Should Discourse notify users when accounts are deleted for spam?

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I ran into something today while handling a flagged post and wanted to confirm expected behavior.

A post was auto-flagged by Discourse AI as spam. The content was clearly unrelated to the forum (non-English, off-topic, softcore-type content), so I agreed with the flag, deleted the account, and selected the option to block the user IP.

Shortly after, I noticed in the email logs that an email was sent with the type account_deleted.

This raised a concern.

Is it standard behavior for Discourse to send an account deletion email in cases like this, including obvious spam accounts?

If so, is there a way to disable this specifically for spam-related deletions?

From a moderation perspective, it seems counterproductive to notify spammers that their account was removed. In cases where the spam is blatant and confirmed via flags, it would be preferable for the action to be silent.

I also want to rule out the possibility that I’m misinterpreting the logs or associating the wrong email with the deletion.

Looking for clarification on:

  • Whether this notification is expected behavior
  • If it can be disabled or adjusted for spam workflows
  • Best practice here from a moderation standpoint
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Yes

Nope, not really at the moment I don’t think. I actually quite like the notification and think it’s a good feature but there is something to be said about notifying spammers and the impact it might have because then can’t they just remake an account? Also, if I were really a good faith user, would I really be getting picked up by the spam detector and banned by an admin?

Update: looks like that is by design

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