Moderation and appeals
How questions and answers are moderated in the CIVIC FORUM, what gets recorded when something is removed, and exactly how to ask for that decision to be looked at again.
What moderation can do
A question or an answer can be hidden from public view, with the reason for it stored alongside the post. Nothing is deleted outright and staff never rewrite what a member wrote — the two available outcomes are that a post stays visible or that it stops being visible.
An author can edit their own answer for 15 minutes after posting. Every edit keeps the earlier wording, and the answer is marked as edited from then on, so an answer that has been cited cannot quietly change.
What is recorded
A removal records the reason it was applied, the time it happened, and what it applied to — one question, or one answer. The moderator is recorded as a staff role rather than a person's name, because moderating here is a function of the role and not a personal position.
The state of an appeal is not recorded in the product yet. Until the in-product workflow is built, appeals are tracked by hand by TOKUMA staff, and this published page is the route.
How you find out
A removed question or answer stops being visible, including to you, and a line appears on your activity record saying that a post of yours was removed. That line, with its date, is the reference point for an appeal.
How to appeal a decision
An appeal is a second reading of one decision. Anyone whose question or answer was removed can ask for one, and there is no deadline while the manual route is in use.
Note what was removed
Take the reference of the question — the code beginning CF-QA in its address — and the date the removal appeared on your activity record. An appeal that names neither takes much longer to answer.
Write to TOKUMA
No address is published for this yet. TOKUMA has not confirmed a support address, so none is printed here rather than invented. This is the open item on this page, and it is the one thing that has to close before a removal is applied to anybody.
Say what you think was misapplied
Quote the reason you were given and say why it does not fit what you wrote. Adding new material to the original post is a new post, not an appeal.
A person reads it
Content and privacy questions are reviewed by Ingeborg Rocker. Questions about a file you uploaded are reviewed by Anay Patel. No response time is published yet; when one is agreed it will be stated on this page.
You are told the outcome
You get the decision and the reason for it through the same channel, wherever it is safe and lawful to give one. If the removal is reversed, the post becomes visible again with the wording it always had.
Reporting something you have read
There is no report control in the forum yet. Until one is built, use the same channel as an appeal and quote the reference of the question — the code in its address, beginning CF-QA.
Not built yet
Two things named here do not exist in the product: an appeal form inside the portal, and a written content policy setting out the rules a post is judged against. Both are listed rather than implied, so nobody has to guess which parts of this page are live.