*** READ THIS -- The Moderation of CowboysZone ***

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Reality

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CowboysZone has been online for over 18 years now. In that time, we have adapted, adjusted and updated our Forum Rules to reflect the everchanging state of the internet and society as a whole.

We strive to keep this site free of a lot of the nastiness and toxicity you see posted elsewhere on the internet which is why we do not allow topics like politics on this site. Topics like that are not about convincing anyone, they are about finding like-minded allies to see who can shout the loudest against those who dare to disagree.

The CowboysZone staff were all active members long before they became moderators. They left the safe area of being a regular member to join a staff on a sports forum where emotions run high and in some cases counter to their own opinions.

Being a moderator on a sports forum can be quite stressful, demanding and time consuming at times. Yet, day after day, the moderators show up, post as regular members, then put on their moderator hats when necessary to delete posts and give out warnings, thread bans, etc. knowing full well that some members will get angry at them for doing it.

I am not perfect nor is the staff perfect, but 18 years later CZ is still going strong while many other forum communities, sports and otherwise, have slowly declined in popularity or into extinction due to social media, mobile apps and the forum-aged generation getting older.

I have never been one to take credit for CZ's success because I have always said the members and the staff are what makes this site great.


That is why the first rule in the Forum Rules is ..

#1 - You will not publicly question the actions of the staff or how this site is managed.


The staff does their best to be fair to everyone. Publicly complaining about the moderation of the site is not in any way constructive or beneficial as it is done for attention from other members, not a discussion with the staff.

A lot of the time, moderation is done on a larger scale than the affected members realize. They assume only their post was deleted or only their account was suspended because we do not publicly promote when member accounts or their posts are moderated.


To better understand the moderation process, I will list the order of how we do it ..

  1. If a post violates the forum or thread rules, but not severely enough to warrant a suspension, we delete the post. In other words, the staff could have technically suspended your account but chose not to.

  2. If a member makes multiple posts violating either the forum rules or thread rules (ex: going off-topic), the staff may decide to solve the problem by thread-banning the member. Once a member is thread-banned, it is final and we do not remove it. There are plenty of other threads to post in and at least your account was not suspended.

  3. If a member has a habit of violating the rules and deleting their posts and thread bans are having no impact on changing their posting habits, we may give them a General Warning which is an official warning on their account but does not include an account suspension. Typically a general warning is the last chance we give a member before we suspend their account going forward.

  4. If a member has a habit of violating the rules and all previous tactics have had little to no impact, we will suspend their accounts from 1-7 days on average with repeated problems resulting in a 30-day ban. We try to avoid these as much as possible but sometimes members leave us with no choice.

  5. If a member posts something that seriously violates the rules, their account will be suspended 3-7 days regardless of their moderation history and if it is really bad, their account may be permanently banned without any warning.


No one on the staff likes being the bad guy. We would be VERY happy if everyone would read the Forum Rules and follow them while passionately posting their opinions and debating with each other.

The CZ staff members are really good people who volunteer their time to help make this site a great place to spend our time. While no staff is perfect at moderation, I think we have a great group of people here and I think we have a lot of great members as well.

I ask that all of you remember that because one day they could be gone or this site could be gone and all of that irritation you thought you had might be a distant memory of a wonderful community of people you wish was still a click away.
 
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