Since there isn’t a whole lot going on in terms of Cowboys news, I decided to give a little update on the new SB Nation 2.0 platform.

Up at the top left-hand corner, there are a few items you might be interested in. There’s a Welcome Guide that lays out in general terms some of the features available on the new platform. There’s also an Edit Settings link which takes to your own personal settings for the blog. You can set the number of FanPosts and FanShots to be displayed as well as a few other functions. Just below that are icons for a narrow and wide display of the blog. If you have enough monitor room I recommend the wide view, it’s easier to read the blog that way in my opinion.

Also, take a moment to fill out your profile and add a graphic avatar to represent yourself on the blog.

Recently I added a Featured Poll in the middle of the right-hand column. Be sure to vote and I’ll try to change it out on a regular basis.

Down at the bottom are FanShots. We got some good stuff being posted down there and I want encourage you guys to check them out regularly just like you do with the FanPosts. Add a comment to those, too. You can always catch up on Tony and Jessica news down there. ;-)

FanPosts are for hot Cowboys news or thoughts on the Cowboys that have a little substance. There is a 75-word minimum on FanPosts so that it requires a little more thought or some quotes from the articles referenced. If you find yourself just wanting to post a YouTube video, a funny or interesting quote, or some off-topic non-Cowboys news, FanShots is the prefect place to do it. By the way, great job by the whole community for keeping the FanPosts and FanShots fresh with news and other stuff. I really appreciate you guys posting in both places because this blog works best when all of the community is involved. Also, if you find a FanPost or FanShot that you really like, you can give it a recommend and if it gets over five, it will move up to the recommended list.

Anybody wondering what happened to the SportsSpyder feed that displayed headlines and links for Cowboys articles that used to be on the left-hand column, I had to take it down for now. It was causing load problems for the blog and would occasionally hang up the site until the user refreshed the browser. I’m trying to get it working again so be patient.

One request from me, post a comment whenever you can. The more comments we get the better the conversation gets and sometimes whole new discussions grow out of a single comment in a thread. So if you see a post that is lonely with only a couple of comments, drop one of your own on it.

While I’m talking meta-blog, this is a good time to remind everybody of the community guidelines. No excessive profanity, especially the particularly strong words. No politics or religion and keep the sex stuff to a minimum. Absolutely no attacking other poster with things like “you’re stupid,” “you’re a moron,” “that is the dumbest thing ever,” and other things like that. If you want to argue and debate, that’s fine, in fact, that’s part of the reason we’re here. But don’t get personal and just use common sense. I now have the ability to warn people if they cross the line on any of these issues. So if you log-in one day and see a warning, that is why and I will include a note explaining it. Other times I’ll just delete the comment if it breaks the rules or adds nothing to the conversation except to flame another reader. After that, if the rules are not followed, you get banned.

This thread is now open for any comments, suggestions or questions you may have. I’ll do my best to answer them in the comments below.