take will largely depend on what happens before the draft, concerning JO,Williams and JT. I could see where we might trade Williams with JT (about 8M) for a shooting guard. It all depends on what we get back, and JO with his monster salary will change our entire team because we will most likely get up to 3 players back . I don't expect Rush , Graham or Owens back. Flip maybe.
                        "He wanted to get to that money time. Time when the hardware was on the table. That's when Roger was going to show up. So all we needed to do was stay close"
                        Darnell Hillman (Speaking of former teammate Roger Brown)

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                        • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                          Originally posted by aceace View Post
                          Who we take will largely depend on what happens before the draft, concerning JO,Williams and JT. I could see where we might trade Williams with JT (about 8M) for a shooting guard. It all depends on what we get back, and JO with his monster salary will change our entire team because we will most likely get up to 3 players back . I don't expect Rush , Graham or Owens back. Flip maybe.
                          If we trade JO to New Jersey we will get a shooting guard, Carter.

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                          • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...


                            So assuming Dallas isn't in this years lottery and NJ is, I think we could get at least one of those picks from them, maybe both depending on the trade.


                            As goofy as it sounds, Dallas actually has a pretty decent chance of falling to the lottery this year. Take a look at the West standings - especially factoring in that they'll be without Dirk for another week or two, the Mavs are almost out of the playoffs already. It doesn't look good for them.

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                            • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                              I really still don't understand why we take on VC's contract. MAYBE if you can get a lottery pick from New Jersey, maybe then you do it.

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                              • Re: Official 2008 NBA Draft recruiting center...

                                Originally posted by Will Galen View Post
                                If we trade JO to New Jersey we will get a shooting guard, Carter.


                                I would hope that TPTB watched how horrible VC was in the 1st half and isn't enamored by his 2nd half performance with Shawne and Marquis guarding him with Granger sitting with his 5 fouls.
                                Ash from Army of Darkness: Good...Bad...I'm the guy with the gun.

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