WARDOGS ban lists: your own, shared lists, and how a ban reaches the server

How bans work on a WARDOGS community server: kicks, warns and bans with evidence, subscribing to shared ban lists, and what the audit log records.

Updated 16 September 2026

How a ban reaches a WARDOGS server

A WARDOGS dedicated server keeps its ban list in its configuration, as a set of SteamIDs, and the only way to change it is through RCON. On its own that means one file per server, edited by whoever holds the password, with no reason and no evidence attached — and a player banned on one of your servers is a stranger to the next.

On BulletMeta a ban is a sanction: a record with a type (warn, kick or ban), a reason, notes, evidence, who issued it and when. The ban-list apply writes the resulting list to every server in scope, so a ban is a community decision rather than a per-box one.

Reaction time first, paperwork second

A ban goes to the server the moment it is created. Then it is finalized separately:

• With at least one piece of evidence attached at creation — a screenshot or a link — it is final at once.
• Without, it is still applied, but listed with a “needs evidence” badge and counted on the Sanctions item in the sidebar until somebody adds some or finalizes it anyway, after a warning. A ban whose proof nobody kept is still one the community stands behind.
• Warns and kicks are finalized as issued. Any sanction can be lifted in either state.

Screenshots are uploaded with the sanction, re-encoded so a file that is not an image cannot be smuggled in, and stored on BulletMeta’s own bucket rather than as a link to somebody else’s host that could change later.

From the live page

The roster has Kick and Ban on every row. Kick is the plain button because the player can rejoin in seconds; Ban is the filled one, behind a divider, with a dialog that takes the reason and the evidence inline and snapshots the player’s in-game name — so nobody clicking at speed mistakes one for the other. Both are role-gated: a seat can hold the kick without the ban.

Shared ban lists

Beside your own bans you can subscribe to shared lists, curated by BulletMeta staff with evidence required on every entry. A subscription applies immediately, for the whole community or for one server at a time, and the console shows what each list contributes next to your own sanctions. Unsubscribing removes only those entries.

What BulletMeta does not do is sell a player a way back onto your server, or maintain a reputation score you did not ask for. Your bans are yours; a shared list is a choice.

What the audit log records

• Every sanction, edit, finalization and lift, against the admin who did it, in the same transaction as the change.
• Every refusal — a moderator without the ban permission trying to ban leaves a “denied” row.
• Every push to every server, and which server, if any, refused it.
• Names and facts, never the text: which player, which faction, which keys changed — not the kick reason a player was shown, not a whispered message.

Appeals

When a player asks, the answer is one search away: the sanction, its reason, its evidence, who issued it and what the server said. That is the difference between a ban list and a ban list you can defend.