What happens when a rule is broken, who decides, what you get told, and how to argue with it.
How Moderation Actually Works
RideLink uses a mix of automatic checks and real human moderators.
Automatic checks run on posts, comments, community icons and map markers as they are created. They catch the obvious and the high-volume, and they are deliberately tuned to be cautious rather than clever.
Reports from riders put an item in front of a human. This is the route that catches everything the automatic checks are too blunt for, which is most of what actually matters.
Community owners and moderators handle their own rooms, within these site-wide rules. They can remove messages and remove members; they cannot make a community exempt from this page.
The Ladder
What happens depends on what was done, whether it has happened before, and how much harm it caused. In rough order:
Content removed. The post, comment, message or marker comes down and you are told why.
Warning and a strike. Recorded on the account. Strikes age out; a pattern does not.
Feature restriction. Posting, messaging or map access paused for a period, while the rest of the app keeps working.
Suspension. The account is paused entirely.
Permanent removal. For the most serious rules, this is the first step and not the last — threats, child safety and non-consensual imagery do not get a warning.
Making a new account to get around a restriction is its own violation, and the new account is removed when it is found.
You Always Get Told What and Why
Nothing happens in the dark. When we act on your content or your account you get a notification that says what was actioned, which rule it was, and what the consequence is. If a restriction has a duration, the notice says how long.
That is deliberate. A rule you find out about by having your post vanish is not a rule, it is a trap.
Think we got it wrong? Appeal it
Moderation is not perfect, and we know it. Every removal notice comes with an appeal button. Tap it, tell us the context, and a moderator takes a fresh look — a different one from whoever made the original call where that is possible. You get a second notification with the outcome either way, whether it is reinstated or upheld. No shouting into the void.
An appeal is a good-faith second look. Filing twenty of them to make a point is spam, and gets treated as spam.
What We Will Not Do
We will not remove a post because somebody disagreed with it. Being wrong about suspension travel is not a violation.
We will not arbitrate a private sale, hold money, or refund anyone. See buying and selling.
We will not hand your personal information to another rider, whatever the dispute.
We will not pretend an automated decision was a human one. If a check removed something automatically, the notice says so and the appeal goes to a person.
Reporting
Report from the item itself — the post, the comment, the message, the marker, the profile. That gives the moderator the context, which a general complaint cannot. Tell us which rule you think it breaks; it is not required, but it makes the call faster and more likely to go the way you expect.
Reporting in bad faith — mass-reporting a rider you are in an argument with, or organizing others to — is itself a violation, and it is easy to see from our side.
