CB.8:4.4 - Select and carry out a proportionate response

Give the person whose conduct is in question enough of the concern and relevant basis to respond, subject to the protection needed for others. Ask for missing context and correct factual mistakes. Where an immediate action had to precede this hearing, provide the opportunity as soon as the conditions permit.

Choose the response from the actual difficulty, seriousness, recurrence and foreseeable effect. Useful responses include clarification, a request to change or repair the action, a warning with an understandable next expectation, a bounded restriction or ending access to the activity. Follow the applicable decision rule. A serious incident may justify a stronger permitted response immediately; a fixed ladder of warnings cannot decide every case.

Consider whether a support or design defect contributed. An inaccessible posting rule, an unclear boundary between critique and personal comment, or an overloaded channel may need a repair alongside any individual response. A communication difficulty alone is not evidence of hostile intent.

Explain the decision to the people concerned. State the conduct or uncertainty on which it rests, the rule and scope, what changes now, how long a restriction lasts or what condition ends it, and how review can be requested. Give practical instructions for continuing permitted participation where that remains possible.

Use direct conversation when it can help and the people concerned can take part freely. Do not make a person confront the subject of their complaint as the price of receiving a response. A written exchange, an intermediary or separate conversations may be more workable. Choose the form that preserves the needed account and usable participation.

Make the selected response effective. Confirm the actual change to access, event arrangements or material, including the owner needed to perform it. For an in-person event, that may be the venue’s responsible host; on a platform, it may be an administrator whose scope differs from the community moderator’s. An announcement alone does not alter the operating condition.