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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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Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

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  • #361
    Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

    Here's a good article about the NBA playoffs in general


    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101715_pf.html

    Madness Isn't Limited to March

    By Michael Wilbon
    Tuesday, May 2, 2006; E01



    It's difficult to complain about the first round of the NBA playoffs being interminable when the subplots keep rolling in, when the Spurs are reeling, when Heat teammates are bickering, when it looks as if Kobe Bryant might go further in the playoffs than Shaq, when suspensions and fines fly fast and furious.

    The first eight days of the playoffs have been plenty entertaining, from LeBron James's debut triple-double to kick off the postseason to Bryant's double buzzer-beating performance Sunday to put the Lakers up 3-1 on Phoenix. Even the footnotes are juicy: The wives of Kobe and Shaq delivered babies early yesterday morning. Is there anyplace these two won't compete? Shaq's baby, by the way, was born six minutes earlier than Kobe's.

    The most annoying news from yesterday is that Denver Nuggets forward Reggie Evans was fined only $10,000 and not suspended even though replays from Saturday's game show conclusively that Evans reached between the legs of Clippers center Chris Kaman, grabbed his, uh . . . grabbed him and pulled. The punishment is so incredibly weak it might as well be an invitation to do it again.

    Just a week ago, the NBA rightfully suspended Miami's Udonis Haslem one game for throwing a mouth guard at referee Joey Crawford, which, while stupid, did not endanger anybody. Ron Artest was suspended for a game for elbowing Manu Ginobili in the head, which was just fine because Artest is a repeat offender, not to mention a menace. The league suspended Miami's James Posey for one game for running down and delivering a hip check to Chicago's Kirk Hinrich, which was also easily justifiable because it was a thug act with no connection to basketball.

    Each of those acts warrants a suspension.

    But not one of those acts was as objectionable as grabbing a man's genitals and yanking. This is something the NBA can tolerate? How much more reprehensible can you get?

    Evans should have been suspended for five games. If I'm Clippers Coach Mike Dunleavy, I'm sending in my 11th and 12th men to exact some justice on Evans, which is the only way to go if the NBA isn't going to hand out some real justice.

    Perhaps Stu Jackson, the league's sergeant-at-arms, simply is overworked, having to review all this misbehavior while also monitoring the postgame and off-day news conferences in which coaches rip the referees and set up their referee-baiting agendas for the next game.

    Mostly, we can blame Phil Jackson and Pat Riley for making this an actual strategy during the playoffs because Jackson and Riley, like clockwork, spend the day between games telling reporters how the officials blew the previous game and what the zebras ought to be watching for in the upcoming game. Eddie Jordan is lucky he wasn't fined yesterday for tweaking the refs for letting LeBron James travel, which the Golden Child does all the time. James and his coach, Mike Brown, took it right to the edge after losing Game 4 in whining about James being called for too many offensive fouls.

    Riley probably wishes that's all he had to worry about four games into Miami's playoff with Chicago. Instead, Riley has to be concerned about his star-studded, underachieving lineup, one he personally assembled to win a championship, being eliminated in the first round by a Chicago Bulls team that plays harder and smarter.

    Riley is two losses from having to answer (again) why he undermined Stan Van Gundy, who was a much better coach last year than Riley is now, and why he got rid of able and willing role players (Eddie Jones, Damon Jones) to bring in the likes of Gary Payton.

    It's not Payton's team and it's not Payton's time. Payton, 37, thinks he can still play despite a heap of evidence than he can't. For Riley to sit there idly while Payton screams and curses at Dwyane Wade in the middle of a nationally televised game shows Riley doesn't have control of the team. He's as done as a coach as Payton is as a defensive stopper. The Bulls' guards can't wait to see Payton trying to guard them.

    Shaq, in those two games in Chicago over the weekend, looked every bit of 34, if not older. At the moment, Jerry Buss must be laughing his head off at keeping Kobe and letting Shaq go. Buss was smart enough to cover his investment by bringing back Jackson, who might be doing the best work of his career. After playing one way all season, Jackson convinced Kobe that to beat the Suns he would have to change his game 180 degrees. And Kobe listened, then did it, turning himself into a teammate-embracing, pass-first big brother of a teammate. That's great playing, brought on by great coaching. Please don't compare Riley to Phil Jackson anymore. It's not close. If Miami loses this series, it will be yet another time that Riley gets bounced by a lower-seeded team.

    The Bulls have no business winning Game 5 in Miami tonight, but they might.

    The top-seeded Spurs have no business being tied 2-2 with Sacramento, but they are.

    The top-seeded Pistons have no business allowing the Bucks 124 points and losing by 20, but they did.

    Upsets almost never characterize the NBA playoffs but are threatening to do so this postseason. The theme seems to have carried over from March Madness. The first round of the playoffs has never been so wide open. When last night's action began, Dallas was the only team that still had a chance to score a sweep (over Memphis). Every other series is going at least five games.

    If Ginobili can't shake Artest, the Spurs may need seven games to win that series. The Pistons, to steal an observation from ABC analyst and former all-star Mark Jackson, aren't as good as they think they are.

    Shawn Marion needs to stop asking for respect and earn it by producing in the playoffs the same way he does in the regular season. And Steve Nash needs to make up for his many miscues in the fourth quarter of Game 4 by rallying his team the way an MVP should in Game 5, back in Phoenix.

    Probably because it's early in the playoffs, we haven't yet heard the NBA accused of the dreaded "C" word -- conspiracy. Lakers haters have plenty of circumstantial evidence from Sunday's game to construct a case. As fabulous as Kobe was, tying the score in regulation and winning it in overtime with Jordanesque shots, it's regrettable that the Lakers were allowed to foul on the final play of regulation without being called for it, and even worse that Nash wasn't granted a timeout in the final six seconds of overtime.

    The first round of the NBA ought to be best-of-five; what a sense of urgency there would be if a team only had to win three. But at least in this postseason, from the drama we've seen through the first week, it's possible that more really could be better.

    © 2006 The Washington Post Company

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    • #362
      Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

      Pistons game Wednesday night starts at 6:00 PM, 5:00 PM Milwaukee time. Wow that is early

      Comment

      • #363
        Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

        Wilbon seems high on Mark Jackson because of his Bulls beating the Heat prediction. And I wish someone would let the press know that Nash said he didn't call timeout in the post game press conference, since every column mentions that he was calling for it and should have gotten it.

        Comment

        • #364
          Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

          Dish Network decided sometime in the past week I didn't need NBATV anymore, despite being a 2-year long NBA League Pass subscriber. I'm too busy to call in and ***** at them right now, too.

          Comment

          • #365
            Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

            Sweetney must have laid off of the big macs because he's actually active tonight. And here I thought the guy was in a contest with Al Jefferson and Vin Baker to see who could eat their way out of the NBA first.

            Comment

            • #366
              Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

              What exactly is wrong with DWade?

              Comment

              • #367
                Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                What exactly is wrong with DWade?
                Left or Right Hip Contusion

                He's questionable to return to the game.

                Comment

                • #368
                  Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                  Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                  What exactly is wrong with DWade?
                  He went up for a dunk, and sweetney cleanly stuffed him.

                  Wade hit the ground HARD on his hip, and stayed there for a few minutes.

                  It wasn't about being the team everyone loved, it was about beating the teams everyone else loved.

                  Division Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 1989, 1990, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
                  Conference Champions 1955, 1956, 1988, 2005
                  NBA Champions 1989, 1990, 2004

                  Comment

                  • #369
                    Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                    My favorite non-Pacer.

                    I guess him being linked to us somehow made him get injured. :imafailure:

                    Comment

                    • #370
                      Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                      Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                      My favorite non-Pacer.

                      I guess him being linked to us somehow made him get injured. :imafailure:
                      Wrong. I'm a big Sweetney fan..I enjoy everything he's done for the fast food industry and he's thriving tonight.

                      Comment

                      • #371
                        Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                        Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                        My favorite non-Pacer.

                        I guess him being linked to us somehow made him get injured. :imafailure:

                        You, Never? Did the Kenosha Kid?

                        Comment

                        • #372
                          Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                          Originally posted by Moses
                          Wrong. I'm a big Sweetney fan..I enjoy everything he's done for the fast food industry and he's thriving tonight.
                          I guess that's the brightside. Nah who am I kidding.

                          I'm just upset because Eddie wasn't in that last play. He could have drew the charge.


                          I'm going crazy.

                          Oh yeah, Soup, it's okay.

                          Comment

                          • #373
                            Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                            Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                            I guess that's the brightside. Nah who am I kidding.

                            I'm just upset because Eddie wasn't in that last play. He could have drew the charge.


                            I'm going crazy.

                            Oh yeah, Soup, it's okay.
                            He would have blocked it and then thrown up a 3 from half court to tie the game up.

                            Oh well, 'the path not taken' is what I always say.

                            Comment

                            • #374
                              Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                              Originally posted by PaCeRs_GuRL
                              I guess that's the brightside. Nah who am I kidding.

                              I'm just upset because Eddie wasn't in that last play. He could have drew the charge.


                              I'm going crazy.

                              Oh yeah, Soup, it's okay.
                              You, Never? Did the Kenosha Kid?

                              Comment

                              • #375
                                Re: Random thoughts thread 2006.....playoff edition.

                                Gordon't amazing. Just hit a long 3 to keep Chi in the game.
                                Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
                                -- Albert Einstein

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