Appeals

Most scam posts come from hijacked accounts that belong to real people. Once they've secured their account, they can undo Howie's action themselves, without waiting on your moderators.

How it works

1. Howie sends a DM. Just before it bans, kicks or times out an account, Howie DMs it a link to howie.lol/appeal. It sends at most one of these DMs per account every 30 days, and none for a post it only deletes.
2. They sign in with Discord. The page lists every ban, kick and timeout Howie applied to their account, in every server, and whether each is still in effect.
3. They undo it. After a quick check that they're human, one button undoes Howie's actions in every server that allows appeals. A banned or kicked account can then get a single-use invite back in, which expires after an hour. Howie offers one only while they aren't back in your server, for a week after the undo, and makes at most three per undo.

Howie only ever undoes its own actions. If a moderator has since banned, kicked or timed out the account themselves, Howie leaves that alone.

Limits

The page is for people whose account was taken over, not for scammers to undo their way back in. So:

• Once every 30 days. An account can use the page to undo Howie's actions at most once every 30 days.
• Not after a repeat. If Howie catches the account again after an undo, the page can't undo the new action. Your moderators can still lift it.

If an undo fails, for example because Howie lost a permission, Howie keeps trying every hour for 30 days, and the person can try again too without it counting as a new appeal.

What your server sees

If you have a report channel, Howie posts a card there whenever someone appeals one of its actions in your server:

• Howie undid a ban (or kick or timeout). The undo worked.
• Howie couldn't undo it. With the reason, such as a missing permission. You can lift it yourself.
• Howie left it alone. A moderator has since acted on the account.
• Howie didn't undo it. The limits stopped the appeal. You can still lift it yourself if you trust them.

Every ban or timeout Howie lifts also shows up in your server's Audit Log, with Howie as the one who did it.

Turning appeals off

Appeals are on by default. To turn them off, run /setup and uncheck Allow appeals under Options. Then:

• Accounts Howie acts on in your server don't get the appeal DM.
• The appeal page still lists your server's actions, but says your server doesn't allow appeals and asks them to contact your moderators.

If Howie reviews a post and finds it wasn't a scam, it still undoes its own mistake, even with appeals off.

Permissions it uses

• Ban Members and Timeout Members, the same permissions Howie used to act, to lift a ban or timeout.
• View Audit Log, to check that Howie made the ban or timeout, not a moderator. Without it, Howie compares the ban reason or the timeout's end time instead.
• Create Invite, for the single-use invite back in. Without it, Howie offers your server's vanity invite or widget invite instead. It never hands out your server's other invites.

See Permissions for everything Howie asks for.