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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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COVID-19

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  • Originally posted by Hoop View Post
    If you guys remember when Covid-19 was first reported Trump put his idiot son-in-law in charge of it, you know the guy he put in charge of bringing peace to the Middle East. He had no background or business to be put in charge of anything in government, much less a freaking pandemic. It was treated like a public relations problem, that would hurt his reelection, NOT as a MAJOR public health crisis that his own health people told him it was. He instead listened to his idiot son in law. Wasting 2 months of advance preparation.

    He told Washington state, after they tested a few early cases, to NOT test more people. He thought the "numbers" made him look bad. Think about that for awhile.

    https://politicaltribune.org/reports...JMo8IaSgX1XdCs

    https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020...ovid-19-danger
    Do you have a link to legit news or at least one of the bigger organizations that fear lawsuits?

    Comment


    • Question for V. I know he will not give an honest answer but I'm going to try.

      What's your number? How many Americans will you be fine with dying if that's what it takes for Trump to lose in November?

      Comment


      • There's no meat to any of the claims in the Political Tribune (who?) and Vanity Fair articles; it's more "anonymous sources" ********.

        The phrase "anonymous sources" is used by the media to make up ******** anti-Trump stories. I thought we all knew that by now, but apparently not.

        Make up anything, and hide behind the phrase "anonymous sources." Who can prove or disprove the existence of an unidentified source? No one, and the media knows it, which gives them a free pass to lie. And lie they do. Once the story gets refuted? Issue a mostly-ignored correction, while the initial lie continues being spread quicker than coronavirus. The media's been doing it for decades, but it's really blown up with Trump. I'm a little embarrassed that you people continue to take their bait. I thought the Russia conspiracy theory being exposed as a hoax would be the final straw, but I underestimated your gullibility.

        Comment


        • soon they'll be denying jared kushner ever existed

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Eleazar View Post

            So the Chinese government says, there is about a 99% chance of that not being true.

            Yes, the name is political, but right now we are in a world where people tend to believe Chinese propaganda. Right now China is trying to say the virus originated in the US, with US soldiers brought it over to China, and demanding the US answer for it. So I am perfectly ok with emphasizing the part where this virus originated in China. Making sure everyone is aware the sole reason this virus is a thing is because of incompetence on the part of the CCP.

            Actually on second thought, it would be better to call it the CCP virus. Don't need to include innocent Chinese, some of who bravely spread the word about the virus when the CCP was still trying to down play the seriousness of it.
            Yea so I work with many chinese nationals and many educated Chinese know it most likely came from China. They are concerned just like everyone else.

            I could be wrong here but I believe Trump is the one pushing the Wuhan or foreign virus narrative. It was only after his many references that you saw the Chinese propaganda machine role out with ridiculous claims of USA military planting the virus.

            Both are wrong but one thing I did agree with was shutting down the travel from early on. He caught flake for that but that probably did help with the early containment.


            Comment


            • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
              Question for V. I know he will not give an honest answer but I'm going to try.

              What's your number? How many Americans will you be fine with dying if that's what it takes for Trump to lose in November?
              There is literally people dying because of the buffoon incapacity and you keep supporting him, take a seat on this one.
              @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Sollozzo View Post

                Dow was up almost 50% before this, his average 8% year to year stat was *including* corona damage averaged over 3 years. The average year to year gains would have been much much much higher at the start of 2020. Plenty of aggressive accounts were probably close to increasing by 50% over three years before this.

                Regardless, you have to be a total creep to root for continued economic misery due to a virus. It was hilarious to see you gloating about it starting off slow at like 10 in the morning, then quiet the rest of the day when it was strong. Now I’m sure if it has a bad day tomorrow that you’ll be gloating because clearly economic suffering is worth it to you if you can pin it on Trump.
                So not to enter the if the calamity is good or bad discussion but I had many conservative friends happy about the financial crisis of 2008 and the role out of hacked emails from a foreign nation.

                It really is sad that we do not see these areas as universally bad but look to the unsavoury benefit to party lines. The US economy was built over many decades and no one president can claim it was do to his policies. They provide cogs in a wheel that is already in motion and some of these cogs like deregulation back fire and some do not. If all we build this economy on is greed and power than ethically I think we are doomed to suffer in some fashion.

                Comment


                • Democratic leadership is so much trash is not even funny

                  https://twitter.com/senschumer/statu...000801797?s=21
                  @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post

                    There is literally people dying because of the buffoon incapacity and you keep supporting him, take a seat on this one.
                    Ah! I was correct. You can't answer the question...lol

                    Comment


                    • Is Schumer signing up to take care of the kids? Or is he signing someone else up to do it? Just like a Democrat...

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by Mr. Mass View Post
                        There's no meat to any of the claims in the Political Tribune (who?) and Vanity Fair articles; it's more "anonymous sources" ********.

                        The phrase "anonymous sources" is used by the media to make up ******** anti-Trump stories. I thought we all knew that by now, but apparently not.

                        Make up anything, and hide behind the phrase "anonymous sources." Who can prove or disprove the existence of an unidentified source? No one, and the media knows it, which gives them a free pass to lie. And lie they do. Once the story gets refuted? Issue a mostly-ignored correction, while the initial lie continues being spread quicker than coronavirus. The media's been doing it for decades, but it's really blown up with Trump. I'm a little embarrassed that you people continue to take their bait. I thought the Russia conspiracy theory being exposed as a hoax would be the final straw, but I underestimated your gullibility.
                        I think some of the posters here write for those rags. It's just trash paid-for by a bunch of liberal rich dudes to push their narrative.

                        I mean, Marc Benioff bought Time Magazine essentially to push his agenda. He can because he's a billionaire. This stuff is no different than "state TV" in the old Soviet Union. It's just owned by communists.
                        Last edited by BlueNGold; 03-17-2020, 08:41 PM.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by vnzla81 View Post
                          Democratic leadership is so much trash is not even funny

                          https://twitter.com/senschumer/statu...000801797?s=21
                          So the early data suggest that kids are not the main driver of the virus. It is older adults who seem to get infected and shed the virus giving it to the kids. I mean I get it since kids spread stuff around all the time but we do not know if they are the main source as of right now.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post

                            So the early data suggest that kids are not the main driver of the virus. It is older adults who seem to get infected and shed the virus giving it to the kids. I mean I get it since kids spread stuff around all the time but we do not know if they are the main source as of right now.
                            I was talking about that whole thread sorry, I mean his s*** proposals.
                            Last edited by vnzla81; 03-17-2020, 08:50 PM.
                            @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
                              Question for V. I know he will not give an honest answer but I'm going to try.

                              What's your number? How many Americans will you be fine with dying if that's what it takes for Trump to lose in November?
                              if you want to look at it philosophically, the correct answer is however many more will die if trump rather than biden is elected.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by dal9 View Post

                                if you want to look at it philosophically, the correct answer is however many more will die if trump rather than biden is elected.
                                You are really answering a different question. That's fine, but it's not on point.

                                What if I said Trump would be re-elected if the death count is kept under 50,000. Would V want 50,001 to die? That's my question. Pick a number. I know he has one based on his statements.

                                Comment

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