I had been under the impression that the Dope was a three-strikes-and-you’re-out place, but I see that **SlackerInc **got 4 warnings since January of this year and got a one-week suspension for it. Is it an undefined thing where you sort of hit critical mass at some invisible point?
I don’t know where you heard that, but there are people on the Dope who have never even been suspended with more than 4 warnings IIRC. More than double that, in fact.
Each situation is evaluated differently because the context is different in every case.
What kind of warnings have they accumulated in the past, if any? Are they paying attention to corrections (not just warnings but moderator notes as well), are they modifying their behavior?
The picture that emerges of the poster and their actions determines moderator action.
The overwhelming majority of the posters on this board never accumulate any warnings at all. And most people who do get warned, it’s often a one time lapse in judgment or a genuine mistake, and they learn from that and go forward and never get another warning and that’s the end of it.
Of course there’s others … and they get more attention than the people who post by the rules and never get in trouble, that’s the nature of things. Squeaky wheels and all that. It’s not noteworthy when you post appropriately, which is kind of a shame, really, it’s our preference. So let me take this opportunity to thank everyone who does the good thing. You know who you are. 
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
IANA Mod but I don’t recall it being a hard-and-fast rule for various reasons. Drawing a red line encourages people to try to game the system and implies a rules-based system when the board in part uses principles-based moderation (the principle being “Don’t be a jerk”). Also, there will always be mitigating and exacerbating factors. The odd “oops I forgot I was in GD rather that the Pit” post (assuming it’s plausible) on rare occasions isn’t going to carry the same weight as someone deliberately flouting the rules and insulting the Mods. And three warnings over five years is a very different creature to three warnings over five days.
I have no idea how many warnings I’ve racked up in my nearly two decades here. I post a lot and on the odd occasion I’ve forgotten which forum I was in. Wouldn’t at all be surprised to find there were at least four over all that time.
Here’s a previous thread on the subject: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=861522
There is no hard and fast rule. We take into consideration the volume, frequency, and magnitude of warnings before any action is taken greater than a warning. Warnings are given by individual moderators at their discretion. Beyond that it’s consensus driven and we vote.
FTR you have zero warnings in the automated system. It’s possible you may have been warned before the automated system was in use since you’ve been around for a while.
You can find your warnings (if any) in your profile. If you have had a formal warning you can see a tab marked “Infractions.” If no Infractions tab, then you are like most people and have none.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Another factor is what positive contributions a person makes to the board. If someone is mostly a good, valuable poster but sometimes goes over the line, we’re more likely to try to rehabilitate them than if they never do anything but piss off other people.
And we sometimes also ban people on the first offense, if it’s egregious enough, like super-obvious trolling.
It’s all much too complicated to reduce down to a single formula.
Nifty! No tab, therefore a clean sheet. Or else I’ve just managed to get away with it MUAHAHAHAHAHA <ahem>.
I’ll be good.
Perhaps you confused this with how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Tootsie Pop?
Just to illustrate TubaDiva’s point: I have 5 warnings on my record. They are spread out over several years, and one of them is totally bogus. But they are mostly me just getting too involved in a heated topic and letting someone push my buttons a little too much. Because I backed off after each one and have refrained from letting them get to me so much, I’m not worried about suddenly being banninated.
I remember a guy from the bygone ages who would often get pissed off and reply totally in German (IIRC) in which case he often got the official Naughty-Naughty. Most of his posts were really great and even the pissed-off ones were really good - except for the language shift. I believe he drifted off on his own rather than was banned for it.
3 strikes and you’re out seems pretty arbitrary in anything other than baseball.
“I’ve never banned someone without biting…”
It only takes one warning to ban someone - just has to be the right one.
Or none. Depends on the poster.
I recall a few years ago I was driving down to Savannah for a client meeting and stopped to get something and had a zillion reports. We had a genuine sov-cit racist stirring things up. I couldn’t ban him easily from my phone so I put it out to the loop and one of the others put him down for me.
The real takeaway here, and I hope the others will agree, is that the number of warnings for suspension - short or long - or banning is inexact and vague precisely because it is vague. It’s very indefinability is a feature - from our perspective - and not a bug. I, at least, have very little interest in drawing bright line that allow for gamesmanship. If someone wants to intentional play that game they take their chances.
And that’s why I love this place. I think strict three strikes and you’re out laws are stupid. I hate reading about someone getting serious jail time because they got caught with a joint in college, got a DUI in their 20s and then got caught jumping the turnstile on a subway 5 years later.
I know things get hot and heavy at times and I spend a good deal of time in Elections so obviously political arguments are especially prone to this. I try to get take a deep breath and wait a bit. And, of course, never post in Elections if I’ve had a couple of cocktails!
Just keep telling yourself that, Silenus…
Agreed. This is why I cringe any time I hear someone proclaiming their zero tolerance policy as if it’s something to be proud of.
Zero tolerance removes critical thinking from the equation. Not something to boast about, IMHO.
mmm
Well, don’t get all crazy and presume we think or nothing.
Or more like a brownian motion.
I think it’s one more than I have.