Reporting policy
How submissions are handled, what makes a report usable, and the grounds on which one is rejected.
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What ReportBase documents
ReportBase accepts reports concerning serious abuse: threats to cause an emergency services response at someone’s address, threats to publish private information, extortion, credible threats of violence, account compromise and credential theft, sustained harassment, and impersonation.
It does not document interpersonal disputes, disagreements about moderation decisions, matters of taste, or conduct that is merely rude. A report about one of those will be rejected, and rejecting it is not a judgement about whether the conduct was pleasant.
What makes a report usable
- Firsthand material. Something you saw or received directly is worth far more than a screenshot forwarded to you. Say plainly which it is.
- The platform user ID. Usernames change. Without the numeric account ID, a report often cannot be attached to the right account at all.
- Unedited captures. Include surrounding context rather than a single cropped line. A crop that removes what came before it is not usable, and reviewers will treat it as weak evidence.
- Dates. When the incident happened, as precisely as you can manage.
- Accurate description. Describe what happened, not what you infer from it.
What will cause a report to be rejected
- Knowingly false allegations. Submitting a report you know to be untrue is the most serious misuse of this platform.
- Exaggeration. Overstating what the material shows undermines the entire report, including the parts that were accurate.
- Unrelated private information. Do not include a person’s address, workplace, phone number, financial details, or information about their family. It will not be published, and including it can cause the whole submission to be discarded.
- Retaliation. Do not use a submission as a step in an ongoing conflict. Do not contact, threaten or organise action against the person you are reporting.
- Bulk or coordinated submissions. Multiple submissions about the same account from a coordinated group do not strengthen a report; they are treated as one report and may be rejected entirely.
How a submission is reviewed
Nothing submitted appears on the public site automatically. Every submission enters a moderation queue and is assessed by a person.
- The submission is checked against any existing record for the same platform user ID, so reports about one account stay together.
- Attached material is examined. The reviewer records an assessment of its quality — from Insufficient through to Independently corroborated — describing the evidence rather than the truth of the allegation.
- Anything containing private information is either withheld or a redacted display copy is prepared. The original is retained privately and is never published.
- A reviewer may reject the submission, ask you for more information, mark it a duplicate, or approve it for publication.
A report that is approved is published with wording that describes what was alleged and what the evidence shows. It will not describe the account holder as having committed an offence.
Your contact details
Your email address is required so a reviewer can come back to you with questions. It is stored privately, is never published, and is never disclosed to the person you are reporting. See the privacy notice for how long it is kept.
If you are reporting something urgent
ReportBase is not an emergency service and does not monitor submissions in real time. If someone is in immediate danger, contact your local emergency number. If an account is actively breaking a platform’s rules, report it to that platform as well — a ReportBase record is not a substitute for a platform report.