In mainstream traditional forums, community governance mostly relies on a sense of righteousness and a pair of iron fists. If a post is deleted, it's just gone; if an account is banned, it's just banned. Whether you feel wronged or want to appeal—well, that depends on whether the admin is in a good mood today, and whether you have their contact info.

N.HT wants to do things differently. We believe that a sustainable community needs three things: reversibility, appealability, and traceability.

1. Content Handling: Three Separate Axes

Many forums only have one status for a post: it's either there or it's gone. N.HT breaks down "content being handled" into three independent axes:

Author Self-Delete: If you delete your own post, a "tombstone" placeholder remains, and the thread structure is preserved.
Admin Hide: If content violates the rules and is hidden by an admin, it immediately disappears from all lists and searches, but the thread structure and reply relationships are kept.
Permanent Removal: In rare cases where content needs to be physically erased, this step requires secondary identity confirmation by the admin. Once done, it cannot be restored or appealed.

2. Appeals: There's Still a Way After Action is Taken

No matter how restrained the governance actions are, mistakes can still happen. So every action taken on N.HT comes with an appeal option:

Content Hiding: The author can directly initiate an appeal next to the content, and the reason will be sent to all admins. If approved, the content is restored; if rejected, you'll receive a dedicated "appeal rejected" notification (in both Chinese and English). No points are automatically deducted for a rejected appeal, to avoid discouraging people from appealing out of fear of penalty.
For the same piece of content, only one appeal can be processed at a time (to prevent spam appeals), but after it's handled, you can appeal again.

Admins have a dedicated appeal handling interface: approval lifts the action, rejection gives the user a receipt. The whole process doesn't rely on private contacts or luck.

3. Bans: Time-Limited, Publicly Listed, and Appealable

Banning is the most severe governance action, so N.HT puts the most constraints on it:

Time limits can be set: Temporary bans are automatically lifted when they expire, no need for admins to remember to manually unban.
Two-layered reasons: One is a "public classification label" (e.g., violating a certain rule), and the other is a specific explanation visible only to the user and admins. The former is public, the latter private.
Public listing, but not public shaming: N.HT has a public "black room" page (/banned) that only lists usernames, time, and classification reason for currently banned users. Once unbanned, they're removed from the list—it's not a pillar of shame, not a permanent record, and it's set to noindex for search engines, so "someone was banned" won't be permanently indexed. The private explanation is never made public.
Banned but not cut off: Banned users can still log in with their password to get a one-time "appeal-only pass" that allows nothing but submitting an appeal, redirecting them to the appeal page. Appeals are sent to all admins; if approved, the ban is lifted. We don't want a situation where "once banned, you vanish from the world and can't even find a way to appeal."

4. You Can Protect Yourself Too

Governance isn't just the admins' job. N.HT gives some "self-defense" powers to every user.
Block: If someone is harassing you, you can block them. After blocking:

They can't send you private messages anymore (and they won't get a "you've been blocked" notification, to avoid escalating conflict);
They can't notify you by @-mentioning or following you;
From your perspective, their posts are collapsed into a placeholder bar you can expand—it's not deleting their posts for you, just "out of sight, out of mind." You can expand to view anytime.

This design deliberately only collapses posts on your interface, without touching the actual posts, thread numbers, or counts—protecting you, but not altering the public record.

5. Who Can See Your Posts? You Decide

In most forums, posting is by default visible to the whole world. N.HT gives the power of "who can see this post" back to the author—before you hit publish, you can set the audience:

Public: Anyone can see, including guests not logged in. This is the default, and most posts should be public.
By Level: Set a threshold so only users who have participated to a certain extent can see. Some things are just for "insiders."
Only Me: Only you can see. Use it as a private note, inspiration draft, or unfinished work you haven't decided to make public—post it to save, and make it public whenever you're ready.

6. Negative Points: Deduct, But Leave a Way Out

N.HT points can go negative, but we set up three safeguards for negative points, learning from old forums where "once points collapse, everyone leaves":

When points run out, you get a system message reminder, but no functions are blocked—you can still log in, read, and post as usual;
At a lower threshold, you'll be restricted from using points to buy invite codes or similar paid actions;
If you hit rock bottom, a hard database constraint prevents further deductions.

And for positive actions like checking in, reading, and posting, points only increase, never decrease. So no matter how low your points get, there's always a way to climb back up by participating normally. We don't want to drive people away by "deducting them to death."

7. Responsibility Starts With the Invitation Relationship

N.HT is an invite-only community. Invitation is not just a threshold, but also a form of "guarantee": if you invite someone in, you're somewhat responsible for them.

So if someone you invited gets banned for serious violations soon after joining, you'll also be held accountable—points deducted, and any unused invite codes under your name will be revoked. This isn't collective punishment, but a way to make "who I bring into this community" something you should care about.

8. Rules Are Written in the Open

For governance to be convincing, rules can't be hidden. N.HT has a public rules page (/rules).

Reporting itself has a threshold: only logged-in users can report, with frequency limits, and reports go to all admins. Every governance result will be notified to the user via system message—you'll always know what action was taken against you and why.

Our creed for governance is simple: Better to be a bit slower and steadier, as long as every action is reversible, appealable, and traceable. The community belongs to everyone, not just the admins.