Find your way.

Read with the rulebook

Enforcement depends on the conduct, evidence, context, history, and current risk. This guide must be read alongside the complete Community Rulebook; the warning ladder is not a price list for serious harm.

1. Warning Thresholds

The automatic action triggered by the number of active warnings on an account.

Active-warning ladder

1 active warning  — formal warning; no automatic mute
2 active warnings — mute for 1 hour
3 active warnings — mute for 6 hours
4 active warnings — mute for 24 hours
5 active warnings — mute for 3 days
6 active warnings — mute for 7 days
7 active warnings — temporary ban for 14 days
8 active warnings — temporary ban; duration set by senior review

How thresholds are applied

A threshold action is applied when the newest valid warning causes the active total to reach that number. The warning and resulting restriction are both recorded. Staff should not repeatedly apply the same threshold unless another warning is added or a previous action was not completed correctly.

What “active” means

Only warnings currently classified as active by the moderation system count toward this ladder. Expired, voided, successfully appealed, duplicated, or incorrectly attributed warnings do not count. Historical records may still inform risk assessment without silently changing the active total.

Eighth-warning review

The eighth active warning triggers a temporary ban and mandatory senior review. Because no fixed duration was specified for this threshold, the reviewing senior staff member records a proportionate duration based on severity, prior bans, recurrence, cooperation, and community risk. A permanent ban requires a separate severe-offence or sustained-risk finding; it is not automatic merely because the count reached eight.

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2. Severity, Evidence & Escalation

How staff choose an initial response, skip thresholds for serious harm, and document decisions.

Response levels

Correction or deletion — isolated, low-impact mistakes that stop promptly.
Formal warning — meaningful, repeated, deliberate, or boundary-crossing conduct.
Restriction or mute — active disruption or risk that must be contained.
Temporary ban — severe harm, sustained misconduct, evasion, or repeated failure to correct.
Permanent ban — extreme safety violations, serious fraud or exploitation, destructive attacks, or a documented pattern showing continued access is unsafe.

Aggravating factors

Severity may increase for targeting a vulnerable person, minors, planning, coordination, deception, financial gain, multiple victims, high reach, evasion, evidence destruction, compromised accounts, repeat conduct, refusal to stop, retaliation, or a credible risk of recurrence.

Mitigating factors

A genuinely accidental, low-impact first incident may receive a correction when the member removes the material, reports the mistake, preserves relevant evidence, cooperates, and does not repeat it. Mitigation never requires staff to leave an immediate safety risk active.

Threshold bypass

The active-warning ladder governs cumulative ordinary warnings; it is not a price list for severe harm. Staff may begin with a restriction, temporary ban, or permanent ban when the conduct itself warrants that response. The case record must identify the rule, facts, evidence, harm, action, duration, and reason for bypassing the ordinary ladder.

Multiple rules in one incident

Staff should record every materially distinct violation but must not inflate counts by splitting one act into artificial duplicates. Multiple warnings may be appropriate where separate choices caused separate harms, victims, or rule breaches. Senior review is recommended when stacking changes the action tier.

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3. Rule Outcomes: Sections 1–5

Typical starting responses for membership, conduct, hate, content safety, privacy, security, and scams.

Section 1 — Foundation & Membership

Minor verification or channel-access mistakes: correction or warning. Deliberate age deception, restriction evasion, account transfers used to conceal identity, or knowingly bringing abusive accounts: warning through temporary ban. Underage accounts and serious platform violations require removal and appropriate platform reporting.

Section 2 — Respect, Boundaries & Harassment

Isolated rudeness: correction or warning. Repeated unwanted contact, dogpiling, humiliation, sexual harassment, coercion, blackmail, stalking, or credible attack threats: warning, immediate restriction, temporary ban, or permanent ban based on danger and intent. Credible violence, swatting, or severe exploitation may begin at permanent removal.

Section 3 — Hate, Discrimination & Extremism

Correctable insensitive conduct may receive a warning. Deliberate slurs, targeted discriminatory harassment, extremist recruitment, celebration of mass harm, or repeated coded hate may receive an immediate temporary or permanent ban. Context is reviewed, but “irony” and filter evasion do not create immunity.

Section 4 — Content Safety & Minors

Mislabelling permitted sensitive content may receive correction or warning. Pornography, graphic shock content, dangerous instructions, or repeated unsafe material may receive restriction or temporary ban. Child sexual exploitation, grooming, sexualised minor content, or deliberate distribution of severe illegal material requires immediate permanent removal and external reporting where appropriate.

Section 5 — Privacy, Security & Scams

Accidental exposure corrected immediately may receive a warning and deletion. Doxxing, phishing, malware, credential theft, tracking, fraudulent payment schemes, social engineering, vigilantism, or threats to expose information may begin at temporary or permanent ban. Active compromise should be contained first and investigated without spreading sensitive data.

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4. Rule Outcomes: Sections 6–10

Typical responses for authenticity, channels, AI, transactions, staff processes, and enforcement abuse.

Section 6 — Profiles, Identity & Authenticity

A confusing profile normally receives a change request. Impersonation, fabricated evidence, dangerous hoaxes, false accusations, or synthetic identity abuse may receive a warning, restriction, temporary ban, or permanent ban when used for fraud, harassment, or substantial harm.

Section 7 — Channels, Spam & Promotion

Low-level channel misuse usually starts with deletion or warning. Flooding, repeated unsolicited “check DMs” requests, advertising, feature abuse, or evasion may trigger warnings and threshold actions. Raids, nuking, malicious tooling, coordinated disruption, grooming attempts, phishing, or scam-driven DM redirection may bypass warnings and result in a temporary or permanent ban.

Section 8 — Voice, Streaming & AI

Ordinary voice disruption or unlabelled low-impact synthetic content: correction or warning. Undisclosed AI art, false authorship, prohibited AI contest entries, imitation, or misleading commission samples are warnable and may lose posting, competition, or marketplace access. AI-enabled fraud, forged evidence, non-consensual sexual imagery, sexualised minor content, blackmail, or serious identity and safety harm may result in an immediate permanent ban and external reports.

Section 9 — Activities & Transactions

Misformatted events or incomplete listings may receive correction. Prize manipulation, payment deception, stolen work, exploitative recruitment, repeated begging, bribery, fraudulent fundraising, or transaction scams may receive warnings, access removal, restitution-related evidence preservation, temporary ban, or permanent ban for deliberate or large-scale fraud.

Section 10 — Staff, Reports & Enforcement

Failure to follow a reasonable direction may receive a warning. False reports, evidence tampering, retaliation, ban-evasion assistance, staff bribery, confidentiality breaches, abuse of moderation tools, or deliberate audit alteration may receive immediate restriction, removal from staff, temporary ban, or permanent ban according to role, intent, and harm.

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5. Bans, Appeals & Case Review

Temporary and permanent bans, evasion, appeals, corrections, and required case records.

Temporary bans

Temporary bans separate a member while risk cools down, an investigation completes, or demonstrated change is required. The notice should state the rule basis, duration, case reference, material conditions for return, and appeal route where disclosure is safe.

Permanent bans

A permanent ban may be used for child sexual exploitation or grooming, credible severe threats, swatting, doxxing with serious risk, malware or credential theft, destructive raids or nuking, serious or repeated fraud, severe hate or extremist activity, ban evasion, fabricated evidence causing major harm, or AI-generated content used for sexual exploitation, financial fraud, blackmail, or comparable deliberate harm. This list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

Evasion and proxy participation

Using alternate accounts, borrowed accounts, relays, bots, reactions, or third parties to participate during an active restriction is evasion. Staff may extend the restriction, ban linked accounts, revoke return eligibility, and act against knowing assistants. Passing one concise appeal through an approved route is not permission for ongoing proxy participation.

Appeals

Submit appeals only through Support. Include the case reference, disputed finding, specific factual or procedural error, relevant evidence, and requested remedy. Do not harass staff, evade a restriction, recruit supporters, submit duplicates, or fabricate evidence. Where practical, a qualified person not responsible for the disputed decision should review the appeal.

Corrections and accountability

If material evidence or procedure was wrong, staff should correct the record, reverse or reduce the action where appropriate, restore affected access when safe, and document why. Privacy, reporter safety, detection methods, and another member’s history may limit what can be disclosed publicly.

Practical guide

Consequences scale with conduct and history. Lower tiers address minor disruption; severe behavior can move directly to removal.

Key actions

• Read the action notice
• Stop the behavior immediately
• Do not evade restrictions
• Appeal only through the official process

Can staff skip a punishment tier?

Yes. Severity, immediate risk, repeated conduct, evasion, or multiple simultaneous violations may justify a higher tier.

Keep in mind:

• Warnings use a rolling record
• Evasion is a separate violation
• Expired warnings may remain as history