Hello Everyone. This post is due to my recent experience with getting banned, trying to appeal a ban for the first time, and my recent interactions with the Moderators. I've also talked with other individuals about their experience with FAF moderation and appeals which motivated me to make this post.

I was banned! On 23/09/2025, I was banned for "Abuse of Union Mode." The ban description was very vague so I was under the assumption I was banned for when I played a GAP game and took control on someone's Navy HQ to stop Neptune Spam vs Infinite T3 Sera subs and have the HQ begin making coopers as I was already amassing destros from my Navy HQ so we did not NEED Neptunes.

Originally when I planned to make this post, I was going to entirely focus on my experience with the appeal process. If the mods thought I deserved a ban for something, I was just going to take my ban and move on. As I began to discuss my ban with other people, they told me about their experiences with getting banned and the inconsistent rulings they've received that contrasted with my own experience.

I've gotten banned before and just took the ban when others told me to appeal. This was the first time I had been banned for this long, 7 days, so I figured I would go ahead and give it a shot. Why not?

I have blocked all names in the screenshots besides my own as the intent is to not start a witch hunt for individual mods but to bring attention to the banned and appeal process as a whole. If the individuals in these screenshots recognize their messages and wish to chime in, they are of course free to do so.

As it turns out, I was banned for using Union Control to Ctrl K someone else's commander. Okay. That is a valid ban for sure. If someone did that to me, I would be annoyed and report them. My only excuse is that if you watch the replay, the game was over with no chance of coming back. It was late and I wanted to everyone to just move on to the next one. If anyone has ever played a game with Terarii, they understand the pain of people dragging out an obviously lost game. That being said: That is still an excuse, I shouldn't have Ctrl K'd a commander that was not mine.

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My issue now with this ban is consistency and the too often used phrase: "case-by-case basis". Case-by-case basis should not be the de-facto when moderating. Consistency needs to be set and case-by-case basis should not be used as often as I see and am told by other FAF members who have been banned and then appealed.

Here are 2 screenshots of when I was talking about my ban with another individual on a discord, they mentioned that they reported someone abusing union control to kill their commander 2 different times. Once was moving the com which resulted in a death and the other was a straight up Ctrl K... the same thing I was banned for. The inconsistency is I was banned for 7 days when I had never been banned for this before but this person who reported union control abuse was told: "because host has enabled union control, we can not take such actions".

So which is it? Bannable offense or "we can't take such actions"? or let me guess: Case-By-Case basis?

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Alright. So, I'm banned. Waiting out my days and on Saturday, a couple people asked me why I did not try to appeal it. Let's try.

My ticket is submitted at 2:01 PM on a Saturday afternoon. I do my best to be polite and apologize for the unban as I understand they don't have to unban me. I was expecting a quick no but that was not my experience. I actually would have just preferred a quick no however my experience makes me never want to try to appeal again.

This is my first ever appeal and I did see "processing your appeal might take a moment" however I was not expecting the wait I experienced. My thought process is that message for the people hitting up mods 10 minutes after their appeal is posted

An hour and a half after my appeal is submitted, while there is 1 Admin and 8 Moderators online, no response. So, I figured maybe they are busy and just did not see the appeal request. They are volunteers, right?

I private messaged 4 moderators total regarding this ban and appeal process and only 2 responded. "Moderator A" was the most responsive, helpful, and polite out of all of them. 2 of the Moderators have still not even acknowledged my direct message as of 23/09/2025.

I want to point out that when he responded to my direct messages he said I was second in line for ban appeals. and "shouldn't take too long". I guess I should have asked him to clarify how long long is.

Moderator A finally looks at my appeal and types that they've received my appeal and are working on it... and that I will receive an answer with seven to fourteen days? possible 14 days for a simple ban appeal? when I'm 2nd in line and "shouldn't take too long". I would say that's probably an automated message or automated deadline they give to every appeal but that is hilariously long when I'm assuming most bans they give out are less than 2 weeks.

Oh hey! The second moderator I mentioned above finally replied to my DM... and they basically told me to fuck off. My bad for asking you to do your duty as a Moderator.

Side Note: One of the people I talked to was banned for 7 days for Toxicity but I've literally seen Moderator C flame the shit one of my friends at time in a mapgen calling them a 1600 noob. A bit hypocritical.

It has been 33 hours since my appeal has been submitted and 26 hour since my appeal has been acknowledged. Keep in mind this was over the weekend where at all times there were at least 4 Moderators on at all times. I was checking so its not like no one was on to receive a quick DM from another moderator: "Hey do you have 10 minutes to discuss this appeal we received?". I don't know how a ban appeal discussion could take longer than 10m.

Hallelujah! A decision has been made and sent to the ticket for myself to see! ...a whole 4 minutes before my ban is lifted. Surely they took all this time to come to a tough decision to approve my appeal right? No, its a denial. This feels more like they were just stringing me along until right before my ban expires. I would've rather just received an immediate no.

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This last screenshot is... from me crashing out in FAF General after I expressed my dissatisfaction about ban to another person who was banned with NO reason listed. you can not make this shit up. He is one of the regular GAP 2ks and he's just banned with no reason mentioned. As I was expressing my dissatisfaction, Moderator C decided to chime in and start discussing the ban and appeal process with me. He made some valid points but also had some excuses which were silly in my opinion.

The "we're volunteers" is so weak. Correct, you ARE volunteers. You volunteered to take time out of your day to moderate this community. No one is forcing you but if you're going to moderate, at least be attentive. You don't need to be on 24/7 to get things done in a timely manner. 9 people capable of reviewing the appeal were off and on over almost 3 days fighting back and forth over the TOUGH decision of my appeal. If you can't handle the appeals currently, maybe its time to get some new mods to help out with the flow of bans/appeals.

Moderator C then goes on to say that they had a whopping 14 tickets over the weekend. Okay, that is a decent amount. You know what would help that? If you didn't have these policies about 2 different moderators needing to review an appeal and those 2 moderators can't be associated with the original ban. Why can't one of the original moderators have been the one who did the original ban? If the moderators are consistent and impartial, it should not matter. That's the problem with the moderation's teams consistency. They have all this "case-by-case" basis and inconsistency that leads to them needing to have a bunch of checks and balances which heavily slows down the appeal process which in my opinion should not take so long to review for a 17-year old RTS game.

That's all I really have to say about this topic. Feel free to share your thoughts. Have a nice night.