A healthy community depends on fast, fair, and transparent moderation. MateFlow gives admins and moderators a dedicated moderation workspace that brings member reports, automated rules, and a full audit trail together, plus a member appeals flow so enforcement stays accountable. This guide walks through each part and how they fit together.
The report queue
When a member flags a post, comment, or another member, it lands in the moderation report queue. Each report shows the target (with a content preview), the reporter, the reason, and a severity level, and starts in a pending state until a moderator resolves it.
To handle a report:
- Open the queue and select a pending report to see the full context and the target's recent history.
- Choose a resolution action from the resolve dialog.
- For any destructive action, enter a reason โ MateFlow requires one before you can confirm, so the decision is documented.
The available actions depend on where you moderate:
| Action | What it does | Reason required |
|---|---|---|
| Dismiss | Close the report with no action | No |
| Warn | Send the member a warning | No |
| Lock | Lock the reported thread | No |
| Remove | Delete the reported content | Yes |
| Ban from space | Remove the member from a single space | Yes |
| Suspend | Temporarily block the member community-wide | Yes |
| Ban | Permanently block the member community-wide | Yes |
Community admins see the full set. Space-scoped moderators get a narrower toolkit โ dismiss, remove, lock, and ban from space โ so platform-wide suspensions and bans stay with admins.
Auto-moderation rules
Auto-mod rules catch problem content the moment it is posted, before anyone has to report it. Each rule has a type and an action:
- Types: keyword (match specific words, with optional whole-word and case-sensitive settings), regex (match a pattern), and spam (heuristic spam detection).
- Actions: flag (send to the report queue for review), hide (hide the content pending review), or delete (remove it outright).
You can scope a rule to specific spaces or apply it community-wide. For richer coverage, the AI classification settings let you set block (reject) and flag (send to review) thresholds across categories such as harassment, hate, sexual content, violence, and self-harm. Severe categories like sexual content involving minors are treated as compliance-sensitive and should never be silently disabled.
The audit log
Every enforcement decision is recorded in the audit log โ content approvals and rejections, flags, warnings, removals, locks, suspensions, bans, and their reversals (unsuspend, unban). You can filter by action type to review a specific kind of decision, and open any entry to see who acted, on whom, when, and why. This makes it easy to spot patterns, review a moderator's calls, or answer a member's question about an action.
Bans, suspensions, and member restrictions
Beyond the report queue, you can act on a member directly from their profile in the admin area. Suspend applies a time-boxed block โ set the duration in days and an optional reason โ while ban is permanent. Both are fully reversible with unsuspend and unban, and every one of these actions is written to the audit log.
Member appeals
Enforcement should be reversible when it is wrong. A banned member can submit an appeal explaining their side (up to 2,000 characters). Appeals arrive with a pending status; a moderator reviews the case and marks it approved or rejected, optionally attaching an admin note the member can read. This closes the loop and keeps your moderation defensible.
Next steps
- Set up your first rules on the Admin & moderation page.
- Reduce manual work by pairing moderation with automations.
- Read our guide on how to moderate an online community and draft a community code of conduct.
- Define who can take these actions in member roles and permissions.