Strikes & Appeals

This is the enforcement reference for the Community Guidelines and Community Policy. It answers, precisely: what happens after a violation, how strikes accumulate, exactly what "banned and deleted" means, and how to contest any decision.

1. The principle

The ordinary ladder is public and countable: a first confirmed violation warns, a second may restrict, and a third may end the account. Severe cases, legal duties, credible danger, or coordinated abuse can justify faster action.

2. What earns a strike

A strike is issued when review confirms content or conduct violating the Community Guidelines. One violating post equals one strike — even if ten people reported it. Multiple distinct rule breaches inside one post may be recorded as a single strike covering the most severe category.

Examples that earn strikes

• A political debate thread → strike under Guidelines §3.1.
• Proselytizing or mocking a faith → strike under §3.2.
• Targeted insults, slurs, or dogpiling → strike under §2.2–2.3.
• Threats or violent glorification → strike under §2.1.
• Explicit sexual material → strike under §2.5.
• Weapon sales promotion → strike under §6.1.
• Spam floods, fake engagement, or undisclosed shilling → strike under §4.2 / §6.3.
• Scam pitches, fake traction, phishing → strike under §4.3.
• Posting someone's private details → strike under §5.1.
• Impersonation or fabricated identity → strike under §4.1.
• Passing off others' work as your own → strike under Part VII.

What does not earn a strike

• Content removed at your own request.
• Borderline content a reviewer judged acceptable after appeal.
• False reports made against you in bad faith — the reporter earns consequences instead.
• Mistakes by automation, once reversed on appeal (see Section 6).

3. Strike one

• The violating content is removed from the platform.
• You receive a written notice stating: the rule broken, the exact content involved, and why it violates that rule.
• Your account otherwise functions normally.
• The notice includes appeal instructions with a 14-day window.

Nothing else happens. Strike one exists to teach the rules, not punish — but it counts.

4. Strike two

• The violating content is removed.
• Posting restrictions apply: reduced limits on posting frequency and links until you contact support or a review period passes without new violations.
• Your account enters closer review: future borderline content gets human eyes rather than automated benefit of the doubt.
• The same written notice and 14-day appeal window apply.

5. Strike three — ban and deletion

The third confirmed strike ends membership permanently:

1. Ban: access to the account is terminated immediately. Sessions are revoked; re-authentication fails.
2. Deletion: the account is deleted from active systems — profile, threads, replies, uploaded media, communities owned, follows, and messages are handled under the standard retention process described in the Privacy Notice.
3. Notice: where legally possible, a final notification states the third strike's cause before deletion completes, so the appeal right (below) remains meaningful.
4. No return: re-registration while banned constitutes evasion; such accounts are removed on detection without separate process.

In short: three strikes and your account is going to be banned and deleted from the platform. There is no fourth strike because there is no fourth chance.

6. Appeals

Every enforcement action can be appealed. Every single one.

How to appeal

1. Email safety@alpha-app.online within 14 days of the decision, from any address if your account is already restricted.
2. Include your username and the decision notice date.
3. Say plainly why you believe the decision was wrong — context we missed, a misreading of the content, automation error, anything relevant.

What happens next

• A human reviewer who did not make the original decision reads the case fresh.
• We aim to decide standard appeals within 7 days and prioritize cases where a restriction or ban is active. Complex, safety-sensitive, or legally constrained cases can take longer.
• Outcomes: upheld (with fuller reasoning), reversed, or adjusted (e.g., strike stands, restriction lifted).

If an appeal succeeds

• Content is restored where technically possible.
• The strike is erased completely — it never existed, including for history-weighting purposes.
• Restrictions lift immediately; deleted accounts are reinstated with data restoration wherever the erasure window still permits.

If an appeal fails

The original decision stands. You may submit one further appeal only if you have genuinely new information — evidence, context, or documentation not available earlier.

7. Zero-tolerance cases

The categories listed in Community Policy §10 — child exploitation, credible threats, terrorism, coordinated fraud, doxxing campaigns, ban-evasion infrastructure — bypass the strike system entirely. Immediate ban, immediate deletion, no warning stage. Appeals remain available, because even here we accept we could have the facts wrong — but the account does not stay live during the appeal.

8. Restrictions, precisely

9. Reporting abuse of this system

• Mass-false-reporting a member to pile up strikes they didn't earn is itself a violation and earns the reporter strikes.
• Coordinated "strike farming" against anyone — staff included — is treated as harassment.

10. Contact

Enforcement questions and appeals: safety@alpha-app.online. Please put "Appeal" in the subject line so it routes fastest.