Appeal
When should I use appeal?
You should use lichess.org/appeal if your account has been restricted, banned, closed, or otherwise marked by Lichess moderators and you wish to appeal the decision. We will only respond to appeals from affected accounts or their associated e-mail addresses. We never respond to third-party appeals.
The appeal page will tell you whether your account is restricted for one of the following reasons:
- Banned for violating the Lichess Terms of Service
- Banned for artificially increasing/decreasing your rating
- Banned from sending messages in game/tournament chats and the forums
- Closed for other reasons (such as ban avoidance, excessive play-bans, or excessive multi-accounting)
If you have a different question, you may find the answer here.
What should I write in my appeal?
Be honest and tell us the truth. Include everything that you think matters for your case. Only send your appeal once, and don't send any more messages unless they contain genuinely helpful additional information. Sending additional messages will definitely not get your appeal dealt with more quickly. It is important to be honest from the start. If at first you deny any wrongdoing, we will treat your appeal accordingly, regardless of whether you change your position afterwards. Don't try to deny things at first only to confess later on. That kind of dishonesty just wastes our time.
Note that if your appeal is denied, you are not permitted to open additional accounts on Lichess.
What does appealing do?
When you appeal a decision that has been made by a Lichess moderator or by one of our automated moderation processes, it will be reviewed by a different moderator. There are no automated elements in the decision review process. Human moderator(s) assess all the relevant evidence that informed the original decision before deciding whether it was justified or not, and informing you of the final outcome.
Why do appeal responses look identical? Am I just writing to a bot?
No. People often think that a bot is responding to their appeal, but that's not true. Human moderators review and respond to every single appeal. However, to save time, they often use preset messages for common responses.
How long do I have to wait for a response?
We try to respond to every appeal within 72 hours.
Why did I not get an answer to my appeal?
We will ignore or mute any appeal that uses offensive language. We also reserve the right to ignore additional messages after we have responded to an appeal with a clear decision. Also, if someone closes their account after appealing, we will not respond to their appeal.
If you are appealing six months or more after a moderator action was taken against your account, we may not be able to investigate it. In circumstances where more than six months have passed since the moderator action, we reserve the right to not investigate the appeal from your account.