Ban appeals
Let banned members ask to be unbanned from your public server page, get notified in a staff channel, and review every appeal from your dashboard.
On this page
- Before you start
- Set it up
- Set it up from Discord
- Settings explained
- What the banned member sees
- Reviewing appeals
- Examples
- Troubleshooting
- The banned member doesn't see the appeal button
- The button is greyed out
- "We could not verify an active ban for your account on this server."
- Appeals arrive in the inbox but not in Discord
- An image wouldn't upload
- An attachment link says I don't have access
- Related
Ban appeals give banned members a fair, organised way to ask for a second chance, without DMing your staff or making new accounts. They fill in a form on your server's public page, Buddy posts it to a staff channel, and your team reviews it in one inbox on the dashboard.
Before you start#
Appeals need two other things in place:
- A public server listing. The appeal button lives on your server's page in the Discord Buddy directory, so Show in directory must be enabled on Server listing.
- A ban Buddy knows about. The button only shows for someone whose latest record in Buddy is a ban: a
/ban, a ban made with Discord's ban button while Buddy was in your server, or an auto-ban. Bans from before Buddy joined aren't known, so those members can't appeal.
Set it up#
It's under Moderation in the sidebar.
In Appeal settings, switch on Enable ban appeals.
Choose Minimum hours since ban (how long after a ban someone must wait) and Cooldown between appeals (hours).
Pick a private Staff notification channel, and optionally Roles to ping.
Click Save settings. Banned members now see a Ban appeal button on your server page.
Set it up from Discord#
Run /setup feature:Ban Appeals (or /setup → Moderation & safety → Edit next to
Ban appeals). Press Appeals to turn them on or off, pick the Staff channel and
Roles to ping from the menus, and press Waiting times to change the wait after a ban and
the cooldown. The panel also shows how many appeals are waiting and warns you if your server
isn't listed publicly yet. Reviewing appeals is still done in the dashboard inbox.
Settings explained#
| Setting | What it does | Default |
|---|---|---|
| Enable ban appeals | Shows the appeal button to banned members on your public server page. Nobody else sees it. | Off |
| Minimum hours since ban | How long a member must wait after their ban before they can appeal. 0 means straight away. | 0 |
| Cooldown between appeals (hours) | After an appeal is decided, how long until the same member can send another. Counted from when they submitted the last one. | 24 |
| Staff notification channel | Where Buddy posts each new appeal. Without one, appeals still arrive in your inbox, you just don't get a Discord message. | None |
| Roles to ping | Roles mentioned when a new appeal is posted. | None |
What the banned member sees#
The member logs in to Discord Buddy with Discord and opens your server's page. If they're eligible, they see a Ban appeal button. The form asks for:
| Field | Required | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Discord user ID | Yes | Filled in from their login and can't be changed, so nobody can appeal for someone else. |
| Discord username | Yes | |
| Display name or tag | No | |
| Contact email | No | Shown to your staff so you can reply outside Discord. |
| Why should the ban be reconsidered? | Yes | Up to 600 characters. |
| Context or additional details | Yes | Up to 1200 characters. |
| Links | No | Evidence links or message URLs. |
| Image evidence | No | Up to 3 images, PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, each under 4MB. |
They must tick the box confirming the details are accurate, then click Submit appeal.
A member can only have one appeal waiting at a time. While it's open or under review, the button reads Appeal submitted and the page shows its current status. The button is also disabled, with a note, while the Minimum hours since ban or the Cooldown is still running.
Reviewing appeals#
New appeals are posted to your Staff notification channel within about a minute, and always appear in the Appeal inbox on the Ban appeals page.
The inbox shows Open appeals by default. Use the status filter, the search box (user, ID or reason) or Refresh.
Click View to see the full reason, context, attachments, contact email and any notes.
Pick a status under Update status, add Internal staff notes for your team, and optionally a Response for records. Click Save update.
Changing the status doesn't unban anyone. Run /unban (or use Discord's ban list) yourself.
| Status | Use it for |
|---|---|
| Open | New, not looked at yet. |
| Under Review | Someone is looking into it. The member still can't send another appeal. |
| Accepted | You decided to unban them. |
| Denied | You decided to keep the ban. |
| Closed | Finished for any other reason (duplicate, spam, resolved elsewhere). |
Buddy doesn't email or DM the member when you change the status. The Response for records box is for keeping a copy of what you told them. If they left a Contact email, you can reply there, or message them once they're unbanned.
Examples#
What your staff see in the notification channel:
@Moderators New ban appeal submitted.
Add a line to your rules channel like "Banned? Appeal on our Discord Buddy page. We review appeals within 3 days." It saves your staff a lot of DMs.
Troubleshooting#
The banned member doesn't see the appeal button#
- Enable ban appeals must be on and saved.
- Your server listing must be public (Show in directory on Server listing).
- The member must be logged in to Discord Buddy with the same Discord account that was banned.
- Buddy must have a record of the ban. If they were banned before Buddy joined your server, unban and re-ban them with
/banto create one.
The button is greyed out#
They already have an appeal waiting, the Minimum hours since ban hasn't passed, or the Cooldown between appeals is still running. The page tells them roughly how many hours are left.
"We could not verify an active ban for your account on this server."#
Buddy's latest record for that account is an unban, or there's no ban on record at all.
Appeals arrive in the inbox but not in Discord#
Pick a Staff notification channel and save. Buddy needs View Channel, Send Messages and Embed Links there. It checks for new appeals every minute.
An image wouldn't upload#
Each image must be PNG, JPG, GIF or WebP, under 4MB and at most 4096 pixels on each side (12 megapixels in total), with no more than 3 per appeal. Buddy saves a cleaned copy without photo metadata such as location, and animated GIFs keep only their first frame.
An attachment link says I don't have access#
Uploaded images are private. Only the person who sent the appeal and the server's Administrators can open them, after logging in to the website.