Cozy MC Staff Code

Everyone who holds a staff role, whenever they are acting in a Cozy space, presenting themselves as Cozy staff, or using Cozy authority, information, access, or influence. It also covers the owner. Off-duty personal life is not covered, but a staff member never stops being responsible for how they use what the role gave them.

Every staff member has attested in writing that they are an adult. Members may still be minors, and staff act on that assumption with everyone.

Staff are bound by every rule in The Cozy Code, exactly as members are. On top of that, the role carries duties members don't have:

• Professionalism. Communicate plainly and respectfully. No mocking, baiting, sarcasm at a member's expense, or hostility — including toward someone who is being difficult.
• Restraint. Use the least authority the situation needs. A quiet correction usually beats a public one.
• Impartiality. Decide on the evidence and the rules, not on who someone is or who their friends are.
• Confidentiality. Reports, evidence, ticket contents, and member information are need-to-know. They are not shared with friends, kingdoms, other members, or outside communities, and they are not used for anything except the case they belong to.
• Honesty. Don't misstate the rules, a decision, or what evidence exists.

Because the role carries more responsibility, the same conduct can carry a heavier consequence for a staff member than for a member — never a lighter one. Allegations against staff are reviewed under this visible, consistent standard.

• Staff authority is for the community, not for personal disputes. A staff member may not use the role, tools, or information to advance a personal conflict, settle a score, or advantage themselves, their friends, or their kingdom.
• Staff may not decide any matter in which they are personally involved.
• A staff member with a close relationship to anyone in a case — friend, kingdom-mate, rival, romantic history, ongoing dispute — must disclose it and, wherever practicable, step aside from that case.
• Reports involving the owner or senior staff follow the process under Reporting staff conduct below. The person reported never handles the report.
• Staff never ask members for passwords, personal information, or payment, never request identification or proof of age, and never handle moderation, verification, or appeals by DM unless staff started the conversation.
• Staff keep Cozy business in tickets and Cozy spaces. A staff member doesn't use the role to start private contact with a member, doesn't move a Cozy conversation into private messages, and never asks a member to keep a conversation between the two of them.
• Cozy's official accounts on other platforms are run by staff under this code: no moderation, verification, or appeals through them; no confirming who anyone is; no asking for usernames, ages, or personal information in comments or messages; comments that identify a member or contain personal information are hidden when staff see them or they're reported.

• Investigations are assigned. No one starts one on their own, and every investigation has a documented purpose.
• Only the information relevant to the case is collected. Unrelated personal information is not gathered or kept.
• Staff don't run routine sweeps of chat or private-message logs. Logs are searched when there's a reason that can be written in the ticket — a report, a build to restore, specific facts that point to a rule violation — and staff use whatever lookup makes sense of what happened, including a player's full activity. Anything a lookup shows that isn't relevant to that reason isn't copied, shared, or used; a clear violation seen along the way is handled like any other report. The search and its reason are noted in the ticket.
• Staff do not search for members' real-world accounts. Material already submitted in a report may be reviewed when necessary to assess it.
• Where an outside community must be looked at, one assigned moderator uses a normal, identifiable account, follows that community's ordinary access rules, does not impersonate anyone or use deception, does not bypass verification or restricted channels, looks only at what's relevant, and leaves when done. No continuing or routine surveillance.
• Staff never encourage or instruct anyone to record voice chat.
• Safety reviews aren't meant to be handled by one person alone: a second staff member — the safety second — has visibility of every safety ticket, including when the owner leads the review. That role has not been filled yet. Until it is — over the next few weeks; the changelog will record the date — the owner reads every safety report himself within 48 hours, and anything that suggests someone may be at risk is treated as urgent and acted on first.
• Significant enforcement actions are summarized internally in enough detail that a non-conflicted reviewer can check them later.

• A notice that says which status applies — temporary review hold, temporary safety restriction, warning, final warning, suspension, or final removal — and which rule category it concerns.
• The general factual basis, subject to privacy, safety, security, and legal limits.
• A route to respond, and a reasonable time to do so — longer when nothing urgent is at stake.
• Ordinarily, a chance to respond before a final finding. Urgent protective action may come first; it is reviewed promptly afterward.
• A decision that is explained, not just announced.

If you believe a staff member has fallen short of this code, email [email protected] with the subject "STAFF CONDUCT." That mailbox is read by the owner and nobody else, so the person you're reporting doesn't see it. Don't use a support ticket for this yet: tickets are currently seen by the moderation team as a whole, and a ticket type that only the owner can see is being set up — the changelog will record the date it's working.

Reports about the owner. Cozy has one owner, so nobody inside Cozy can overrule him. The process for a report about him is that he never handles it: a designated senior staff member — the conduct reviewer — receives it at an address of its own that the owner doesn't receive, records it, may take outside advice, and answers you in writing; the owner's response, if any, is recorded alongside it; and staff who receive a report about the owner send it to the reviewer, never to the owner. The conduct reviewer has not been named yet, and that address is still being set up. Until both are done — over the next few weeks; the changelog will record the date — a report sent to [email protected] does reach the owner. If that isn't acceptable, and it may not be, use the outside routes below instead; any staff member may do the same and will never be penalized for it.

If your concern involves anyone's safety, don't wait for us: report it to Discord Trust & Safety, through Minecraft's or Xbox's player reporting, or to law enforcement — whoever the concern is about, including the owner. We'd rather you report somewhere than nowhere.

Retaliation against anyone who reports staff conduct is treated the same as retaliation against any reporter.

Staff members and recognized community leaders may be removed from their role for conduct that would undermine members' trust — including conduct that, for an ordinary member, might carry a lighter consequence. Removal from a role is separate from any decision about continued membership.

Some procedures are deliberately not published: child-safety escalation, witness-protection measures, and attorney-directed handling. Members can expect that these exist and that they are followed; the details stay need-to-know so that they keep working.

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