If your account is restricted

If you try to sign in and Orrery says your account is restricted, this is what that means and what you can do. What it means. Somebody at Orrery restricted the account. You can't sign in while that is in place. Depending on the reason, we may show you a broad category — safety, spam, impersonation, account security and so on — but we can't always explain the details behind a decision, and asking won't change that. You can ask us to look at it again. If you think the decision was a mistake, send us an appeal. A person reads every one. How to do it. From the screen that tells you the account is restricted, select Appeal this decision. You can also go straight to orrery.social/appeal in any browser — you don't need to be able to sign in. Then: 1. Select Start an appeal. 2. Tell us your Orrery username or the email on the account, and an email we can reply to. The reply address can be a different one, which matters if you've lost access to the original. 3. Explain why you think this should be reviewed, in your own words. There's no particular wording we're looking for. 4. Select Send appeal. You'll get a reference that looks like APL- followed by some letters and numbers — keep it. 5. Check your email and follow the link. Nothing happens until you do. That link is how we know the appeal came from you rather than from somebody else who knows your username. Confirming it's you. The email link proves you can read that inbox. For anything that would give access back, somebody also checks that the account is yours — controlling an email address on its own isn't enough, because that's exactly how an account that has been taken over gets handed to the person who took it. We will never ask you for your password, your security answers or recovery codes, or a photo of an identity document. Nobody at Orrery will ask for those, in an appeal or anywhere else. If a message asks you for one, it isn't from us. What happens next. Someone reviews it. They may write to you if they need to know more. When there's a decision you'll get an email, and you can read it by opening your appeal. Sending an appeal doesn't guarantee that the restriction will be lifted. The review might leave it exactly as it is, change it, or lift it. We don't publish a timeframe for appeals, and this article isn't going to invent one. Checking on it. Go to orrery.social/appeal/status, enter your reference and the email address you used, and we'll send you a link. You can also withdraw an appeal from there if you change your mind. If your account may have been taken over. Where a restriction relates to account security, the restriction screen also offers a password reset. Do that as well as appealing. This is for your account, not a single post. If you can still sign in and the problem is one post, comment or Comet that was removed, use the appeal option on that item inside Orrery instead — it goes to the same people but it's a different request.