I agree that you are confused. I’m not confused.
It appears to me that you may truly be stupid, for which you have my sympathy, or that you are just trying to raise a stink about something for your own pleasure. No other options spring to mind at the moment.
And runner pat summed it up pretty well.
Little Nemo, this appears to be a terminology issue, confusing the colloquial use of “warning” with the official labels used here for infractions. A Mod Note is a “heads up” or colloquial “warning”, but is not usually referred to as a “warning” to prevent this confusion with the official “Warning” that is an official action, recorded in the list and used to evaluate a poster’s status.
Remember when 3 warnings meant banning? That’s why we have unofficial “warnings” called Mod Notes. Because some people get all testy if you give them official Warnings when their acts are borderline or whatever. “Why couldn’t you give me a polite heads up instead of slamming me with a Warning?”
A Mod Note is an official action that you should heed, or face the consequences. The consequences include an Official Warning, i.e. a black mark on your record that gets used to determine if you should be banned.
Yes, they are saying the same thing - an Official Warning is a punishment - it’s putting your name on the list, saying “You’ve been bad and we’re watching you.” Do that too many times, get suspended or banned.
You seem to only want to consider the actual suspension or banning as “consequences”.
Yes, but using board terminology you get:
A Mod Note: a heads up that a poster is doing something wrong and instructions to not do that thing, but no note made to that poster’s record.
A Warning: an official notification of wrongdoing, and a violation recorded for future reference and evaluation of that poster’s privileges.
A Suspension/Ban: observation of blatant rules violations (i.e. spammers, sock puppets) or a series of infractions (i.e. Warnings) that show either a pattern of behavior or a general lack of intent to observe the board rules.
To fit your employment analogy, a Mod Note is the heads up that you call a “warning”, a Warning is an official action like documenting it in your HR file and putting you on corrective actions/monitoring/special observation/whatever, and Banning is termination.
When a Mod says “This is not a Warning”, they are NOT saying “this is not a heads up to proper behavior”, they are saying “this is not an infraction recorded on our black list, but the next time you do this it will be one”.
I don’t ever remember 3 Warnings = Ban.
There is not zero confusion. There is near-zero confusion. If one kid is confused because states have capitals, but the country has a capital too and it isn’t in any state, you don’t dump the concept. If after having it explained umpteen times, it is still confusing to just one kid, it isn’t the system, it’s the kid.
That’s only because you are choosing to use the term “warning” for a “Mod Note: No Warning Issued” situation. Stop calling it a “warning” and there’s no problem.
No, they are saying that a mod note might be considered a “warning” for some common uses of the word “warning,” but that such use does not apply to moderator actions in this forum.
Every social locus has some specialized uses of language. In the social locus called “SDMB,” “warning” has a special meaning. Such things are common enough and people tend to handle them without problems once they are introduced to them.
There’s no grounds for confusion now that we have explained to you the specific meanings as used here. And I agree there is no further need for you to point them out.
(And I’m starting to wonder if, when you see “Buffalo Wings” on a menu, you get into an extended discussion with the waiter to make sure he doesn’t bring you bison flight appendages.) 
I don’t recall that it has ever been that explicit. And there is no hard-and-fast rule now; we take many factors into account before deciding to take action after a series of warnings, including the seriousness of the offenses, the time period over which they occurred, and so forth.
Or Chicken of the Sea.
Considering that, after over ten years of using some variant of this system, you’re apparently the first person ever to get confused by it, I don’t think that potential is all that large.
I think that the earlier analogy with traffic violations has caused some confusion.
There is only one penalty that any poster here ever faces–banning. That’s the only punishment currently available to the Mods, since they don’t edit posts or consign posters to Coventry.
An Official Warning is not a punishment; it’s exactly what it’s called, a warning that ban-worthy behavior will not be tolerated. Continue in that behavior, and you will eventually be banned. A Warning does not otherwise affect you in any way.
A Mod Note is exactly the same thing, except that nobody keeps track of them, so they cannot be used to justify the one and only punishment available.
I don’t agree with Nemo’s thoughts on this, but I occasionally get confused because some boards call our Mod Notes “Warnings” and call our Warnings “Infractions”. Other boards use other terms.
But yeah, people do get confused sometimes.
I was thinking “WTH” too ever since this thread appeared this morning. I almost posted several times to ask if this train of thought was a whoosh.
Perhaps Little Nemo’d like the two situations to be called “sneak-warning” and “Official Warning.”
I have a feeling this might possibly necessitate a non-permanent-record sneak-warning.
I think if we get any more analogies in this thread, I’m [del]warning[/del] mod-noting the lot of you. 
I have a feeling that perhaps you should simply report the post in that case.
Jeez, here it is only January 5th and I already got my one right answer for the year. See you guys in 2012.
Why?
So, that would make you the Sheriff…
Struck me as a mild case of junior-modding. No biggy.
It was a mild case of highlighting an example of the type of thing I’ve seen mods give mod notes about, in a thread about that very topic.
Sounds like a mild case of both of you doing so, and now you made me do it as well.
Here’s a handy reference: If it doesn’t say Official Warning, it isn’t. Simple, eh?
I did nothing of the sort, merely pointed out an example, in a thread on the topic and one well populated by mods, of something the mods might simply give a mod note on.