Is there a setting that disables moderator’s ability to suspend users? I would think that blocking would be sufficient enough for moderators, and suspensions would be best reserved for admins as suspended members can’t pm staff to appeal as I understand it.
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Just change the moderators to trust level 4 instead of being in the staff. As far as I know, they have the same abilities when it comes to directing the discussion (split topics, close, etc.), but no moderator (i.e. suspend, block) privileges.
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They will also lose access to flags - that could be a problem depending on how active the admins are.
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I would still want the moderators to be able to manage flags as that has been one of the common tasks our moderators have, also there can be emergency situation where blocking is needed and an admin isn’t available, but in both of those cases if a moderator happened to misuse their power, the flagged/blocked member could still report the issue relatively easily, while a suspended member can’t even log in to report.
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They would be able to send an email to the contact address shown on the About page no?
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Yes, however, whether a wrongfully suspended member actually would report by that means would depend on how motivated they would be to use that e-mail at that point. I know that e-mailing is a simple means of communication, however often times people need to be motivated/interested enough to put in the perceived effort of reporting a problem, and the existence of obstacles (significant reduction in options to communicate) to add to being potentially wronged by a moderator (which members can view as being wronged by the website as a whole) can be demotivating and result in lost of interest.
The internet is huge, and in general people don’t have to spend their free time and effort on any particular website. It can be said that it is the suspended member’s problem that they may not be motivated/interested enough to put in the effort to report a wrongful suspension via the website’s contact e-mail. However, it is the website’s problem that such an issue with a moderator may remain unreported and unnoticed, as such a moderator might continue to misuse such power many times before someone files a report, and the wronged individuals that didn’t report may not be interested in returning at that point.
With that said, what is the importance in moderators having the ability to suspend when they already have the ability to block and site admins can suspend? If there is an importance for a moderator to have this ability, is that important for all discourse installations or only important for certain kinds/sizes/etc installations and/or forum communities? If it isn’t important for some installations, then perhaps this ability should be a setting that can be enabled/disabled (which I thought it might be hence my reason for creating this topic in the support category).
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As it stands you can not disable the ability to suspend from moderators. This is the only request I have seen over the years for this level of fidelity.
We do however plan to roll out category based moderation this year which will allow certain users to moderate categories without the ability to suspend or block globally.
I feel this will resolve the gist of your request.
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