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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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Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

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  • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

    It has nothing to do with the economy, basketball is just not and never was popular enough to be self sustainable business in europe, most of the clubs are either run by billionaire basketball fans or are financed by their major soccer clubs. There might be some temporary signings, but they will come back once the lockout ends. The only way some players leave permanently is if the owners proposal of 40something million hard cap comes to fruition, but i doubt that would happen.

    I don't see it as some sort of threat or leverage for players union, it's just a player earning some money and keeping himself in shape playing competitive ball during the lockout.

    Comment


    • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

      Originally posted by Swish View Post
      The NBA absolutely can survive without its top stars. If DWill, Kobe, Dwight Howard, and the Heat douchebags all find a home in Europe, you know who will care: Nobody. The NBA will go on. Those guys will live in relative obscurity, while someone here in the States takes their place. There's not going to be some major surge in popularity in European basketball here in the States if those guys leave. In fact, the NBA would probably be BETTER OFF if those guys left, tbh.
      So the league would be better of if the league wide skill would drop dramatically?

      Comment


      • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

        If they took their me-first, money grubbing attitudes with them so that the NBA can set up a system of league-wide competition with contracts that require players continue to play after the ink has dried on their latest big dollar contract: yes.

        And that isn't a condemnation on the guys I mentioned specifically. But if those guys have to go to get rid of the trash keeping the NBA from being competitive like its NFL brethren, so be it.

        Comment


        • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

          Originally posted by Swish View Post
          The NBA absolutely can survive without its top stars. If DWill, Kobe, Dwight Howard, and the Heat douchebags all find a home in Europe, you know who will care: Nobody. The NBA will go on. Those guys will live in relative obscurity, while someone here in the States takes their place. There's not going to be some major surge in popularity in European basketball here in the States if those guys leave. In fact, the NBA would probably be BETTER OFF if those guys left, tbh.
          I agree, there is always somebody willing to take your place if you bow out from the being on top of the mountain.

          The NBA would go on, it might be alittle smaller revenue wise for a few years, but other players will rise to the top, and be crowned best in the world because they play in the NBA. Because the media is not going to bother to focus on European ball when we have 30 teams along with several hundred college teams here.
          You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

          Comment


          • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

            Originally posted by Swish View Post
            If they took their me-first, money grubbing attitudes with them so that the NBA can set up a system of league-wide competition with contracts that require players continue to play after the ink has dried on their latest big dollar contract: yes.

            And that isn't a condemnation on the guys I mentioned specifically. But if those guys have to go to get rid of the trash keeping the NBA from being competitive like its NFL brethren, so be it.
            New players with "me-first, money grabbing attitudes" would be drafted, people don't change. Did i miss some players playing with teams they don't have contracts with?

            You cannot compare NFL and NBA, different games, different formats. BO1 versus BO7 playoffs, 11 versus 5 players on the field, if you want randomness then why not make the playoffs into March madness.

            Comment


            • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

              Originally posted by pacer4ever View Post
              Turkey isn't 3rd world it actually is pretty nice
              something lik 40% of the population in Istanbul lives in tin sheet slums and shanty towns. Sound just peachy. I betting they don't cover that on the tour though.

              Pretty nice for a developing country I guess, and i'm sure pretty nice for millionaire athletes. Though you can say that about any city in the world.
              You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

              Comment


              • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                New players with "me-first, money grabbing attitudes" that now play in a system that is set up to neutralize that to the benefit of everyone. That's the difference.

                Comment


                • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                  Except if all the top players go to Europe and get paid, what will stop the next tier of players from going over and getting paid? Especially as the skill level in the NBA drops. The NBA is popular because its the best basketball league there is. If another league takes that title, then the NBA goes down. Look at the MLS. Inferior product, inferior league, and no one really cares about it. People much rather watch the different European leagues because thats where the best players and are.

                  Comment


                  • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                    Originally posted by Swish View Post
                    New players with "me-first, money grabbing attitudes" that now play in a system that is set up to neutralize that to the benefit of everyone. That's the difference.
                    I don't think that is possible, even in theory. And i don't even think this is what the owners are about with this lockout.

                    Comment


                    • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                      Originally posted by Sookie View Post
                      That's the point.

                      It's the NBA because of WHO plays in that league. The players aren't there, it's not the best league in the world anymore.

                      And that's essentially Deron William's threat. The amount of money he's making overseas doesn't matter.

                      It's not like William's is making peanuts. It's 5 Million. (And 5 Million means a lot more there...) Doing this allows the players to play just as much hardball as the owners are.
                      I totally disagree, the NBA is a result of developing the best players in the world. Thats what makes it the best of the best. If the best players of the NBA leave for Europe it will cheapen their accomplishments. The level of competition will not match the NBA. You would expect these elite level players to win all sorts of European Championships. I can see it now, Kobe could average +30 over in Europe. The reaction will be hell, why not more? Look who he is playing against!
                      You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

                      Comment


                      • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                        Originally posted by graphic-er View Post
                        I totally disagree, the NBA is a result of developing the best players in the world. Thats what makes it the best of the best. If the best players of the NBA leave for Europe it will cheapen their accomplishments. The level of competition will not match the NBA. You would expect these elite level players to win all sorts of European Championships. I can see it now, Kobe could average +30 over in Europe. The reaction will be hell, why not more? Look who he is playing against!
                        Wouldn't he be playing against Lebron, Wade etc?

                        Comment


                        • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                          Originally posted by ilive4sports View Post
                          Except if all the top players go to Europe and get paid, what will stop the next tier of players from going over and getting paid? Especially as the skill level in the NBA drops. The NBA is popular because its the best basketball league there is. If another league takes that title, then the NBA goes down. Look at the MLS. Inferior product, inferior league, and no one really cares about it. People much rather watch the different European leagues because thats where the best players and are.
                          Here is a competing example:

                          In Soccer, David Beckam was one of the most celebrated athletes of the past 20 years. Granted being English had alot to do with it. Towards the end of his elite playing days he took giant money grab pay day of 100 million dollars to sign with the LA Galaxy. He is now just considered a celebrity athlete. Heck he had mostly a ceremonial captain's role on the last World Cup team. David Beckam, once a great player now just considered and older player playing against inferior competition in America.......why would the same not be said about Kobe Bryant?
                          Last edited by graphic-er; 07-08-2011, 03:44 PM.
                          You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

                          Comment


                          • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                            Originally posted by Chewy View Post
                            Wouldn't he be playing against Lebron, Wade etc?
                            What would it matter? So the handful of NBA superstars ditch the league and become Euroleague superstars.... They are still playing with a bunch of mediocre competition. If those guys left the NBA then the players that are left will better compensated, and have bigger roles. You don't think a Player of Granger's calibur would see more success if players like Lebron, Kobe, and Wade werent in the league?
                            You can't get champagne from a garden hose.

                            Comment


                            • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                              Originally posted by ilive4sports View Post
                              Except if all the top players go to Europe and get paid
                              Top superstars are not going to get paid more in Europe than they would in the NBA. Williams is proof.

                              Comment


                              • Re: Deron Williams Signs with Turkish Club

                                Originally posted by graphic-er View Post
                                What would it matter? So the handful of NBA superstars ditch the league and become Euroleague superstars.... They are still playing with a bunch of mediocre competition. If those guys left the NBA then the players that are left will better compensated, and have bigger roles. You don't think a Player of Granger's calibur would see more success if players like Lebron, Kobe, and Wade werent in the league?
                                PlayerS plural, not a handfull. Why would the players leave? Money. If there would be hypothetical league that would as whole have a bigger sustainable payroll than NBA, then most of the top players would naturally follow the money, thus making that league the strongest in the world and further attracting the young best young players. Your argument didn't make any logical sense, but maybe because we are talking about different scenarios.

                                So if owners push too much for salary reductions, they would get closer to loosing talent. The current offer is not there yet but it's pretty damn close.

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