Warnings

With the belief that the role of enforcement should primarily be to educate, BuiltByBit utilizes a points based "Warning" system which is intended to allow our users to learn from their mistakes while still being held accountable for preventing them from occurring again. Under this system, only the most severe of violations will result in an immediate permanent ban. This allows users who’ve performed minor violations to continue accessing the site as normal until they exceed a threshold which will temporarily suspend them for an increasing amount of time, allowing them the chance to reflect on their actions, familiarize themselves with our policies, and position themselves to avoid future violations. If someone is unable to better their behavior, the points will accrue and inevitably lead to the termination of their account, as they will have proven themselves unable to be trusted to abide by the polices meant to keep our community safe.

Suspensions​

Receiving a warning doesn't necessarily mean receiving a suspension. The majority of rule violations, by themselves, won’t result in enough points to result in a suspension. Suspensions only take effect after a certain threshold is reached. More serious violations do result in enough points to active an instant suspension.

If your account is suspended, it is because you have surpassed the following thresholds:


Suspensions are automatic and cannot be manually placed, lifted or reduced. This is to ensure fair treatment of all our members. Once suspended, the forums will become "read-only". Meaning you will be mostly unable to interact with the site outside of tickets, transaction disputes and conversations in which you are already a participant.

Also note that many warning points will expire. Expired warning points are no longer counted by the system and so it is possible to hit a lower suspension threshold multiple times, ensuring that our long term members don’t continue to have minor violations from several years ago held against them. Expired points will still be viewable from the "Warnings" tab of your profile, only visible to you and staff members.

Appeals​

Warning appeals should occur as soon after it is placed as is possible, and should take place within a ticket. When appealing a warning, please link to the conversation within your ticket, and ensure that you are only appealing if the warning was falsely placed. Being regretful does not mean that the warning was issued falsely.
Appeals for any user other than yourself will be denied.
Appeals for warnings received unreasonably long ago will be denied.
Appeals for prior violations, which due to new policies will no longer be considered a violation, will be denied unless otherwise announced.

If you feel that a warning you received was issued falsely, create a ticket politely addressing the staff member who issued it. Remember that they are there to ensure fairness and the safety of the entire community. State your reasons for disagreeing with the decision to issue a warning, provide all available evidence to support your claims, and ask that the warning be reconsidered.
If the staff member's final decision is that your actions were deserving of a warning you may request for the ticket to be escalated to a higher ranking staff member for review. Patiently await a response. If the decision of the staff member is validated, do respect that decision and accept the warning you've received. Ensure that your actions, which resulted in the warning, are not repeated.

Verbal Warnings​

With respect to the goal of educating before issuing punishments, the staff team is instructed to always provide lenience where there is reason to believe that the user:

1. Was unaware that the rule applied to them in their instance.
2. Did not have any malicious intentions behind their actions.

For most rule violations, lenience means being given a verbal warning rather than warning points. Verbal warnings do not count towards suspensions or bans, and are solely meant to educate the user so that they may avoid similar violations in the future.

Having been previously verbally warned about a violation would result in the first criteria failing to be true a second time, thus, if you have been verbally warned for something, expect to receive warning points if the same rule is violated again. All verbal warnings are logged, and so the next staff member to notice the same violation will know to escalate to warning points.

There are several serious violations where the warning itself is our expression of lenience and where warning points will be issued only when the criteria for lenience is satisfied. The consequence for violating these rules when out criteria for lenience doesn’t apply will always be a permanent ban:

• 3.4 Do not offer to giveaway any item or service which you do not own or have the right to redistribute.
• 4.3 Do not offer/request/promote anything you do not own or have the right to redistribute.
• 5.4 Do not submit resource files which contain malware, viruses, or any other malicious program or script.
• 5.6 Do not include content which you do not have the right to redistribute.

Lastly, note that for violations which occur in chat, only when they result in a verbal warning will a temporary chat ban not be issued. If warning points are issued, a chat ban will always accompany it. Users who frequently violate our rules within chat are subject to consideration for a permanent chat ban.

Warning Points​

Every site rule has a warning point value associated with it. You may view the rules here: https://builtbybit.com/wiki/rules/
If in the future these point values change, the amount retained for past violations will not unless otherwise announced.

The current point values for each of these rules are as follows:

Once again, these values are subject to change.
Note that the labels used for these warnings have been simplified for reading purposes. These warning labels do not strictly define the rules which govern the platform, and you should therefore always look to the official rules page and TOS for the current and accurate definitions.

If you have any questions regarding how to interpret one of our rules, or if you are unsure if one of our rules will apply to you in a particular situation, please responsibly create a ticket to request the guidance of one of our staff members and avoid potentially receiving a warning for a violation which could have been avoided.