Kotbo 4 min read
How to warn someone on Discord, and when to mute or ban instead
Discord has no warn button: it can time out (mute), kick and ban. A warning is a written notice, kept somewhere so the next mod sees it. With Kotbo as your Discord warn bot, you run /sanction warn and the warning lands in the member’s record with its reason
Included in every plan, with a 15-day trial and no credit card
What Discord does without a bot
Right-click a member and Discord offers three sanctions. They work, but none of them remembers what happened before
Timeout
This is Discord’s mute: the member can still read but can’t post, react or talk in voice. Discord caps it at 28 days
Kick
It removes the member from the server. They can come back with any invite
Ban
It keeps that account out and can delete recent messages. It lasts until a mod lifts it
What’s missing
No warnings, no timed bans and no record per member. The audit log keeps actions, but it isn’t built to follow someone over months
Building a punishment ladder
A punishment ladder is the rule that tells staff what to do on the second, third or fifth offense. It stops one mod from banning where another would have warned. A few principles that hold up
- Put the ladder in your rules, so members know it before it hits them
- Go up one step with each repeat offense: warn, short mute, long mute, kick, ban
- Keep offenses apart: spam and insults don’t weigh the same
- Every sanction has a reason, and the heavy ones have evidence
- Let old warnings age out, or a mistake from two years ago still counts
Kotbo’s sanction commands
Everything goes through /sanction, available by default to members who can time others out. Durations are written the way you say them: 30m, 2h, 3d, 1 week. Option names are in French
/sanction warn- Adds a warning with the membre and raison options. The gravite option weighs it: minor (1 point), normal (2 points) or severe (3 points)
/sanction to- Times the member out for the given duration (the duree option). Kotbo renews the timeout when it has to last longer than Discord allows
/sanction kick- Kicks the member, with a required reason
/sanction tempban- Bans for a set duration, then Kotbo lifts the ban when it ends
/sanction ban- Bans permanently, with a required reason
/sanction softban- Bans then unbans right away, to wipe the last 7 days of messages without keeping the member out
/sanction list- Shows a member’s sanction history
Sanction tables: the ladder applied for you
With /sanction tableau, you give the member and a table name, and Kotbo applies the next tier on its own. It counts the sanctions already received in that table, and past the last tier it repeats the last one. The bypass option forces a specific tier. Two tables exist from the start, editable on the dashboard’s Sanctions page
The Spam table
A warning, then a one-hour timeout, then 24 hours, then a kick, then a ban
The Insults table
A warning, then a 12-hour timeout, then 3 days, then a kick, then a ban
Warnings that age
In the settings, a warning can stop counting after a number of days, or be archived automatically. An archived sanction stays on file but no longer moves the ladder up
Sanctioning properly, step by step
The command isn’t everything. Here is the routine that heads off disputes
-
Check the record
/casier voir opens the member’s file in tabs: summary, sanctions, identity, activity. Buttons there start a warn, timeout, kick or ban directly
-
Summon them if it needs a talk
/summon opens a discussion thread with the member and gives them a deadline, 48 hours by default. If they don’t reply, Kotbo alerts the mods, warns them or times them out for 24 hours, depending on the expiration option
-
Apply the sanction with its reason
A reason is required on every /sanction. Write it for the mod who reads the record six months from now
-
Write the report with evidence
If sanction reports are on, the mod who acted fills in a report on the dashboard: rules broken, what happened, evidence links. Without a report they get a reminder after 3 days, and managers are told after 7
-
Keep the context
/note adds a moderator note on the member, visible to staff, for things that don’t deserve a sanction but should be known
What the record does on top
A sanction in Kotbo is more than a line. It sets off a few things you configure once
- If the member has linked alt accounts, the sanction applies to them too
- A warning threshold can start an automatic identity check
- /clear deletes 1 to 100 messages in a channel, or only one member’s, within Discord’s 14-day limit
- Members can appeal their sanctions if you turn appeals on