[Long Term] New Channel Types

That is a decent alternative but it doesn't address cases where the messages have already been deleted or the infraction itself took place in DM and is bad enough to warrant moderation on the server level. Do you have any suggestions for that, maybe?

technically, both are covered by being able to attach a custom moderation note to the user, since that could include things like image links. of course, this puts the onus on the individual server's moderation to keep proper track of /why/ they banned a user, but they should already be doing that; this would just provide an easier way to store and access said information.

If a moderator deletes all their messages, the image links associated with those messages would also become inaccessible (unless Hampus forgot to delete files belonging to deleted messages?). Servers can keep track of why they ban users, but that does not solve the core issue of having evidence to support that ban, even if you properly logged the why.

i forgot to include the important detail of hosting said media externally to fluxer, oops. unfortunately, there has to be a compromise between privacy and moderation. if every server permanently logs every message for potential moderation purposes, (which if logging was a thing, would be undoubtedly what any server of even moderate size would do, thus causing it to be effectively ubiquitous) it defeats the point of being able to delete things in the first place. importantly, this is not a court of law. if evidence was had at one time but was later lost for one reason or another, that doesn't make the reasoning of the original ban invalid. a healthy community is much more important than allowing people who have wronged said community to appeal, especially when there are few to no consequences for being banned other than loss of access to that one specific community.