Blocking someone, and reporting them
Two different actions for two different problems, and which one to reach for.
Blocking is for you. Reporting is for us. They solve different problems and neither replaces the other — if somebody is behaving badly, the useful move is usually both.
Blocking
Right-click a person — their name, their avatar, their message — and choose Block user. You stop seeing them, and they can no longer reach you directly.
Blocking is silent: nobody is told they have been blocked, and nothing about it appears on your profile. It is also reversible from the same menu with Unblock user.
What blocking does not do is remove them from a server you are both in, or tell anybody that something went wrong. For that, report.
Reporting
Right-click and choose Report user, Report message or Report server, depending on what the problem actually is. Pick a reason, add anything that helps, and send it.
Choose the narrowest thing that fits. A single message is easier to act on than a whole account, and a report attached to the exact thing you saw is worth more than a description of it.
What happens to a report. We keep it, and a snapshot of what was reported. The snapshot matters: content is usually deleted within minutes of somebody noticing it, and a report with nothing behind it cannot be reviewed. A person reads reports — nothing here is decided by a machine.
We may not tell you what came of it. Often we cannot: what happens to someone else’s account is their business, not yours. That is not indifference.
When it is urgent
If someone is in danger, or the content involves a child, do not rely on the in-app report queue — write straight to [email protected]. That address is read by a person, and material that sexualises children is reported to the authorities rather than merely removed.
If you are the one in danger, contact your local emergency services first. We are a chat service; there is nothing we can do that they cannot do faster.
Servers have their own moderation
A server is run by whoever created it, and its moderators can time somebody out, kick or ban them inside that server. That is usually the fastest route for something happening in one community — the people with the power to fix it are already there.
We step in where the rules of Cordice or the law are broken, not to settle a disagreement about how somebody runs their own room. The community guidelines describe the line.