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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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    • Originally posted by dal9 View Post
      Remove this don't give BNG and Mr bass any ideas.
      @WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

      Comment


      • Back in the real world, where facts and logic matter . . .

        Georgia's doing just fine:





        Worldometer lists yesterday's (May 10th) U.S. death toll as 750. If accurate, that would be the lowest total since March 29th:

        Comment


        • Originally posted by Mr. Mass View Post
          Back in the real world, where facts and logic matter . . .

          Georgia's doing just fine:
          I don't think they want the truth.

          If Georgia proceeds relatively unscathed, they are the model the rest of the US should be taking or those states are helping more people die. I've already listed the reasons from domestic abuse, to stress, to no surgeries, to depression, to guns and of course substance abuse including alcoholism, opiods, etc.

          Better watch this closely. Assuming what they do works, those states that do not follow suit are killing people.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by vapacersfan View Post
            (Full disclosure I have not read the whole article yet, just had it FWD to me and was told it is a interesting read)
            In the early days of the pandemic, the U.S. government turned down an offer to manufacture millions of N95 masks in America

            https://www.washingtonpost.com/inves...691_story.html
            That looks like an article from one viewpoint. It sounds like the company was difficult to work with and probably not viewed as a major corporation capable of handling the nation's needs.

            Also, it's no surprise that big business gets these deals. They have the connections and quite frankly it's hard to break into government contracts. Most of the time there is a bidding process they need to follow. You cannot just "get on the horn" and call the government to make a deal, especially if you are a nobody.

            The government is huge. There is corruption all over the place. I've seen it myself where a guy had a 10M/yr no-bid contract to provide one web-based software application. He now owns an island. Really.

            I've seen people working for the government make deals with private industry and within a year they have a director position with the company. They are so in bed you can almost predict who will be hired by the vendor next.

            So this article probably has some truth to it but just puts the spotlight on why big government is very, very bad and corrupt. It has nothing at all to do with DJT though. If anyone wants American manufacturing to thrive, it's him.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by Gamble1 View Post

              One state is your measuring stick? Seems pretty narrow of a view really considering that a big chuck of your hope lies on weather patterns and death rates.

              Again it really doesn't matter where we look if experts say this is bad we should believe them. If more kids die of this or have long term health problems you can kiss the reopening plans good bye.

              The data will direct the decision and death rates are the most extreme position to take as a parent, grand parent or just as a citizen in general. More data needs to be gathered on the long term impact especially for people in there 20s and 30s.
              It's the best measuring stick out there afaic. Feel free to suggest a better one. It's still pretty mild weather in Georgia. It has a mix of rural and city to it. It has a large African American population. It's in the south, not known for being a particularly healthy area of the country.

              As for weather patterns, yes I think they may be a factor. But like I said, Georgia is what most of the north will be in the coming weeks.

              As for death rates, you bet death matters. I think it's a decent indicator of how bad complications are in general. I don't have data to back that up, but I don't think anyone has data to refute it. JMO.

              I agree if there are problems things will shut down. That happened in San Franscisco with the 1918 flu. They protested much like Michigan and things had to be shut down. The difference is that was headed into the colder months.

              The main point though is, the nation needs to give it a shot. Keep it sensible but don't just give up and crawl under your rock for a year. If everyone did that, the calamity that would ensue may dwarf what this virus is doing.

              Edit: BTW, the "experts" have not been right very much with this pandemic. Fauci told us there was no need to social distance or shut down schools as late as Feb. 25th and he is supposedly the "god expert". Dude was wrong. It happens all the time. The smartest people are not wearing the lab coats. It's best people begin listening to whomever makes sense, not just the geek who understands the periodic table.
              Last edited by BlueNGold; 05-11-2020, 07:18 PM.

              Comment


              • So about today's Trump rally. Apparently you can't say China to an Asian reporter or it racist. Is that right? What use is the media when they play this game?

                Comment


                • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
                  So about today's Trump rally. Apparently you can't say China to an Asian reporter or it racist. Is that right? What use is the media when they play this game?
                  He could've answered the reporter's first question like a professional and not with some childish deflection. Once he did stick his foot in his mouth he could've addressed the elephant in the room, apologized for the way he framed the question and told the reporter he didn't mean her and just elaborate on his answer about why he mentioned China the way he did.

                  I am so sick of the way he handles (some) reporter's questions. Be professional. I realize his base loves it when he 'attacks' a reporter, but for the rest of us we can see when a reporter is just doing their job versus these made up battles he's making.

                  There's an economic crisis because of Covid-19. We want to hear about that topic and have no desire to see him throwing reporters under the bus for his 24/7/365 campaign strategy.
                  Nuntius was right for a while. I was wrong for a while. But ultimately I was right and Frank Vogel has been let go.

                  ------

                  "A player who makes a team great is more valuable than a great player. Losing yourself in the group, for the good of the group, thatโ€™s teamwork."

                  -John Wooden

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post

                    I don't think they want the truth.

                    If Georgia proceeds relatively unscathed, they are the model the rest of the US should be taking or those states are helping more people die. I've already listed the reasons from domestic abuse, to stress, to no surgeries, to depression, to guns and of course substance abuse including alcoholism, opiods, etc.

                    Better watch this closely. Assuming what they do works, those states that do not follow suit are killing people.
                    Still gonna push this line, eh?

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post
                      So this article probably has some truth to it but just puts the spotlight on why big government is very, very bad and corrupt. It has nothing at all to do with DJT though. If anyone wants American manufacturing to thrive, it's him.
                      If anything I would think this article would give ammunition to POTUS with the “Made in America” angle and frustrate him with the fact so much of that business went overseas.

                      (To address the rest of your post it is obviously a bit biased as it is from one persons point of view. However, as Peck said, I think it has the potential to have a lot of lessons learned looking back)

                      Comment


                      • I cant figure out how to embed a video from Twitter. vnzla81 maybe you can point me in the right direction (is it a simple tag?)

                        First campaign ad (that I have seen at least) in regards to COVID-19




                        Joe Scarborough

                        @JoeNBC
                        ยท
                        9h
                        This campaign ad is breathtaking. Its power comes from Trump’s own words. His false assurances made America’s health care crisis and economic collapse worse. Donald Trump cannot outrun his lies.

                        Comment


                        • Who will be the one to tell her?

                          https://i.imgur.com/7OwxcQo.jpg
                          Last edited by vapacersfan; 05-12-2020, 05:38 AM.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by vapacersfan View Post

                            Still gonna push this line, eh?
                            If Georgia proceeds relatively unscathed and other states want to lockdown you are fine with that? I find it funny that some say the entire country should do the same thing...a national plan...but if one state finds something that works there is a hesitation to learn from that. Why is that?

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by Bball View Post

                              He could've answered the reporter's first question like a professional and not with some childish deflection. Once he did stick his foot in his mouth he could've addressed the elephant in the room, apologized for the way he framed the question and told the reporter he didn't mean her and just elaborate on his answer about why he mentioned China the way he did.

                              I am so sick of the way he handles (some) reporter's questions. Be professional. I realize his base loves it when he 'attacks' a reporter, but for the rest of us we can see when a reporter is just doing their job versus these made up battles he's making.

                              There's an economic crisis because of Covid-19. We want to hear about that topic and have no desire to see him throwing reporters under the bus for his 24/7/365 campaign strategy.
                              It appeared to be a pre-planned gotcha. He is ALWAYS railing on China. She should appreciate his honesty treating her like the rest of the reporters. But she was either triggered or more likely that was preplanned by her and her friend that “if he says China let’s jump on him about it”. When I watched it, her response came out of left field. The man is ALWAYS ripping on China. Then her friend just happened to have a question yet wouldn’t ask it. Really, just looked like a game they were playing.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by BlueNGold View Post

                                If Georgia proceeds relatively unscathed and other states want to lockdown you are fine with that? I find it funny that some say the entire country should do the same thing...a national plan...but if one state finds something that works there is a hesitation to learn from that. Why is that?
                                What does my question about your gun sales = more deaths comment have to do with a re-opening plan for the Unites States?

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