Richie
September 12, 2025, 7:39am
1
When a user is deleted by rejecting their first post, they are sent an email with the subject line of Your account has been deleted.
There is a bug in the body / content of the email, it appears to be displaying some kind of Ruby hash syntax in the middle section of the email:
Hello,
This is an automated message from SITE NAME to let you know that the user account associated with this email address has been deleted by a staff member.
{:off_topic=>“Your post was flagged as off-topic : the community feels it is not a good fit for the topic, as currently defined by the title and the first post.”, :inappropriate=>“Your post was flagged as inappropriate : the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of our community guidelines .”, :illegal=>“Your post was flagged as illegal : the community thinks it might be breaking the law.”, :spam=>“Your post was flagged as spam : the community feels it is an advertisement, something that is overly promotional in nature instead of being useful or relevant to the topic as expected.”, :notify_moderators=>“Your post was flagged for moderator attention : the community feels something about the post requires manual intervention by a staff member.”, :responder=>{:off_topic=>“The post was flagged as off-topic : the community feels it is not a good fit for the topic, as currently defined by the title and the first post.”, :inappropriate=>“The post was flagged as inappropriate : the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of our community guidelines .”, :spam=>“The post was flagged as spam : the community feels it is an advertisement, something that is overly promotional in nature instead of being useful or relevant to the topic as expected.”, :notify_moderators=>“The post was flagged for moderator attention : the community feels something about the post requires manual intervention by a staff member.”}}
Please review our community guidelines for details.
Here’s a screen shot of the email the user receives, showing the formatting:
Steps to replicate:
Ensure Discourse requires the first post of every user to be approved
Create a new user
Create a new post with the new user
Using an admin account, reject the post with the “Delete user” option
New user is sent an email with the above content
2 Likes
Richie
September 12, 2025, 7:41am
2
If it helps, a couple of screen shots from the admin view of the rejected post:
Before deleting the user:
After rejection and deletion:
1 Like
selase
November 18, 2025, 11:45am
3
selase
September 12, 2025, 6:24pm
4
This looks like a bug in how flag_reason is generated here:
def account_deleted(email, reviewable)
post_action_type_id =
reviewable.reviewable_scores.first&.reviewable_score_type ||
PostActionTypeView.new.types[:spam]
build_email(
email,
template: "user_notifications.account_deleted",
flag_reason: I18n.t("flag_reasons.#{PostActionTypeView.new.types[post_action_type_id]}"),
)
end
PostActionTypeView.new.types doesn’t include :needs_approval flag (which gets created in the flow described). Because of this, the translation key resolves to flag_reasons. (with no suffix), which returns the entire YAML section instead of a single entry. That’s why there is a Ruby hash in place of the flag reason.
flag_reasons:
off_topic: "Your post was flagged as **off-topic**: the community feels it is not a good fit for the topic, as currently defined by the title and the first post."
inappropriate: "Your post was flagged as **inappropriate**: the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of [our community guidelines](%{base_path}/guidelines)."
illegal: "Your post was flagged as **illegal**: the community thinks it might be breaking the law."
spam: "Your post was flagged as **spam**: the community feels it is an advertisement, something that is overly promotional in nature instead of being useful or relevant to the topic as expected."
notify_moderators: "Your post was flagged **for moderator attention**: the community feels something about the post requires manual intervention by a staff member."
responder:
off_topic: "The post was flagged as **off-topic**: the community feels it is not a good fit for the topic, as currently defined by the title and the first post."
inappropriate: "The post was flagged as **inappropriate**: the community feels it is offensive, abusive, to be hateful conduct or a violation of [our community guidelines](%{base_path}/guidelines)."
spam: "The post was flagged as **spam**: the community feels it is an advertisement, something that is overly promotional in nature instead of being useful or relevant to the topic as expected."
notify_moderators: "The post was flagged **for moderator attention**: the community feels something about the post requires manual intervention by a staff member."
Relatedly, this likely impacts custom flags as well, since their translations would also be missing.
7 Likes
Moin
September 12, 2025, 6:43pm
6
I am sure it does. I mentioned that in May
3 Likes
selase
November 18, 2025, 11:51am
7
We’ve merged a fix for the issue in the OP. I’ve moved the report related to staged users into its own topic to make it easier to track pending a fix.
main ← fix/deleted-user-email
opened 04:43PM - 24 Sep 25 UTC
`UserNotifications#account_deleted` builds a localized flag reason from the revi… ewable’s first `reviewable_score` (falling back to `spam` if none is found).
Currently, some score types (e.g. `needs_approval`) are not covered. In cases where a "Needs Approval" flag led to an account deletion, the lookup key could end up as `flag_reasons.`, causing the entire `flag_reasons`
section to be rendered instead of a single entry.
This change adds support for additional score types (like `needs_approval`). If no translation exists (e.g. custom flags), the flag’s description will be used if available, before falling back to the default `spam` reason.
More context: https://meta.discourse.org/t/ruby-hash-syntax-being-displayed-in-emails-sent-to-deleted-users/382411
1 Like
