Except that the warnings were split between two posts.
Edit - and it was one warning for four offences.
I was still stuck on the “strike four” comment. Did the batter go around twice?
Yes, a nice little tradition. Oh well. Maybe next year we can start a thread where the first post is “It was the night before Christmas, sweetheart, in the Room of Inebriates.” 
With additional potential! They didn’t even call him out for junior modding.
Is telling someone to “Bite me” (especially in this forum) an offense?
Just because you don’t go to Thread Games is no reason to call it a ghetto.
Dear god, I guess I messed the last five years of this crap. I’m unfamiliar with the song and don’t understand this “tradition.”
Perhaps Christmas time brings out the worst in all of us.
I hope we can forget this recent unpleasantness.
I was just surprised at how much work Shine put into telling us all what a worthless thread we were participating in. He either took the time to: 1) Type out all of the lyrics or 2) Open a new tab, google “Fairy tale of New york lyrics,” click the link, copy (from the exact point we left off in the song) and paste it into the thread, and finally issue his judgement of the whole dang thread, even checking back later to confirm his feelings and alter quotes.
When I see a thread I find too pointless to participate in, I either: 1) Don’t click on it, or 2) Click the back button after I’ve clicked it.
I kinda thought " don’t be a jerk" or “don’t threadshit” to be the main causes of the warning. I mean, it may be silly and pointless, but it’s happened many Christmas Eves now, and ending it in a deliberately antagonistic manner seems like one of those two (or both!) without question.
Irrelevant. The rules are open to interpretation by the moderators. I have quoted up to 8 lines of a song without being modded, which apparently falls within fair usage. Mr. Shine posted the lyrics to the entire song, however, which is unambiguously a violation.
Well, he actually posted the remaining lyrics, presumably to say the thread was stupid and he was finishing it for us. But what was being modded here w/respect to the thread (i.e. why it was locked) was that over the life of the thread the entire song would be eventually posted, thus the copyright infringement. I think.
I agree that while the thread as a whole probably violated copyright, Mr. Shine’s intent, which was to express his displeasure with the thread’s existence, to put it diplomatically, probably entered into it, as well.
I really don’t understand the mindset of someone who sees a pointless thread, opens it, reads all the way through it, and then gets so mad that they can’t control themselves and have to insult people and try to shut it down.
I’ve rolled my eyes when a thread veers into pointless territory, but it never occurred to me that no one else should be allowed to post, so I should be a jerk and try to shut it down. I just quickly scan down and see if it gets back on track. If not, there’s a CLOSE button in the corner.
On further discussion of the moderators, the modification of the quote was not a rules violation, since it was not attributed. The other counts still stand, however.
It said “Punctuated that for you.” Who is “you”? It was right after HL’s post, it was visibly HL’s post that was quoted, it was clearly aimed at HL and it was clearly intended to change the meaning into an insult.
This is opening a loophole big enough to run an aircraft carrier through.
I can think of several posters who will take immediate abusive advantage of such.
Hmm, interesting loophole. I’ll have to remember that when the next opportunity for a FTFY comment comes along. (Which was my main objection to that rule, anyway.)
Aww, you were thinking of me.
But I don’t see that as abusive, anyway. It’s just a dumb, dismissive type of joke that can be used in a great number of scenarios. Just not here, because it’s so viciously verboten.
Bad idea IMEIO … is was obviously attributed as it was the very next post … for example if I do this to your post:
How is just deleting your name NOT make this back-talking a moderator remark?
[tosses red flag onto the field]
I want a video review from New York …
… and within just minutes …
FTFY. 
My understanding is that the rule against altering quotes is about specifically the attributed quote form. As in
not
There is a separate issue of quoting in a way that is misleading, I believe, but he made it clear this wasn’t the original quote. I’ve seen this used before for “Fixed it for you” type posts.
Being a jerk is still against the rules. As is trolling and personal insults. That has not changed. This is not a change in the rules s
This is just a bad idea … I’m clearly altering buddha_david’s post and that’s not allowed … Chronos was spot on for this strike, no reason to withdraw it …
Moderators can give warnings on a whim … we don’t need to split this hare …
ETA (after Loach’s post): Fair enough …