When to Appeal 

You can appeal a warning or ban issued against you. The following are acceptable times (reasons) to file an appeal:

• You did not violate the rule(s) listed on the warning, or the staff did not tell you what rules you violated or what you did that constituted a violation of those rules
• The staff tried to dog-pile violations
  • E.g. a staff member issued multiple warnings to you for the same incident (even if you violated multiple rules, only one warning is permitted to be issued per incident; all violations are considered collectively in the warning)
  • E.g. you posted one slur in a forum topic, and the staff tried to cite that slur both for spam and for discrimination
  • Note, however, if you say multiple things that independently violate the rules (e.g. saying multiple slurs in a post), or a piece of content otherwise carries multiple separate things in it that violate the rules, then staff can cite those and increase the severity of discipline.
• The punitive actions taken for your violation do not justify your violation and past history
  • Example: Irrelevant actions
    • E.g. silencing you from forum A when your violation took place in forum B
    • E.g. reporting you to spam blacklists when your violation was harassing another member
    • E.g. deleting content A when your violation regarded content B
    • E.g. reversing the points or karma you earned from posting something which had nothing to do with the violation
  • Example: Discipline was too harsh
    • E.g. the staff banned you for posting a single thing in the wrong forum (unless your account standing was in 'danger')
    • E.g. the staff put you in probation for an unnecessarily long time
    • E.g. the staff charged you 1,000 points / assessed 250 bad karma for a single piece of minor spam content
  • Example: Lack of justification / evidence (staff must justify each punitive action they take and must provide evidence of your violation)
    • E.g. the staff issued probation but did not indicate why they put you in probation
    • E.g. the staff found you in violation but did not link to, or attach a screenshot, of the violating content
• For automatic bans, you can appeal if the ban was a false-positive

When NOT to Appeal 

Do not file an appeal under any of the following circumstances:

• Apologies
  • We appreciate that you realize what you did wrong. However, the damage has already been done. And the warning / punitive action must remain on your account for accountability and damage control. Therefore, we will not appeal discipline because you are sorry.
• Bribes or blackmails
  • This is an easy way to get you banned or at the very least, earn another warning with severe discipline. We do not tolerate attempts at bribes or blackmails in exchange for appeals.
• When you are in an emotional state
  • It is not wise to write an appeal when you are still emotional or feeling angry about it. You may end up sounding disrespectful in your appeal which will ultimately result in a denied appeal or possibly even further actions taken. We recommend waiting at least 24 hours (but no more than 72) before submitting an appeal. That way, your emotions can calm down and you can reason better.
• When it has been 72 or more hours since the warning was issued
  • Warnings become final 72 hours after they have been issued
• You already filed an appeal for the same warning
  • You may only attempt an appeal once per warning. Once an appeal decision is made, the warning becomes final.

How to Appeal 

To appeal your warning, do one of the following (we listed each in order of preference from highest to lowest; we prefer you try the top items and only use the lower ones if the top ones are unavailable to you):

• Reply to the Private Topic associated with your warning
  • The staff member is required to invite a higher-up to handle the appeal
  • This option will not be available to you if you are on probation or if you are banned
• E-mail [email protected]
  • You must e-mail from the address that is associated with your account

In your appeal request, you must include the following:

• If the staff did not explain the rules you violated or what you did that constituted a violation of the indicated rules, point that out.
• If the staff member dog-piled violations on you for the same thing, point that out.
• If you believe you did not violate the rule(s) listed, explain why. You should also request to see any evidence the staff used to make their decision to warn you. And when you receive that evidence, explain your rebuttals against it. If the staff cannot provide the evidence on request, then they did not meet the "clear and convincing evidence" threshold and are required to default to accepting your appeal and fully reversing the warning and all discipline.
• If you believe you are in violation, but the punitive actions are too strict or not relevant, explain why they are too strict / not relevant and do not provide a constructive resolution. Propose an alternative set of punitive actions that you believe are more in-line with your violation, and explain why.
• If you are appealing an automatic action taken by spam / hack detection that is a false positive, then explain concisely and in detail what you were doing leading up to the website having taken that action against you. Do not leave any relevant details out. By doing this, the staff can gain a better understanding of why the site did what it did and can then determine if it should have done that or not.

Appeal Decisions Are Final

Once the staff return to your appeal request with a decision, the decision is final. You cannot make any more appeal requests for that warning / violation. It is therefore important to make your appeal count. You will often have no opportunity to amend or resend your appeal before a decision is made.