Appeal Desk

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  Submit an appeal

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  Mod Dashboard

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  Mod Dashboard Decision

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  Mod Dashboard

Inspiration

Ban appeals on Reddit are broken. Banned users send random DMs to mods, mods lose track of requests, and decisions end up inconsistent across the team. There's no structure, no accountability, and no clear process - for either side. I wanted to fix that.

What it does

Appeal Desk gives every subreddit a structured, fair ban appeal workflow built natively inside Reddit using Devvit.

Banned users visit a pinned post and fill out a structured appeal form - explaining why they were banned, why they should be unbanned, and which rule they broke. They can only submit once, and they can check back to see their appeal status at any time.

Mods get a dedicated dashboard post showing all submitted appeals with stats, filters, and one-click decisions. For each appeal, mods can see the full details, choose to approve, deny, or put the user on probation, write a message to the user, and add internal mod notes. The decision and message are automatically sent to the user via modmail.

How I built it

I built Appeal Desk using Devvit Web - Reddit's new developer platform - with React for the frontend, Hono for the backend API, Redis for data storage, and Tailwind CSS for styling. The app runs entirely inside Reddit as native custom posts.

Challenges I faced

The biggest challenge was learning Devvit Web from scratch. The platform was in active development during my build - I discovered mid-way that the Blocks renderer I originally used was being deprecated, and had to rebuild the entire UI layer using the new Devvit Web framework. It was frustrating at times but ultimately led to a much better result.

What I learned

How to build full-stack applications on Reddit's developer platform, and how important it is to check whether the framework you're building on is still actively supported before you start!

Built With

• devvit-web
• hono
• react
• reddit
• redis
• tailwind-css
• typescript