Add an admin API for shadow-banning users. (#9209)

This expands the current shadow-banning feature to be usable via
the admin API and adds documentation for it.

A shadow-banned users receives successful responses to their
client-server API requests, but the events are not propagated into rooms.

Shadow-banning a user should be used as a tool of last resort and may lead
to confusing or broken behaviour for the client.

1 files changed, 30 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/docs/admin_api/user_admin_api.rst b/docs/admin_api/user_admin_api.rst
index b3d413cf57..1eb674939e 100644
--- a/docs/admin_api/user_admin_api.rst
+++ b/docs/admin_api/user_admin_api.rst
@@ -760,3 +760,33 @@ The following fields are returned in the JSON response body:
 - ``total`` - integer - Number of pushers.
 
 See also `Client-Server API Spec <https://matrix.org/docs/spec/client_server/latest#get-matrix-client-r0-pushers>`_
+
+Shadow-banning users
+====================
+
+Shadow-banning is a useful tool for moderating malicious or egregiously abusive users.
+A shadow-banned users receives successful responses to their client-server API requests,
+but the events are not propagated into rooms. This can be an effective tool as it
+(hopefully) takes longer for the user to realise they are being moderated before
+pivoting to another account.
+
+Shadow-banning a user should be used as a tool of last resort and may lead to confusing
+or broken behaviour for the client. A shadow-banned user will not receive any
+notification and it is generally more appropriate to ban or kick abusive users.
+A shadow-banned user will be unable to contact anyone on the server.
+
+The API is::
+
+  POST /_synapse/admin/v1/users/<user_id>/shadow_ban
+
+To use it, you will need to authenticate by providing an ``access_token`` for a
+server admin: see `README.rst <README.rst>`_.
+
+An empty JSON dict is returned.
+
+**Parameters**
+
+The following parameters should be set in the URL:
+
+- ``user_id`` - The fully qualified MXID: for example, ``@user:server.com``. The user must
+  be local.