Okay. We know that you moderate people differently if they acquire multiple warnings. Like, if someone has a history of making a poll with no substance and then leaving, their polls are more likely to be closed. And if someone has a history of overly harsh statements, they might have less leeway on questionable inferences.
That’s fine. It’s understandable. But please, tell us! If you close a thread or warn someone because of history, tell us that in the warning post or closing post! Otherwise, it looks like blatant favoritism or randomness.
An interesting point, pedescribe. I think that the other side of the coin would be some level of confidentiality: we don’t want to be dragging someone’s past history around as public record. We usually handle that in PM or email (or both), to alert someone privately that they’re getting near the line. So, an interesting discussion.
Please remember that we don’t really care much about single warnings. Everyone flies off the handle now and again, so a warning here and there is just a reminder to the person to calm down. When we see repeated bad behaviors, despite reminders and warnings, that’s when actions get more serious.
I seem to recall a number of warnings that came with the additional note that the poster in question was on thin ice for previous misbehavior. It might just be particular to a specific Mod, however.
I think those were prior to the present warning system. The prior system, warnings were usually notified by email, but some people changed their email address without changing it in their registration (a baaad thing, but an understandable oversight). So, we weren’t sure if the person KNEW they were on thin ice.
Nowadays, with the new warning system, there shouldn’t be much doubt.
I think you could pull both off by mentioning having a history, but not being too specific. Yeah, somebody can look up the person’s actual posting history if they care, but they could’ve done that anyway.