In a support discussion titled ‘Suspension length and log data,’ MikeNolan reports that a user suspended for two weeks by a moderator returned to posting after only 9 days, raising concerns about suspension enforcement and logging. He questions whether suspensions log users out and notes that suspension logs lack duration details — a concern previously raised in 2016. Firepup650 confirms suspensions do log users out and suggests checking the users table via server access for suspended_until and related fields. JammyDodger recommends using Data Explorer as a simpler alternative for hosted instances. MikeNolan confirms Data Explorer worked well and discovered the user was actually suspended for only ~8 days, not two weeks. Firepup650 acknowledges Data Explorer as a better suggestion, admitting it didn’t occur to them initially. The issue highlights gaps in suspension logging transparency and the usefulness of Data Explorer for hosted Discourse users to investigate suspension details.
One of my moderators suspended a user, he said for a period of two weeks. That was 9 days ago according to the logs. However, he’s back online and posting again today.
This leads me to two issues:
How is this user able to log in? I see no indication of the suspension being lifted by anyone. Does the suspension also log the user out or could he have remained in, possibly on another computer?
The logs shows the date of the suspension, but not the time period it was for. It seems like that should be included in the log entry. (I see a similar comment on this from 2016, FWIW.)
If you’ve got access to the server/the discourse container, you can query the users table for the user’s id, the table contains suspended_at, suspended_until, and suspended_by values.
Thanks, I wasn’t sure which table to look in. (And yes, data explorer worked just fine for that, as this is a hosted account.) Turns out he was suspended for around 8 days.