Undo an Official Warning

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:bookmark: This guide explains how to remove an official warning in Discourse via the console, particularly aimed at self-hosting users.

:person_raising_hand: Required user level: System Administrator
:desktop_computer: Console access required

In certain situations, a warning issued to a user may need to be retracted. This action involves removing the warning through the console, which is accessible for those with server access. If you are a hosted customer, please contact the Discourse team (team@discourse.org) for assistance with this process.

Understanding user warnings

Official warnings are stored in the user_warnings table within the Discourse database. If you need to undo a warning, it means deleting the corresponding entry from this table.

Removing an official warning

To remove a warning, follow these steps:

  1. Access the server console:

    • Use SSH to connect to your Discourse server.
    • Enter the console with the following commands:
      cd /var/discourse/
./launcher enter app
rails console

  2. Remove the latest warning:
    If the warning you want to delete is the most recent one, execute:

    UserWarning.last.destroy

  3. Find and remove a specific warning:
    If the warning wasn’t the last one, search for the specific warning using the user_id:

    UserWarning.where(user_id: the_user_id)

    This will return an array of warnings related to the user. Once you find the correct id, remove it using:

    UserWarning.find(3).destroy

Destroying the warning will not remove the private message (PM) sent; the PM will merely cease being marked as a warning.

Last edited by @SaraDev 2024-11-13T00:51:26Z

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2

Is there any chance you could share the steps that I’d need to take to log in to the Console? I’ve tried Googling this but every guide seems to assume that the user will know how to do that.

3

Assuming you followed the standard installation guide, you would SSH into the server and run:

cd /var/discourse/
./launcher enter app
rails console
3 Likes
5

Hey @JammyDodger . Maybe there needs to be a magic link that links “console” and/or “rails” (or maybe “rails console”) to

2 Likes
6

Hmm. That’s an idea. :thinking: I’ve been burnt with these before though. :slight_smile:

Let me keep an eye out now you’ve said it and see how often it comes up. :+1:

We are going through the docs at the minute, so maybe in this case it would good to add the full instructions in the guide.

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7

Or maybe the section will be “stuff you can do in rails” and the About or whatever will be enough.

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Surely it’d be much easier to handle these as penalties and have a log of all official warnings sent for administrators and moderators to manage at any given time? It makes it very difficult when a moderator accidentally warns a user with a similar name and then has to reach out to the site maintainer for them to resolve the problem.

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9

I think there’s a feature request for it here:

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