Use Case: We have a third party payment platform we’re using to “downgrade” a user upon non payment/renewal. When this happens, we want to be able to “downgrade” them on Discourse as well. Meaning, we want them to be able to access the forum, but not create content. For this reason, “silencing” makes the most sense. I see that the API docs have the ability to suspend, but not silence a user. Is there any way this can be done? I’ve seen this other topic, discussing the silence admin API. However, I do not see it documented. I’m hoping it wasn’t removed :grimacing:

Quick update, I found that making a PUT request to the endpoint messaged here does indeed work. As does the “reason”. Is there a reason this isn’t included in documentation?

Can you elaborate? Category permissions don’t apply to things like “Uncategorized”. Also, without a plugin, there isn’t a granular “cant post but not read” on a per category basis. So the only seemingly viable option is silencing until their membership renews. This way they can read but not post, forum-wide.

I’m not sure about uncategorized. You can set categories to read by all and limit who can post and who can reply. How to create private categories using category security settings You could also move those users to tl0 to control sending pm.

Silence user via API

Development

pfaffman (Jay Pfaffman) October 8, 2021, 12:12am 3

Why not just remove them from the group that allows them to post? That’s what category permissions are for. (Or maybe there’s a reason to silence them…)

Topic		Replies	Views
Default silenced new users Product Support	5	846	May 7, 2020
How to unsilence a user who innocently tried to copy & paste and got silenced Product Support	10	1118	March 11, 2026
Ability to silence users in chat Feature moderation , chat	10	650	May 20, 2024
Silence status to block ability to use reactions as well Feature moderation , reactions	6	324	July 27, 2024
Mute/hide categories for a specific user from API? Development	1	1091	January 9, 2018

Silence user via API

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