Disable Penalty Count?

[simon]

@kiefferr

It sounds like they might still receive some PMs, but otherwise no emails will go to them if suspended.

That is correct. Only Staff members can send messages to suspended users.

@kiefferr

I assume this would also be similar for the custom group method, though perhaps a bit less elegant… ie. a member is expired and removed from the main ‘member’ group but could still theoretically receive some form of activity summaries if there are categories visible outside the ‘member’ group.

It could be more or less elegant, depending on your use case. Since you are using the WP Discourse plugin with DiscourseConnect logins, you can manage group memberships with Manage group membership in Discourse with WP Discourse SSO. It requires some development work to setup, but the helper functions that the plugin provides are useful.