Ban Appeals

Banned members can appeal through a public page on exceed.bot. Appeals land in a review channel with the context your staff need to decide, and you can approve or deny them from Discord or from the dashboard. It is off by default.

Setup

,appeals needs Manage Server:

,appeals enable                turn appeals on
,appeals channel #appeals      where appeals get posted for review
,appeals rules                 show the current limits
,appeals status                show the current setup
,appeals disable               turn appeals off

Once enabled, the appeal page lives at:

https://exceed.bot/appeal/<server id>

Everything below can also be set on the Ban Appeals dashboard page, which is where the question builder and the review queue live.

Asking your own questions

By default the form is a single box asking why the ban should be lifted. On the dashboard you can replace that with up to eight of your own questions, each either a single line or a long answer, and each optional or required.

Answers arrive in the review channel as separate fields, so you read them as questions and answers rather than one wall of text.

Deciding how many chances people get

,appeals rules attempts 2      how many appeals one member may file
,appeals rules cooldown 168    hours they wait after a denial
,appeals rules wait 24         hours after the ban before they may appeal
,appeals rules window 90       only accept appeals within 90 days of the ban

Attempts default to 1, which is the old behaviour of one appeal ever. Set a cooldown and a higher attempt count if you would rather give people a second chance later instead of a permanent no.

The member is told which of these stopped them, and when they can come back. Someone in a cooldown sees the date rather than a flat refusal.

Telling banned members where to go

When appeals are enabled, the DM exceed sends before a ban includes the appeal link automatically. This applies to ,ban, ,tempban and ,hardban. Nothing to configure. If you use a custom ban DM template, the link is available as {extra.appeal_url}.

Reviewing appeals

Each appeal posts an embed with the member, how old their account is, the ban reason with who banned them and when, their punishment history in the server, which attempt this is, and their answers.

• Approve & unban lifts the ban and DMs the member
• Deny with reason opens a box for a short explanation, which is sent to the member

Both need Manage Server. Set a decision log channel on the dashboard to keep a record of every decision and the reason given.

From Discord:

,appeals list                  appeals waiting for review
,appeals view 12               read one in full
,appeals approve 12 welcome back
,appeals deny 12 not this time
,appeals history @member       every appeal that member has filed

The reason you pass to approve or deny is what the member is shown, so write it for them.

Blocking someone from appealing

Some people only appeal to argue. Block them and the form stops accepting anything from them:

,appeals block @member ban evasion
,appeals unblock @member
,appeals blocks

Blocked members are told they are blocked, and the reason if you gave one. You can unblock from the dashboard too.

Rules exceed enforces

Only banned members can appeal. The appeal page checks Discord's ban list before accepting a submission. If the bot cannot reach Discord or lacks Ban Members permission, the check fails open and the appeal is allowed rather than wrongly rejected.

One appeal open at a time. A member with an appeal in the queue cannot file another, whatever their attempt count.

Limits are checked again on submission. The page and the form both apply your rules, so an old tab cannot be used to slip past a cooldown.

Appeals require the member to sign in with Discord, so submissions are always tied to a real account. Members can see their own appeals, the reason behind each decision, and when they may appeal again on their account page.