Zoo Forum Community Pledge:

1. This forum explicitly rejects the use of outing or threats of outing of other zoos as an acceptable method of interpersonal disagreement in the zoo community; those who out or threaten to out are not welcome here.
2. This forum will act to remove any posts that out or threaten to out other zoos, and we will notify the intended target of such acts so that they can protect themselves more effectively; those who make such posts are not welcome here.
3. This forum is not to be used for generating, nurturing, or distributing hate - either of other zoos or of non-zoos. Those who create and spread hate are not welcome here.

Article 1. USER POLICIES:

It is EZ's desire that everyone have a safe and enjoyable visit here. It is your choice if you love, hate, or ignore the members you meet here. It is our choice that you treat them with respect and good manners. So there are 8 areas where EZ has set policies "across the board":

Mutual respect, appropriate use, underage, identification and threats, personal safety, inappropriate content, disturbing material, other.

We have given examples for each of these, so everyone is clear where the line will be drawn on acceptable conduct. The staff is here to preserve and enforce that line.



Section 1) Treat other users with respect and courtesy and uphold the community feeling of EZ:

• No bashing: age, sex, race, religion, nationality, sexual preference, skill level, etc. If someone tells you that you're showing your ass, you probably are.
• No personal attacks, or low level persistent sarcasm or denigration. Theories, assertions, ideas, and unsupported facts are targets, members are not.
• No stalking! If someone asks you not to PM, IM, or E-mail them, don't do it. If they say they don't want to talk to you, believe them or the staff will act.
• You are expected to be realistic about others and not hold them to a "gold standard" of conduct. Realistically, many people will not meet your standards. You are expected to show tolerance, understanding and constructive dialog, even if you have strong views, when contentious subjects (such as love vs lust, sexual frustration, or fence-hopping) come up. People differ and those who don't do as you do are not necessarily wrong.
• Keep swearing to a reasonable minimum. Overuse devalues all the good words.
• If you can't say something good, don't say any thing at all. You are 100% responsible for provocative posts you make, stress levels you raise, and situations you worsen, "I'm just being honest" or "I'm just that way" or different beliefs, are not excuses for rudeness, abrasiveness, aggression, hurtful ways, or degrading the forum. Any point worth making is capable of being made in a decent manner, so it's down to you if you don't.
• Set a good example - always act as if the spirit of EZ is your personal responsibility.
• Leave personal history at the door, or deal with it maturely, everyone's got someone they don't like and some pet argument, most other people don't want or need to be dragged through it.
• Each person is judged on the basis of how they act, irrespective of how others have acted. ("grace under fire" is expected, you can always ask mods to help if you feel unfairly attacked). Sometimes grace requires letting go and respecting the community, even if you feel right. Damaging the "feel" of EZ impacts unfairly on all other users and newcomers.
• We have a unique forum here where members and visitors are comfortable. Let's work to keep it that way.

Section 2) Forums should only be used for posts of general interest.

• No spamming. That means all kinds, commercial or personal.
• No "Trolling" (ie, posts focusing on seeking sexual activity or being provocative)
• Disrupting EZ to score a point, or prove one, is out.
• Nonconstructive or old tired arguments shouldn't be brought up again without good reason.
• Personal messages not of general interest should normally be sent by (and kept in) PM, not posted.
• Take private disputes to PM, we don't all need or want to hear every last "he said / she said". Especially revenge, "core dump", mass messaging, psych game or flame posts ("I'm not getting what I want, so...") may lead to immediate warn or ban. Most of these are long and tedious anyway. If you feel a situation is going bad, PM the mods first.
• If you have nothing constructive to add to a particular topic do not post. Material that is off topic or has zero bearing on the original context of the thread will be removed. Repeated violations can lead to having posting privileges suspended.
• Exception: topics of general interest (eg birthday greetings, general support and appreciation, news, etc), apologies and peacemaking, and comments posted by mod agreement (eg warnings, thanks, clarifications) , are usually allowed.

Section 3) No underage members or pedophilia advocacy.

• No members under the age of consent will be allowed. (Members under 18 must leave and may return when 18)
• Sexual activity must be appropriate to the age of the animal or person being described. Anything that appears to advocate or encourage practices with a risk of emotional or physical harm or premature sexual activity with sexually immature beings (human or animal) is forbidden.
• Explicit or detailed discussion of human pedophilia issues (other than as incidental to legitimate content), are prohibited.

You can talk about any and all parts of yourself and your journey to today, within these guidelines. There must, however, be significant self-judged discretion for which you alone are responsible. We do not wish to prevent discussion of incidental factual matters or life stories, as such, provided they are balanced and due emphasis is placed on the risks and harm, and the overall impression matches these guidelines.

We do not wish to ignore or minimize your personal experiences, or to suppress accurate and neutral representation of sexuality at different stages of human and animal lives, however, sexual activity must be appropriate to the animal or person being described (or acknowledged if not).

Section 4) No personal identification, threats, suggestions of harm or abuse (emotional or physical) or release of third party information of any kind.

• It does not matter if it is actual, suggested or just hinted at, partial or whole, personal information stays off the forums.
• It includes threats (including flames in some circumstances), posts intended to cause deliberate upset or fear, disclosure of any information which would significantly compromise a user's anonymity, serious and malicious defamation, and the like.
• Threats or statements to do an action "if ..." will be evaluated as though the user may be proposing to so do, and will be treated seriously.

Section 5) Personal safety

• No posting even your own personal information such as, full name, telephone number, address, photo, etc.
• In some circumstances posting an email or website address from which you can be identified, or excessive personally identifiable information, will fall under this rule.
• No posting/hot linking easily identifiable pictures, or websites from which you or others can be readily identified.
• No posting to your MySpace or Facebook pages.
• Soliciting or harvesting R/L information of others in a way which disturbs users or mods, may be dealt with by warning, removal of PM privilege or ban. (normal social chat is OK, this is a protection against abuse of personal info offered in good faith)
• If you have a furry or other persona online, or an IM or email profile, which has personal information, you are strongly recommended to choose a different nickname and anonymous email for zoo-related access, for safety's sake.

Section 6) Inappropriate content:

• First and foremost all posts and chat must be in the English language. Names, terms, and quotes may be in any language but the meaning of the message must be plain and obvious to an English speaker.
• User names and profile info must be appropriate and acceptable.
• Any activity involving any individual should be safe and appropriate for that individual. This means both partners in any sex act should be capable of enjoying the act without injury. It also means that all involved should be free to refuse or leave at any time. The two exceptions to this rule are animals acting within their nature without human intervention and humans willingly placing themselves at risk.
• From time to time, certain words, or topics may be deemed off-topic by the mods, usually these are expletives, or matters which are proving excessively divisive or causing problems or risk to users.
• Certain sections may be marked as for or prohibiting specific kinds of content. Watch for that and believe it. If the staff tire of cleaning up after you, they may give you incentives to remember.

Section 7) Disturbing information only in strictly limited circumstances:

• You should always consider whether the subject and style of the post is really appropriate, and if so, whether the post could convey the matter well enough if the actual gory details were less explicit or even removed.
• You should always warn of the disturbing nature of the material either in the title or in the first few lines of the post.
• If it is relevant and reasonable, the following guidelines apply:

• Posts which represent animals or sex in a disrespectful way, or support or encourage abusive practices, are always and completely unacceptable.
• If you must refer to disturbing matters, it is your job to find a way to do so which maintains the quality of the board, and makes it sound like it was written by a responsible thoughtful member of the EZ community who has considered the implications through before posting.
• Mods may edit explicit material if these conditions are not met.

If part of the post is describing mistakes you made, ways in which an animal was abused or mishandled, or seriously disturbing material, think twice how to express it. Be factual, and be sure to write in a manner that ensures readers will not get an impression of acceptability or advocacy. This is your responsibility. Disrespectful wording often includes -- Derogatory terms. Styles which imply that the wishes or feelings of an animal or person don't exist or don't matter. Unnecessary gory detail.

Section 8) Other:

• Use and membership of EZ is a privilege granted on the basis it will be used for the purpose of social communication and enhancement of the community within the rules of EZ.
• Activities which damage the fabric of EZ or its community and those participating in said activities may be immediately banned by any admin or super mod subject to later discussion if uncertain.
• Every case is different.
• Repeated infringements will be taken more seriously and the response elevated.
• Some users over time become trusted with specific powers or authority, such as custom groups or moderation. These are provisional and keeping them depends upon conduct, "use them well and live up to them, or lose them".
• Mods may take account of information or conduct outside the EZ forum (including private messages) or other serious concerns, in judging a difficult decision. We believe that everyone has the ability to learn and grow but we cannot allow it to be at our expense. Everyone will be given a chance. No less and no more.
• Where someone becomes a cause for concern to a significant number of users, or the subject of multiple complaints or expressions of concern from people not known to usually complain, this is a sign EZ users perceive a problem, and the mods will take note. We will not punish anyone for past mistakes or personal conflicts, however, we may watch closely or require changes in conduct for an issue to be put to bed.
• In exceptional cases, mods may summarily vote to remove or restrict specific users from the forum on the basis of information or impressions about their lives, or activities, related to EZ or other forums, zoophilia or the law, past history, risk of future problems, or treatment of animals or people. Sometimes this has to be subjective. There are some people who, simply and sadly, EZ is probably better off without.
• With each post and every visit, you agree to abide by the Site Legal Statement (as applicable on that visit) and warrant that you are and will remain in compliance with it for the duration of each and every visit, and at any time you access EZ or any part thereof or any facility made available (in part or whole) by or through it.There may be places on this site where other rules or limitations also apply. If so they will be plainly marked and explained.

Article 2. STAFF:

• All members are subject to the same forum rules, and regulars and especially staff are expected to set an example with a higher standard of conduct, rather than expecting exceptions to be made. Staff are expected to help EZ members, and they are expected to have the maturity to express their personal views in a constructive manner, rather than conflict with supporting EZ as a whole.
• EZ does not turn blind eyes to willful misconduct or abuse of any kind, no matter how much or who by. We also do not allow people to be "scapegoated" for things they may have not really done. We try to give a fair chance up front, and a moderator's job is to both protect the forum from disruption, and also to protect newcomers or other members from flames and misjudgments. So moderation is a delicate act.
• There will always be borderline cases, we try to apply our best judgment and look at both sides in each one. We will always try to solve any problems which may be occurring. Where there is doubt moderators should usually check or seek information first (in PM if necessary) and usually give the benefit of the doubt if possible, explaining clearly what must be done to prevent a problem. A warning will normally be issued first, but if an admin or super moderator feels that it is necessary, they will set an immediate short term ban pending further discussion.
• These rules are our guidelines, however they continually evolve in the light of new circumstances and as things happen. Since not every circumstance can be guaranteed to be covered, in exceptional circumstances the moderators and administrators reserve the right to take actions as they see fit, even if not covered by these rules or different.
• The admin team oversees the moderators and insures that personalities don't overrule the best interest of the community as a whole. Final decisions rest with the Admin team, are not closed to discussion, and reasoned appeal may be made to the Founder. Once an appeal has been answered, the decision is final. Win, lose, or draw, it is over forever.

Article 2.1 Staff Positions and Chain Of Command

The following are the different staff positions and their functions and the Chain of Command on the EliteZoo Network.

Administrators: Admins are in charge of setting policy for the EliteZoo Network. Amending the Guidelines and approving official position statements of the EliteZoo Network. Admins can ban any member for what ever reason they deem worthy, over riding the requirement for 3 warnings prior to ban. Admins can suspend a member for an unlimited amount of time. The following are the three different types of admins.

• Founder: The big cheese. Head haunch "o". Can veto any policy decision or over turn any member disciplinary action. Can make new staff appointments for all positions including Admins.
• Managing Administrators: Out ranks Board and Tech Admins. Can make new staff appointments.
• Board and or Tech Admins: In charge of specific areas of the EliteZoo Network. They are the guiding force for development in those areas. Out ranks Super mods.

Super Moderators: Super Mods have moderator privileges and responsibilities in all Forum Areas as well as Full Op status on all official EZ Channels on the IRC. Super Mods out rank Chat Ops on the IRC server and Forum Mods and Tracker Mods on the forum. Super Mods can Ban members after they have been warned 3 times or Ban a member if they feel it requires immediate action and that if they do not act it could negatively impact the EliteZoo network. An instant ban by a Super Mod with out 3 previous warnings is subject to review by the admin team. Super Mods can set a suspension for up to 1 month for violations of EZ guidelines. Staff members are encouraged to approach the Super Mods for advice if they are not sure on an issue regarding Member Disciplinary actions. Super Moderators can remove official warnings a member has received if they feel the member has learned their lesson and is not likely to repeat the mistake.

Spokes Person: The official voice of the EliteZoo Network. Is responsible for releasing all official statements and positions of the EliteZoo Network and its Staff. All official statements made by the spokes person must first have the approval of at least 3 admins. The Spokes Person will have the position of Super Moderator.

Forum Moderators: Forum Mods are responsible for moderating all activity in the forums they are assigned to. Forum Mods may establish their own set of rules for the forums they moderate (subject to approval of the admins and that it follows the EZ Guidelines and the Vision in which EZ was established). Each forum will have at least 2 mods assigned to it. Those two mods should together decided on what will the rules be for their forum. What they will allow and not allow and how they will deal with issues in their forum. Once the rules are approved by the admin team all Staff when doing any moderating in that forum (regardless of position, ie Tracker Mods, Super Mod, Admin etc) will take the rules into consideration as well as the general EZ Guidelines when dealing with issues. Forum Moderators can suspend a members posting privileges for up to 2 weeks for violations of the Guidelines or rules in that forum. Forum Mods can not ban a member but they can flag them so they can not make any new posts or suspend them if they think their is a urgent issue and refer the issue to a Super Mod or Admin to be reviewed. Forum Mods will have Half Op status on the IRC server in official EZ channels.

Tracker Moderators: Are responsible for maintaining the Torrents in the Pics and Vids section. Tracker Mods will act as backup moderators in the Pic and Vids forums following the established rules set by the Forum Mods for that forum if the assigned forum mod is not available to deal with an issue. Tracker Mods will have Half Op status on the IRC server in official EZ channels. Tracker Mods have same restrictions on banning and suspension as Forum Mods.

Chat Operators: Chat Ops are responsible for moderating all official channels on the IRC server. Chat Ops will outrank Forum Mods and Tracker mods on issues on the IRC server. They are the staff members who are primarily responsible for enforcement of the EZ Guidelines in ALL channels on the IRC server. This includes all member created channels. Chat Ops can ban a member for a specific channel or the IRC server for a max of 2 weeks just like a Forum Mod. They can issue official and verbal warnings for actions on the IRC server. To have an official warning posted to a members account they will need to make a request to do so in the Chat MDI forum and a super mod or admin will issue the warning in the system. The Chat Op will still be responsible to for notifying the member of the warning and the reason for the warning.

Staff members may have more then one position. For example one may be a Tracker Mod and a Forum mod or a Forum Mod and a Chat op.

Article 3. Ombudsman & Conflict Resolution Process:

Section 1) Ombudsman

• A member shall be chosen, at large, by election, from the membership as a whole.
• That member shall represent any member or any issue that they shall find reasonable to the staff.
• That member shall have no powers or means of enforcement save that of the bully pulpit but they may be privy to some of the staffs' information and tools.
• That member's term in office shall be one year.

Section 2) Conflict Resolution Process

Reporting a Post- If you feel that a post is in violation of our rules, be it a picture, video, or regular message, please use the "! Report" button on that post. Doing so starts a process within the staff to work toward a resolution of the issue reported. When reporting a post, please be sure to use the PM form to inform the staff as to what you see is wrong with the post.

What the staff will do- When a message is reported, or if a Moderator or Admin sees a message that is suspected of breaking the rules, that post may be editted or set invisible for further review. If this is done, the staff will send a PM to the message originator and/or reporter of the message to inform them what is happening in basic terms.

Once an action has been decided, we will inform via PM to the reporter of the post our decision. We may also inform the original poster as necessary. If necessary, we may also make a post in the original thread giving general details of the complaint and our decision.

If you don't agree with the outcome- If you feel the staff is in error, this is where the Ombudsman comes in. Contact the Ombudsman with your concerns and allow them to work towards an amicable resolution. Under no circumstances should you take the argument into any thread on EZ.

Please note that all of these actions do take time. Please be patient as we work to resolve issues.

Article 4. IRC CHANNEL RULES:

IRC has to accommodate many people of different personalities, and disagreement or dislike is inevitable. It is your job to keep them from disrupting other people's good time:

• The forum rules also apply to IRC. This especially means as regards content and legality.
• Users are expected to be civil, and sociable, even when they strongly differ with others.
• There will be heated disputes at times, and that is normal for chat. But if they go on too long, or start winding people up too much, they should be taken private, to the #Inferno channel or dropped, and users are quite within their right to ask for the subject to be dropped if it is significantly disruptive.
• Users who feel a dispute is happening or may happen that could involve them, are expected to help it cool down, build bridges, and at the worst to act maturely by leaving for an hour, or letting others know (civilly and without argument) they are dropping off the subject.
• Users feeling a discussion is not enjoyable to the main channel are advised to say so - once, calmly, or leave, or ask a staff member to watch the chat and ensure it stays enjoyable.
• Any staff member may ask a particular person to withdraw from a discussion in the main channel, if it seems they are getting too wound up in it, or ask all users to change or drop the subject in the main channel.
• IRC operates a "warn then temp-ban" policy. You will generally be asked once nicely, then forcibly removed for a short period. This is not a punishment, and when your ban is up you are welcome back. It's to encourage people to chill and listen to staff who must manage the channel for the benefit of all users. It also gives us a way to handle minor infractions and borderline annoyances better, rather than having to ignore them till they get big.
• Longer bans or more serious consideration is given to major anti-social behavior - virus passing, harassment (especially in private), persistent emotional games or other immature conduct, significant repeat problem behavior, and so on, at staff discretion.

Official EliteZoo IRC Channels:

#EliteZoo - Think of this main channel as the lobby. Meet and mingle there. Converse about anything casual, but conduct yourself as though you were in the lobby of a large public building. Do not shout, fight, have sex, or block other people from using it.Light foreplay type yiffing in greeting is ok. For example: "Fjord_Stallion mounts Study Stallion in greeting" or Stripes molests Stallions_Mare in greeting" are two examples that ARE acceptable. The following two examples ARE NOT acceptable: "Fjord_Stallion drops his cock from his sheath and mounts StuddyStallion and shoves his cock up StuddyStallions ass" or "Stripes grabs Stallions_Mare and starts to rub her pussy and then spreads her lips and fists her". If the Chat Ops say you are taking it to far... Then YOU ARE TAKING IT TO FAR.

The following channels are for more in depth discussion of topics regarding different species or more in depth sexual discussion.

• #Stables - For Equine related discussion
• #Kennels - For Canine related discussion
• #BarnYard - For all other barn yard critters discussion
• #Yiffing - For hardcore yiffing or sex acts
• #ZooRaunch - Reserved for the members of the ZooRaunch sub forum. If you are a ZR member and would like access please ask the ZooRaunch moderator for details
• #Inferno - for more heated debates. This is similar to the Inferno sub forum. The moderators will not stop heated debates in this channel. How ever the basic EZ Guidelines still apply.
• Games - This is where you can go to play different IRC Bot games

MISC IRC Guidelines:

• You can make your own channel. Rooms are free! Take the intense stuff to a private channel. You can monitor more than one channel at a time. That way you can have your cake, eat it too, and not throw it in everyone else's face.
• If you are asked to move to a private channel, you probably should. If the asker is staff, you will.
• If there is a registered channel for the particular topic you want, you will be better off using it. The /list command will show you all channels any time you use it. Remember that you can still monitor the main channel.

Chat saving:

• IRC clients all support saving of chats. Please apply commonsense to your chat posts, because they can be quoted just like forum posts.
• If there is an incident where someone is accused of a damaging act, credible logs will be accepted as evidence of a problem. This is no different than on the forum, where posts are evidence of a problem.
• What you and others say in private is your own business, and by and large not an EZ matter, unless it relates to a serious breach of forum rules, in which case staff will take note.
• You are requested not to keep substantial logs without good reason. It is usually not necessary and most users do not expect their casual words to be quoted back at them. However staff will take no action if a user does so, because any user/s could log so it's a bit pointless only punishing those who are open about it. Commonsense applies in chat as on forum.

Article 5. FILES AND SHARING:

• All posts, comments, vids, pictures and other text will become property of EZ whenever anyone replies to them. Accounts can be closed and anonymized but we will not trash the work of all participants in a thread to appease one.
• Posting of any work of art in any form will constitute a permission to EZ to redistribute that work. We won't sell it without a specific agreement and will remove it when requested but cannot be held responsible if it travels the net.
• Every member shall be responsible to determine that they have permission to distribute any material that they post to this site. Failure to do so may result in permanent banning.
• Complaints may be made using a "report" function, PM'ing any staff of the section containing the material, or by e-mailing the site admin. Anonymous complaints will be ignored.
• Anyone caught passing trojans, virii, spyware, or any form of malware will be publicly exposed and banned.
• Material offtopic to the section where it is posted may be simply deleted. Repeated posting of inappropriate material may lead to warnings and / or penalties.
• Any member may repost their own material on other sites with no restrictions. However, no member may repost another members material to any other site without the express permission of the originating member. It is particularly forbidden (and this should be obvious) to remove any watermarks or copyright information, or in way obstruct the rights of the originator of that material. Any member found to have violated this rule will be subject to immediate and permanent ban, with no appeal.

Article 6. Off-Site Media:

No links to off-site media.

• To post a video or image you must first download the video or image then upload it to EZ.
• We do not allow you to link to a video or image on another server in any posts or your signature. When you do so each time it is viewed all of the information of our members and visitors is given to the server that hosts the images. This is a major security risk and is not allowed under any circumstances.

If you post any links to off-site media it will be removed. Second link to off-site media will result in a warning. Third link to off-site media will result in a ban.

If you want to post a video or image please upload it directly to the EliteZoo Server. If you want to post an image to your signature please upload it to the EZ Gallery under the embedded images album at http://www.elitezoo.com/Embeded-Images-gallery-cat2.html To upload to the gallery you go to your your "My Controls" link on the top of every page. Then look under Invision Gallery on the Left hand side menu bar.


EliteZoo is a growing network. As such, we have yet to face many possible challenges, which may require us to upgrade our policies from time to time to reflect these challenges as they face us.

It is every member's duty to keep an eye on these rules and any changes that may be made to them.

Every member should also understand that a violation in one section can mean a loss of privledges in all sections.