Warning Level.

[Dave Hicks]

A few weeks ago I did some minor tuning to the warning system. Standard warnings are:

Cross-posting: 10% - expires in 2 Month(s)
Excessive Post Deletions: 10% - expires in 4 Month(s)
Inappropriate Link (Copyright/Offensive/Adult etc.) : 20% - expires in 4 Month(s)
Trolling / Provocation / Language: 20% - expires in 6 Month(s)
Trolling / Provocation / Language (Repeat offense): 30% - expires in 12 Month(s)
Reopening closed thread / subject: 20% - expires in 6 Month(s)

Some of these have never been given and some are only given after a freebie... or well... about 5 freebies in one recent case.

And I've tuned the penalty levels a bit. When the warning level reaches:
30% Suspend posting privileges for 1 Week
60% Suspend posting privileges for 2 Weeks
80% Suspend posting privileges for 1 Month
100% Banned Permanently

Moderators can adjust warnings and results as needed. For example a single cross post from a newbie isn't likely to receive a warning at all. The repeat offense for trolling is meant for cases there is an ongoing pattern of provoking people, looking for arguments etc. There are also custom warnings that can be given.

Generally the usual mechanism is: someone clicks on report post. One or more moderators get the report and investigate. Simple cases are usually handled by whichever moderator comes along first. Other cases may be discussed for a while. A warning may then be given, and a post might be removed, a thread might get closed, or if it's just a few naughty words in an otherwise good post, something like [naughty bits deleted] may be edited into place. (The system also inserts " This post was last modified…" with the moderator's name into the post header.)

So for example, if a moderator gave you a trolling warning your warning score goes to 20%. After 6 months that warning goes away and your warning score goes back to zero. If you do it again within 6 months you may get another warning and then you won't be able to post for a week.

Of course, this is all theory to most of us since only one person has received more than a single warning. Because we only have experience with one person rising to the point of receiving penalties, we may adjust this in the future as we gain more experience. Or perhaps we'll get lucky and there won't be other cases.

Not all "naughty posts" get reported and not all reported posts result in action. If you're wondering why no one has done anything and you haven't clicked the report button yourself, perhaps no one else has either. Don't worry about multiple reports - dealing with 10 reports of a single post is about the same as 1 report.

On the old forum, the system was: someone eventually gets fed up and does something. (Someone usually being me.) That happened about 3 times since the forum started in the 90s. None of those bans are still active. At this time no one is banned, though one person is taking a break.