My project was flagged
A flag is not a ban. Your account is not banned and you can keep using Hackatime. It means the fraud team reviewed your project and it's blocked from the event it was submitted to. You may have seen this described as a rejection.
Flags are usually not something you can fix by resubmitting the same project. We don't share the specific patterns we look for, because that would only help people who abuse the system.
Think the flag was a mistake? DM the Fraud Department on Slack. If it was our error, we'll fix it. We don't respond in any other channel, DM, or thread.
We want to talk to you. If you use AI to write or hold the conversation for you, we will turn down your appeal and ban you permanently.
I was banned
A ban is different. It means someone in the fraud department suspects you may have been dishonestly sending data to Hackatime.
First, what happened?
Hack Club is a community built on trust. However, some people attempt to abuse that trust to get free stuff. The fraud department uses certain metrics to attempt to detect people unfairly gaining hours on Hackatime.
What's next?
Your next actions depend on the nature of your ban. However, the overarching theme is that we're all human, and mistakes happen on both sides.
If you truly violated the rules:
We believe people can learn and grow from their mistakes. We're all teens here, and we believe learning from our mistakes is the most important way to grow as a person. We appreciate honesty. If you attempted to game the system, the best path forward is:
- Acknowledge that you made a mistake.
- Explain why it occurred - why did you do this?
- Show us that you understand what you did wrong, and that you plan to approach things differently going on.
First, though, it's worth taking a moment to think about the bigger picture here. Hack Club isn't some faceless corporation with endless pockets; we're a non-profit relying on donations. Every sticker, every piece of hardware, every opportunity we offer is funded by people who believe in our mission to help young makers.
When someone games the system, it takes away valuable resources from another teen who was playing by the rules. It's a crummy thing to do, and we hope that's something you'll really sit with for a minute.
This isn't about making excuses or debating the details of the ban. If you made a mistake, we want to see that you'll learn from this experience.
If this was our mistake:
It's completely possible that this ban was done in error. We're all humans, and sometimes we misjudge Hackatime data. If this was the case, we would like to see some proof that you were truly working honestly.
If you're using VSCode or something based on VSCode (e.g. Cursor), we would appreciate it if you could send us a zip of your timeline folder. This should be at:
- Windows:
C:\Users\<YourUsername>\AppData\Roaming\Code\User\History
- Linux:
~/.config/Code/User/History - MacOS:
~/Library/Application Support/Code/User/History
If you're using a different editor, we would appreciate a timelapse of your screen while coding. If you're working through your timelapse, then your Hackatime activity should line up with your previous activity.
We want to talk to you. If you use AI to write or hold the conversation for you, we will turn down your appeal and ban you permanently.
To reiterate: we're all humans. We're always open to discussing the specifics of your punishment on a case-by-case basis - all that we ask for is your honesty.