# Silence and suspend reason messages should be PMs
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** moderation, personal-messages
**Created:** [June 19, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801 "2024-06-19T20:59:43Z")
**Posts on this page:** 14
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2024, 8:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/1 "2024-06-19T20:59:43Z")
I’ve found myself wanting to find logs of the communication with users regarding their silencing and/or suspension. While an email is sent to the offending user with the reason (I think?) I’m not able to see this message in the system (as far as I can see). Even the email logs don’t show the message itself. Further, if the user used a disposable email address, they might never get the message.
It’d be great if Discourse would just use a direct message akin to an “official warning” instead of (or perhaps in addition to) the direct and unobservable email.
Yes, I’m aware the reason is stored in the DB, and that you can [access it manually](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silenced-till-reason/131814). But that’s not necessarily the message the user received.
This has been noted as a [cause for confusion in the past](https://meta.discourse.org/t/isnt-the-silence-message-a-bit-misleading/267854), — and I think this feature request would help address that confusion.
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [June 19, 2024, 11:04pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/2 "2024-06-19T23:04:58Z")
Have you checked the Moderators inbox at `/g/moderators/messages/inbox`?
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### Author:  [@Genisis](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Genisis)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 12:39am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/3 "2024-06-20T00:39:38Z")
been using discourse for a long time and never even knew of that lol
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### Author:  [@HAWK](https://meta.discourse.org/u/HAWK)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 4:01am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/4 "2024-06-20T04:01:02Z")
Have you seen [Discourse Moderation Guide](https://meta.discourse.org/t/discourse-moderation-guide/63116/1)? It is explained in there. 🙂
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### Author:  [@Genisis](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Genisis)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 4:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/5 "2024-06-20T04:34:32Z")
never read it but I will 🙂
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### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 11:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/6 "2024-06-20T11:44:25Z")
No, these messages do not appear there. Or in any group inbox as far as I can find. Nor in the target user’s inbox. Could there be a site setting that affects this? I looked but couldn’t find one.
There _is_ a private message sent to the user from @system, but it simply states “Your account is temporarily on hold” without _any_ explanation. Its text comes from `system_messages.silenced_by_staff.text_body_template`, which doesn’t have access to the reason placeholder. The default text is _very_ soft and plain wrong when used as an intentional timeout: “placed on hold as a precautionary measure”
There is a log of the sent email that has the text I’m after, but it doesn’t include the content.
The name of the slug that contains the text I want with the `silenced_til` and `reason` interpolation keys is `user_notifications.account_silenced.text_body_template` — which made me think to look in the user notifications, but it also doesn’t appear there.
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### Author:  [@putty](https://meta.discourse.org/u/putty)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 3:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/7 "2024-06-20T15:03:47Z")
Have you looked in the Logs section? If you go to Logs \> Staff Actions \> and set the Filter to `Silence User`, it’ll give you something like this. You can click `Show` in the Details column to see the message.
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### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/8 "2024-06-20T15:38:20Z")
Ah, that’s good to know, too, but it doesn’t address my main concern here, which is making the record of the user notification more visible to **both** the users themselves and the mods.
None of these artifacts (the email log, staff action log, or direct DB query) actually show what was sent to the user. It’s very opaque — to both mods **and** users.
Using a PM for this notification has several significant advantages:
- Visibility on the **platform** for both users and mods
- Admins can see the “read receipts” in the form of the topic views
- It should replace the generic “account on hold as a precautionary measure” PM that is more appropriate for automated system actions than it is for a staff reprimand.
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### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2024, 10:26am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/9 "2024-06-21T10:26:31Z")
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> While an email is sent to the offending user with the reason (I think?) I’m not able to see this message in the system (as far as I can see).
For a suspended account there is option to list reason for suspension that is both sent in e-mail and displayed on user card:
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> It should replace the generic “account on hold as a precautionary measure” PM that is more appropriate for automated system actions than it is for a staff reprimand.
I agree that automated message is a little odd to be sent when an account is silenced as a staff action, because it reads that account is only on hold until a staff review.
Edit: Could be set as that because silencing can be an automated action as well as manually done by mod/admin. Then user account that has been silenced can still talk in PM topics but just can’t start new ones or public topics.
With suspension PMs wouldn’t make sense because user can’t even login to read those, so e-mail would be the only way to communicate.
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### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2024, 5:47pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/10 "2024-08-13T17:47:43Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> With suspension PMs wouldn’t make sense because user can’t even login to read those, so e-mail would be the only way to communicate.
It’s not unreasonable to think that such moderator- or system-level PMs could/would be able to supersede the standard PM email-notification setting. Private messages can even be explicitly addressed and sent to raw email addresses.
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### Author:  [@Moin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Moin)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2024, 5:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/11 "2024-08-13T17:54:34Z")
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> Private messages can even be explicitly addressed and sent to raw email addresses.
The last time I tried to send a personal message to an email address while `default email messages level` was set to “never”, a staged user was created but no email was sent
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### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2024, 6:41pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/12 "2024-08-13T18:41:51Z")
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> moderator- or system-level PMs could/would be able to supersede the standard PM email-notification setting
May be that could be possible, that setting can be changed manually by admin also. That can work to send e-mail with PM to a suspended user but they can’t reply directly while suspended the system will reject if they reply by e-mail.
> [@Moin](#):
>
> The last time I tried to send a personal message to an email address while `default email messages level` was set to “never”, a staged user was created but no email was sent
Wouldn’t this be only if there is already a staged user that has e-mail sending settings? If you are sending an e-mail to an address not registered that creates a new account invitation link.
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> logs of the communication with users regarding their silencing and/or suspension
There are logs of the suspension reason e-mail messages in the staff action logs, have you seen those?:
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### Author:  [@mbauman](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mbauman)
#### Post date: [August 13, 2024, 8:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/13 "2024-08-13T20:00:39Z")
> [@Architect](#):
>
> have you seen those?:
Yes, see [posts 7 and 8 above](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/8).
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### Author:  [@Architect](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Architect)
#### Post date: [August 14, 2024, 12:50am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/silence-and-suspend-reason-messages-should-be-pms/312801/14 "2024-08-14T00:50:12Z")
> [@mbauman](#):
>
> None of these artifacts (the email log, staff action log, or direct DB query) actually show what was sent to the user. It’s very opaque — to both mods **and** users.
You may be looking at slightly different logs that what I can see in the admin panel which does show the e-mail message sent to the user, also e-mail sender logs have that.
However this is still good feature request to have those messages in PM so the user has that record and is easier for admin/mod to see would be good.