Moderation
Time out, warn, remove and ban members, handle reports and read the encrypted audit log in a TACENZA Chat group.
Moderation in TACENZA Chat is done by a group’s own members. TACENZA can’t read group messages, so it can’t moderate content – the owner, admins and members with the right roles do. This page covers the tools they have, how reports work, and the audit log.
Who can moderate
- Remove, time out and ban lets a member moderate other members, but only those ranked lower.
- Delete others’ messages lets a member delete any message as a moderator, and skip slow mode.
The owner and admins have both. The Moderator role template in Manage group › Roles is a quick start. See Roles and permissions.
Act on a member
- Open Manage group › Members.
- Choose Manage next to the member.
- Pick an action:
| Action | What happens |
|---|---|
| Time out | For 1 minute, 5 minutes, 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week. They can still read, but can’t post, react, start threads or pin. End timeout lifts it early. |
| Warn | Sends them a private, encrypted message. The group only sees that someone was warned. |
| Remove | Removes them from the group. The group gets a new key, so they can’t read anything new. They can come back with an invite link. |
| Ban | Removes them and stops them rejoining until they’re unbanned. |
You can only act on members ranked lower than you.
Delete a message
Choose Delete (moderator) in a message’s options to delete someone else’s message for everyone. It can’t be undone.
Reports
Any member can choose Report on someone else’s message in a group.
- Choose Report in the message’s options.
- Optionally, say what’s wrong.
- Choose Send report.
Your app sends a decrypted copy of that message to up to ten of the group’s moderators – members who can delete others’ messages – in private, encrypted messages. TACENZA never sees it. If the group has no moderators, the app says so.
Reports are voluntary: only the reporter’s device can decrypt and send the message. If you need to report abuse to TACENZA itself, see Report abuse.
The moderation page
Manage group › Moderation shows:
- Banned – everyone who is banned, with Unban.
- Timeouts – who is timed out and until when, with End timeout.
- Audit log – changes to members, roles, channels and settings.
The audit log
Each entry is written by the member who made the change, as an end-to-end encrypted message in the group. It’s readable by members, never by the server.
The log shows what’s in the loaded history, so older entries appear as more history is loaded. A modified app could skip writing an entry, but the action itself is still enforced by the server.
Other tools
- Slow mode limits how often each member can post. See Group settings.
- Onboarding makes new members accept rules before they can post.
- Announcements and Read-only channels limit who can post in a channel.
- Admins approve new members on an invite link lets you check people before they join.
What the server knows
To enforce moderation, the server stores bans, timeout end times, and whether a member finished onboarding. Warnings, reports and the audit log are end-to-end encrypted, and the server never has them. See What the server stores.