How to unsilence a user who innocently tried to copy & paste and got silenced

CapedCrusader · January 8, 2019, 5:16pm

Very grateful that Discourse shoots down spam. No human community can exist with bots littering everything.

However, when a new user innocently copy & pasted her post, it appears that our “sysadmin” silenced her automatically. (Screenshot: 2019-01-08_1837 - TechSmith Screencast)

When I check her “Silence” status, she doesn’t appear to be silenced.

Yet this user has received several replies to her post and not responded in a few weeks. How do I unsilence her (if she is silenced)?

dax · January 8, 2019, 5:29pm

You can do it from her admin user profile. Enter her profile and click the Admin button on top right

and then check the Permissions section:

CapedCrusader · January 9, 2019, 6:00pm

Thank you, @dax. So her profile says “Silenced? No”.

Yet I got this message next to her post:
“@system silenced this account until December 25, 3018. Reason: New user typed too fast”

Which is correct though?
Her profile in admin that says not silenced, or the message above that appears on her post with a memo icon next to her username and says she’s been silenced?

codinghorror · January 9, 2019, 11:08pm

Someone unsilenced that user. So you’re seeing a log of past events.

CapedCrusader · January 10, 2019, 11:10am

Oh, I see. Thanks Jeff.

Epi320 · February 6, 2025, 12:41am

This helped me a lot!

But I have a similar problem.
How do I stop the system from automatically silencing a user because of a admin/moderator flag?

Thanks!

leungameta · February 7, 2025, 2:07pm

Is there a bug related to hiding/silencing of posts in Discourse code?

github.com/discourse/discourse

lib/post_action_creator.rb

fe4c33323


      
                I18n.t("temporarily_closed_due_to_flags", count: SiteSetting.num_hours_to_close_topic),
            )
          
            topic.set_or_create_timer(
              TopicTimer.types[:open],
              SiteSetting.num_hours_to_close_topic,
              by_user: Discourse.system_user,
            )
          end
          
          def auto_hide_if_needed
            return if @post.hidden?
            return if !@created_by.staff? && @post.user&.staff?
          
            not_auto_action_flag_type =
              !@post_action_type_view.auto_action_flag_types.include?(@post_action_name)
            return if not_auto_action_flag_type && !@queue_for_review
          
            if @queue_for_review
              if @post.is_first_post?
                @post.topic.update_status(

Intended behaviour or no?

Lydia2 · March 10, 2026, 7:20am

How should I unsilence this user? It does’t have an unsilence button.

Bas · March 10, 2026, 1:04pm

Hi Lydia,

Seems that that isn’t how it’s supposed to look, not sure what happened

If this is a one-off, could you see what happens if you click the “silence” button? Maybe that just resets the state to something proper

Lydia2 · March 11, 2026, 8:09am

Thanks, I clicked the “silence” button to silence the user, and then the “unsilence” button was shown.

Bas · March 11, 2026, 9:39am

Task failed successfully

Do report back if this happens more often though, it’s not a state the system should be in

Topic		Replies	Views
Silence user via API Development rest-api	4	1182	October 8, 2021
Automatic silencing for "typing too fast" doesn't notify administrator Bug	1	744	July 6, 2023
Default silenced new users Support	7	755	July 7, 2024
Automatic Unsilence? Support	7	334	May 29, 2024
Show "silenced" as avatar flair for silenced users UX	10	1540	June 7, 2023

How to unsilence a user who innocently tried to copy & paste and got silenced

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