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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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Was this season a success?

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  • ilive4sports
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Originally posted by Eddie Gill View Post
    I don't understand those saying its not a success, but not a failure either. That's like saying "although the Titanic's maiden voyage ended sooner than we would've hoped going in, it did teach us a lot about the importance of life boats".


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free
    because a boat sinking and people dying because of it is not the same as a basketball team falling short of the NBA Finals.

    Leave a comment:


  • Eddie Gill
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    I don't understand those saying its not a success, but not a failure either. That's like saying "although the Titanic's maiden voyage ended sooner than we would've hoped going in, it did teach us a lot about the importance of life boats".


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk - now Free

    Leave a comment:


  • larry
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Originally posted by wintermute View Post
    Some of you seem to think that progress means going up in a straight line all the time. Seems to me that in real life, progress is made up of fits and starts. Sometimes, you do take a few steps back now and then on the journey forward.



    Agree with this actually. The question now is whether this is a fixable setback. We know how good this team is when things are going well (see first half of season). Isn't that worth another attempt at fixing?
    I doubt it. They were in the final 4 with a chance at redemption & beating our rivals. If that didn't get them on the same page I don't think anything will. No shame in losing but it wasn't the team from earlier that lost. It's the way they lost. It's like a relationship that doesn't work. You stay because its familiar, easy, & worked once. But once it went bad it usually has gone bad for good. The unknown of change is scary but again the better alternative.

    We also lost in the X & O's by asking Hibbert to protect the rim & be at the 3 point line. Also, by asking Hill to be something he isn't. It was really about that simple.

    We don't blow it up for sure, but 1 major piece has got to go. Either our coach or a starting 5 member. I don't care who it was. Whoever was the most responsible party for the chemistry breaking down needs to take a walk, imo. Hopefully our front office knows who that was/is.

    Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
    Last edited by larry; 06-01-2014, 01:44 AM.

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  • wintermute
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Some of you seem to think that progress means going up in a straight line all the time. Seems to me that in real life, progress is made up of fits and starts. Sometimes, you do take a few steps back now and then on the journey forward.

    Originally posted by speakout4 View Post
    The failure wasn't in not winning. It was in falling apart.
    Agree with this actually. The question now is whether this is a fixable setback. We know how good this team is when things are going well (see first half of season). Isn't that worth another attempt at fixing?

    Leave a comment:


  • Ratking
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Im not going to overanalyze losing to someone being called "the Jordan of our time" by our head coach, but what I consider unsuccessful is a season in which our apparent locker room chemistry to start the season has dissolved into a locker room of awkward tension and interpersonal conflict.

    Also, because of this, we can only start next season with LESS motivation than we had this year. That's the most worrisome thing. What will it take to inject a new sense of motivation in this team for next season? LeBron moving to the Western Conference in the offseason? Acquiring a playoff tested veteran with hatred for the Heat (Rondo, perhaps)?

    Leave a comment:


  • larry
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Yes I think they played hard but the fact that Lance & Paul won't pass to each other with the season on the line let's me know they have big internal issues. The fact that the Heat stretched the floor & used Hibbert against us & our coaching staff couldn't adjust. Our offense has been horrid & that's why we got blown out. Also I don't think our players believed anymore than the media/fans could win game 6. That didn't help

    Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk

    Leave a comment:


  • speakout4
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    The failure wasn't in not winning. It was in falling apart.

    Leave a comment:


  • Pacer Fan
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    I am very disappointed of the results, but it was most certainly a successful season for a Pacer fan.

    Leave a comment:


  • ilive4sports
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Was it a success? No. Was it a failure? Not really. Sports are weird. Yes the ultimate goal was the championship. And we did not accomplish that. But they were a damn good basketball team.

    Leave a comment:


  • Major Cold
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    We are no longer in the "trying to prove ourselves" category. We are in the win it all phase.

    And we failed to do that. So no. This season was not a success.


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    Leave a comment:


  • xtacy
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Originally posted by Kid Minneapolis View Post
    Read. We've already spelled it out. It gets frustrating dealing with "fans" who judge everything by championships or bust.
    Originally posted by Sookie View Post
    They were the #1 team in the East and got to the Eastern Conference Finals?

    Being one of the remaining four teams isn't a huge failure.

    Sure, they didn't play well the end of the year. It seems as if, the core, as is..isn't going to work. (We don't need to blow it up, we do need to adjust.) They didn't take another step forward like they wanted too. But "huge failure" isn't accurate.
    we were at ecf last year. they have stated if we had hca things would have been different as early as after last year's loss. they got it and not surprisingly failed. yeah we got to ecf. eastern is the key word there. who is entirely sure this team could have gotten out of first round in west? who is satisfied with the way this team is playing in the playoffs and in the last months of regular season?

    if you consider going to ecf and getting our asses handed to us by heat despite hca a success, good for you. that's not the case for me unfortunately.

    Leave a comment:


  • Cousy47
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Originally posted by BillS View Post
    Should the team see it as a success? No. They should never consider it a success unless there is a championship. That's their job.

    Should the fans see it as a success? That's tougher. We hate being humiliated, but really after the Finals start the only time anyone will bring it up is when we play the Heat next year - which damn well better be some serious motivation for the team.

    As a fan, i hate saying the only success is to be one of the 2 best teams in the NBA. It takes the enjoyment away from the journey.

    That said, I referred to watching the end of the game to my tennis buddies this morning as a "punishment". Not much enjoyment in that.

    I prefer to think of it as "not completely a failure".
    I prefer to agree with you. The team did everything it established as it's goals. Best record in the ECF. HCA for the playoffs and an appearance in the ECF again. The expectation that we would make it over the top and win the ECF and get to the Finals so many of us had makes the season disappointing, but we did make it to the final 4 again and by default we were successful. On the money side, we had a ton of sellouts at home and on the road and got our fans back in the Pacer Nation.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sparhawk
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Leading right up to the All-Star break and after, this team completely fell apart. Hibbert regressed mightily and didn't have the "wrist injury" to blame this time around. Hill has never taken that next step; he's not a pg at all. Lance felt snubbed by not being an All Star, but we know how he really feels. Not making the All-Star didn't allow him to be a max player. He turned more selfish than we've seem him in the past. His assist numbers dropped and his shooting %'s declined as he started to shoot more.

    Too much complaining to the refs and not enough mental fortitude to put that aside and make up for the lack of calls with more hustle and stifling defense.

    Vogel, imo, is the worst though. I love the dude, but he's not grown as a coach at all. 3 years of the same stuff. Bench is always terrible, but when players leave they find success elsewhere. I mean, c'mon. It's not the players! Weak screens/picks, is it really rocket science to actually set a good hard pick? High volume of TOs for a slow paced team. Sloppy passes from players that never seem to get corrected. Have the Pacers lead the league in shot clock violations the past several years now? How is this still a problem? Even if it's not a shot clock violation, how many last second hoists have we had to watch cause the offense is just a mess?

    Honestly, if the offense is ******, why aren't the Pacers playing more full court pressure and trapping? They have the size and length? You would think a team like the Pacers SHOULD force more TOs to get easier transition buckets. No, instead, they allow the other team to run their offensive sets. While our D is good, we all see how there are breakdowns by the end of their shot clock. Guys on the perimeter sag in the lane to help on defense when no help was really needed resulting in wide open 3s for opposing players.

    This team knows that they want to force the other team to taking long 2s. It's statistically the worst shot you can take. So why in God's name, do the Pacers settle for so many long 2s? It's frustrating.

    Seriously, does anyone think this team is fun to watch? I sure as hell don't. Even the wins have made my eyes bleed on more than one occasion. It's good to win an ugly game, but it'd shouldn't be the team motto to make every game ugly.

    After how this team started, to how they finished, of course this season was a failure. Pacers vaunted D turned into anything but by the end.

    Hill is untradeable, imo, but he's the guy that should be traded (I'll dream about a Hill for Dragic deal). Hibbert's value is super low, so he's got to stay. Lance could be signed a traded (slight possibility), and would bring the most value.

    I'd love to see a new coach, but I really think Bird gives Vogel 1 more year. Will Bird force Vogel to hire someone for offense? I sure hope he does. Plus, who's out there to replace Vogel?

    Leave a comment:


  • Brad8888
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Framing this in terms of the perpetual early lottery pick teams of the post-Carlisle era:

    This was a team with point guards that ended up either put into official exile or into perpetual benching

    This was a team which was lead for a time by a player that as a ghastly "stretch 4" that shot 45% from beyond the arc whose favorite play was the trailing 3 while leading the team in rebounding by gutlessly stealing boards to pad his own stats

    This was a team that a primary debate on here was whether the starting 4 after Stretch Murphy was traded should be Psycho T with his vertigo / post concussion syndrome deteriorating offensive game vs Mr Highlight Dunk passing 4 McBob

    This was a team that drew actual butt in seats attendance on midweek games of about 2,000, with the building so quiet that even from the club level the sound of the dribbling of the ball, the squeek of the shoes on the court, and even some of the instructions to the players was clearly audible

    Framing against this backdrop, yes, this season was obviously a success.

    But, to paraphrase the evil Vogel-mentor:

    The Pacers' pre-All Star game success was irrelevant because it did not occur in a winning effort.

    A season that ends with fans clamoring for the breakup of a team and the firing of its coaching staff DURING its playoff run that ends in the 6th game of the conference finals is a failure IMO.

    Leave a comment:


  • Sparhawk
    replied
    Re: Was this season a success?

    Originally posted by InYaFace View Post
    West says it best:




    I think this season is a success, cause it doesn't help to look back and think about what has been and how we fought harder last year...sorry it just doesn't freaking matter. It's about our expectations, cause this team got to the ECF for the second straight time!!! I started watching Pacers games in 2007/08 and that's where I get my expectations from. Those seasons were a complete waste, if u are a person who likes to compare past and present. But even those seasons led to the point where we are now. We got two young guys and a good core!!! Damn we played like ******** during the second half of the season and the playoffs and STILL got to the ECF! We can't be that bad. I am no sunshiner, I am coming from a perspective where living in the present is the best thing to do and that's why I think Wests words are pretty on point...you make failure to get better and learn...that's it. GO PACERS!
    Ugh, it's complete crap. Why does it have to be we'll get stronger next season. Why not during the season or in the elimination game where it mattered most. No, changes have to be made.

    Leave a comment:

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