Appeals

Overview

With appeals switched on, the DM Aegis sends at the moment of a ban carries an Appeal this ban link to the appeal page on this site. The member signs in there with Discord, writes the appeal, and it lands in the appeals channel as a thread for that person. Staff answer from the thread with buttons. Nobody opens a ticket, and nothing the member types into Aegis's DM goes anywhere.

Appeals are off until you turn them on, because a server may want a ban to be the end of it. They need the switch at the top of the page and a channel to post in; the switch turns itself off if you clear the channel, since there would be nowhere for an appeal to go. Turning them on changes nothing for anyone banned earlier: nobody is messaged, no threads are created, and the ban list is never read. The link exists only inside a ban notice sent at the moment of the ban, so the first appeal a server sees comes from the first ban after setup.

What the Banned Member Sees

1. The ban notice in their DMs, the one your DM on Punishment setting sends, has an Appeal this ban link under it, which opens the appeal page in their browser.
2. They sign in on that page with Discord. Signing in is what proves the appeal came from their account, and it is all Aegis reads. The page then lists every server that banned them and takes appeals.
3. Your server's card on that page holds the form: why the ban should be lifted (required, up to 1,500 characters) and anything else the moderators should know (optional, up to 800). Sending it creates the thread in your appeals channel.
4. The conversation stays on that card, oldest first, and a staff reply appears there within twenty seconds without a refresh. The member answers in the same place with Add a message: one message every ten minutes, up to 1,500 characters, with the wait counted down on screen.
5. Aegis still edits the ban notice in their DMs, so the status shows in Discord as well. There is no notification for that edit, and the page is the only place an appeal can be filed or answered. If they type straight into the DM instead, Aegis tells them the moderators do not see it and points them back at the page.
6. When the appeal is decided the card says what happened: Approved with an invite to rejoin, or Not accepted with the reason (when one was given) and when they may appeal again.

The page refuses politely when there is nothing to appeal. Someone who has since been unbanned is told they need an invite to rejoin, someone blocked from appealing is told the server is not accepting appeals from them, and someone inside the re-appeal wait is told when they can try again. It can also be opened directly at /appeal, so a member whose ban DM was deleted or never arrived can still file one.

What Staff See

A new appeal creates a public thread in the appeals channel named Appeal #<n>: <username>, mentioning the notify role if one is set. The opening post shows who the member is (name and id), when they were banned and by whom (taken from the moderation log, or "Not in the log"), the ban reason, their strike count with the five newest, any previous appeals with the last denial, and the appeal text itself.

Four buttons sit under that post:

A member's reply appears in the thread as a new post, mentioning whichever staff member replied last (or the notify role when nobody has yet), and reopens the thread if it was archived. Each new post carries the live buttons and the previous post loses its own, so the newest post is always the one to act from.

Approving lifts the ban through the same path as /unban, so it is logged as one. The member's panel then shows an invite: the server's vanity URL when it has one, otherwise a single-use invite that expires in seven days, created in the first channel everyone can see. When no channel can issue one, the panel tells them to ask a moderator. A ban lifted any other way while an appeal is open closes that appeal as approved on its own.

Denying leaves a Block further appeals button on the denial post, so the door can be shut later without reopening anything. When two staff press at once, the second is told who decided first and nothing happens twice. If the thread is deleted, the appeal is closed and the member is told so.

Which Bans Offer an Appeal

The link rides on the ban DM, so it appears wherever a ban sends one and the DM on Punishment switch for Ban is on: the moderation menu, /ban, right-click Ban, the Ban button on a Member Reports queue post, bans made from the dashboard, and the automatic ban at the top of the strike ladder (which also needs the ban entry under DM on Auto-Punishment switched on).

Anti-Scam, the Honeypot, and the Verification queue never send a DM, so those bans never offer an appeal.

The built-in auto-punishment text closes with "press Appeal below" for a ban when appeals are set up and "contact the server's moderators" when they are not. A custom message is sent as written, so mention the appeal page yourself if you use one. Problem Reports flags Switched off when appeals are set up but the ban DM is not, since a banned member would never see the link.

Settings

Everything lives on the dashboard under Moderation & Security → Appeals.

Decided appeals are kept for 90 days and open ones stay until decided. Appeals count as moderation data and are removed with the rest when a member's data is wiped.

Keep the Channel Staff-Only

Aegis needs Create Public Threads and Send Messages in Threads in that channel, and Ban Members on the server to lift a ban. Missing any of them shows up in Problem Reports.