Hi everyone! So I am on the Gimkit discourse forum and I was wondering what is the difference between silencing and banning. If I asked a moderator to ban me or silence me which would not demote me (I have TL3 or regular on the gimkit forum).

Silence the user Silenced users are prevented from creating new topics, posts, flags, or PMs on the site. They are still able to complete other actions, such as “liking” posts, reading topics, replying to PMs, etc. Additionally, they can communicate with moderators via PM, so you can continue to communicate with them to try and address the behavior. Suspend the user Suspended users are prevented from logging in, and thus from completing any actions on the forums. A suspension is the strongest possible recourse you have for a user and should be used sparingly. Like silencing, suspending a user is done from the user’s Admin page. Like silencing, suspensions are for a specific period of time. You may want to suspend the user for a short period of time first, and if the user returns and continues the behavior, increase the suspension time.

@Aaron_Walsh if you ask to be silenced do you get demoted from regular to member?

Both are included in the criteria for TL3, so if you had been silenced or suspended within the last 6 months you would not meet the necessary checks to be a TL3. However, the Penalty count can be manually reset by an admin, which may be appropriate if people decide to be voluntarily silenced so they can take a forum break.

[image] JammyDodger: the Penalty count can be manually reset by an admin Are moderators able to reset the penalty count as well, or only admins?

It looks to be just admins, moderators don’t have the option.

Difference between silencing and banning

Product Support

Aaron_Walsh (Aaron Walsh) January 24, 2024, 7:53am 7

Indeed, nothing in that sense is affected.

Topic		Replies	Views
Consequences of warnings, Silencing, and Suspensions Product Support moderation	3	954	October 22, 2023
Silence button on moderators user admin UX	0	518	September 13, 2021
Confused about TL3 promotion and silencing vs suspending Feature	6	996	January 4, 2019
Can you earn regular status back after suspension? Product Support	42	3917	May 25, 2018
Option to notify users if they are block, silenced or banned Feature	6	1368	November 22, 2025

Difference between silencing and banning

Related topics