Minecraft anticheat guide
How to Document Anticheat Evidence for Appeals
What evidence staff should keep when players appeal anticheat punishments.
Sanitized fields that decide appeals
An appeal record needs the reasoning chain, not the raw surveillance. Keep the check names and VL history, the measured debug values, latency and timing context, the configuration and tier in force, the mitigation or punishment action taken, timestamps, and the reviewer and decision.
Remove player identifiers, network data, chat content, and full log dumps from shared notes. The appeal reviewer needs what was decided and why, not who the player is outside the case reference.
| Keep | Redact |
|---|---|
| Check names, VL history, debug values | Player names, UUIDs, IP addresses |
| Latency and timing context | Full log lines and chat content |
| Configuration, tier, action taken | Credentials, tokens, private messages |
| Timestamps, reviewer, decision | Unrelated players' data |
Preservation rules that survive scrutiny
Store the full evidence in an access-controlled location with retention dates, and keep the sanitized appeal note linked to it. Record who accessed the case and when, and freeze the relevant configuration version so a later reviewer sees what the server believed at the time.
Define retention and deletion explicitly: how long evidence lives, who may extend it, and how deletion is confirmed. Appeals lose credibility when evidence handling is improvised.
A repeatable appeal workflow
Acknowledge the appeal with its case reference, have an uninvolved reviewer re-read the sanitized record against the preserved evidence, and issue a written outcome covering each disputed flag. If the evidence no longer supports the action, reverse it and record the correction.
Track overturn rates per check family. A check with frequent overturns is a tuning signal, not a staff failure, and should feed back into the false-positive review process.
FAQ
What must every appeal decision cite?
The disputed flags with their values and context, the configuration in force, and the reason the action stands or is reversed.
How long should evidence be kept?
As long as the server's published retention policy states, with access controls and confirmed deletion. The policy itself must be written before the first appeal.