it appears that all users (whether they have ever been to the forum or not) are getting notified when a thread is deleted.  is this a setting?

If so, it seems like a bad default. apparently, admins are not being notifed but everyone else.  How can I turn this off without disabling notifications.

Only moderators (forum admin and site admin too) should receive deleted post emails (these are tied to moderation). Other users should only get an email if you check the 'email user' check box from the delete screen. Now, moderators can disable email notifications just for moderation notifications if they want from "My Settings". They will only see this option if they are a moderator, though. I can add that on this site, it is working as expected (I delete at least 2 posts a day). 

It sounds like either the individual moderators need to disable the moderation notifications in their 'my settings' area, or you have everyone setup as a moderator somehow. 

One thing worth noting, if a user has never visited the forum before they should never receive an email unless an admin viewed that users settings before (ie. forum admin -> user search, clicking edit user would change this). 

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Chris Paterra

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