I guess it’s possible that it was a small-w warning (i.e., an admonition) and not a capital-W Warning, but when a mod begins a post with the bolded words Moderator Warning, i tend to assume that it’s an official, part-of-your-permanent-record type Warning.
As Cochrane pointed out, it certainly was, and it wasn’t even one of those ambiguous ones that we start an ATMB thread over only to find out later that when the mod said <mod hat on></mod hat off> or something else like that it wasn’t really a warning but just a note or reminder…it says Moderator Warning right there in bold letters. Whether or not it was a warning or a note or a reminder isn’t in question here.
You’re right. Wow, that was even more overboard than I thought!
OK. Enough guys.
It was a CAPITAL “W” WARNING. I posted it, I wasn’t (too) drunk, and I meant it. It was a stupid(read STUPID) joke posted in a GQ thread before a reasonable GQ-type answer had been posted. That’s not allowed. Exceptions get through. We aren’t on here 24/7. We do our best.
It’s really not relevant, in this instance, that ralph posted the OP. It was one of his shining moments on this board. IMHO, he couldn’t have found a decent answer to his OP using Google or Wikipedia. He was(for once) OK in posting this.
Again, and trying NOT to cut this too fine, Hail Ants is not a bad guy. This will pass. He posted a joke post too quickly in a General Question thread. Get over it. He got a warning. He’s not on our hit list. He’s not going anywhere.
…Mod memory… I got two warnings in a month of two about 8 years ago(as a poster. Got in a pissing match with DDG. I’m still here. Haill
Ants will be here, probably, long after I’m gone.
Warning stands.
If it had been somewhere down the line, I would have been upset that he submitted a lame joke in GQ, but no warning.
OK, you’ve explained your position, and i understand that the warning will stand.
Still a really awful piece of (over-)moderating IMO, and your general encomium to Hail Ants doesn’t change that.
Well, then you’re letting a stupid decision stand, but that’s your prerogative, I guess. Sucks to know that now we have to determine the BAC of mods before we get cute, though.
So, you don’t understand the rule in GQ that you shouldn’t make a joke post before the thread has a sufficient GQ answer? Or, am I too loaded to understand your position?
Apparently nuance is getting by you, yeah. I don’t think anyone would have batted an eye if you made a mod note. But a warning coupled with don’t EVER do this again makes you look like Lynn. It’s a dumb joke, we don’t need to break out the capitals and ultimatums.
So, you agree that warning the poster was a correct decision? If I had left out the capitilization, would I have been OK?
Again, answer this question. Did Hail Ants break a GQ rule?
It’s a shame there isn’t a rule about moderating while inebriated enough to affect whether you’d warn someone (as you’ve admitted you are).
Edit: And by “rule about moderating” I mean “requirement to moderate”! Think of how much fun we’d have!
Did Hail Ants violate a GQ rule? Is he a newbie who need a gentle nudge? Is he someone who has been here for 11 years?
Sure, the temptation is to post his response. I’m tempted EVERY FUCKING DAY(notice the capitalization 
) to post one-liners to GQ questions. I got a million of them. (Please tip your server. ) But I"ve learned to stifle myself.
He fucked up. He’s a long-termed poster. It’s not the end of the world.
Drunk or sober, the warnee violated, IMHO, a GQ rule. I warned him. There’s not much else involved here.
No, no, yes.
The typical response to that infraction is a Mod Note, or an Instruction to avoid such in the future. You went completely over the top, made a bad call, and the all caps “EVER” was ridiculous. Add that to the fact that you admit being drunk, and there’s really no defense.
Moderators have both notes and warnings at their disposal. What made this issue so dire that you had to immediately issue a warning rather than a simple mod note?
(I do think one could argue that soviet russia remarks are so tired as to not qualify as jokes anymore and that therefore he broke no rule unless there’s one against posting fluff.)
Jeez just I don’t get this! IMO, based on reading Cecil’s columns, the two tenets of The Straight Dope are:
[ul]
[li]Ultimately being as accurate as possible[/li][li]Humor[/li][/ul]
Is this not correct? What originally drew me to this board was the Mike Lucas TV show, and specifically its attention to accuracy and its humor.
And does everyone not ‘get’ the real point of using those *In Soviet Union… * jokes here?! Of course they’re not funny in and of themselves. Smirnov wasn’t a funny comedian, he was totally lame. The point of saying them here is the irony of contrasting it with smart, witty humor. We’re not laughing *with *Smirnov (he’s not funny), but laughing *at *him. Plus, because it’s said here so often, it’s become a form of metahumor, like the ‘plane on a treadmill’ thing. It’s also got the ‘beating a dead horse’ aspect to it, but that’s also part of it making fun of Smirnov’s whole act in the first place.
If all it was was that I didn’t wait until there was a real answer, well sooo-rrry! But for one thing *there was already one real answer! *For another the Smirnov pun isn’t offensive or insulting to anyone, nor was the OP about a sensitive or overly-serious topic. And for a third thing, well, see above.
But whatever, I’m done, let’s move on, can’t we all just get along, can’t hug my child with nuclear arms… 
I think the “moderating while inebriated” is the much bigger infraction.
I fully realize that being a mod is an unpaid, and thankless job. And that mods are humans too, and they like to have the occasional drink.
But jeez, don’t mod while drunk.
I agree with you, but it appears that the sequence is also relevant, as well as the soberness of the moderator. Only one does a poster have much control over.
OK, so we’ve established that Hail ants did, indeed, break a GQ rule, and that, while sometimes such infractions go without a warning, that’s acceptable because moderators aren’t around 24/7 and can’t be expected to police stuff that they don’t see.
Fair enough. I agree that you folks can’t see everything, especially given the number of posts this place gets.
Here’s another GQ rule:
By my count, GQ mods have admonished Jinx at least 7 times in the last 3 years to stop breaking that rule. On two of those occasions, including one a couple of weeks back, you were the moderator in question. Why, then, not a single formal warning, either for breaking the rule itself, or for (repeated) refusals to obey moderator instructions? It’s not like you missed these instances among all the other SDMB posts; as my linked post shows, you specifically noted the problems and, in a few cases, shut the thread in question.
You said, in the other thread where i brought this issue up:
If Jinx gets that sort of kid glove treatment after hundreds of ridiculous threads and multiple moderator cautions over an extended period, why not treat Hail Ants’ minor indiscretion with a similar, moderate response?