You are out of line in this forum.
Don’t do this again.
[ /Modding ]
(Mod note, no official Warning handed out–mild rebuke issued, nothing recorded on permanent record.)
It seems to me that certain people just like to argue for the sake of arguing; the distinction between mod notes and warnings seems excruciatingly painfully obvious to me.
However, just to make certain people feel better, maybe Mod Notes should be accompanied by “No warning recorded” rather than “No warning issued” just to make the difference agonizingly obvious.
i have a really hard time comprehending how this practice is not crystal clear in its intent.
Now, I’m not sure - are you warning warning him, or Warning warning him? Is this a police citation or a marker buoy on the water? Is this just a suggestion for behaviour modification, or do you plan to come to his house and make him rue the day he was born?
Surely if you were a manager this should be clear to you. In my work we have an official list of warning levels starting with an “Official Verbal Warning” and moving up to “Final Written Warning”. Thing is I can still take someone aside and tell them that part of their behaviour is unacceptable without it being an official warning.
The main difference being that an “official” warning is kept in their personnell record (usually for a limited time) where-as taking them aside means “I know and you know, so knock it off”
I apologize, I was out of line, and I am not confused at all by your action.
Well then I apologize. It struck me differently.
THat was a joke, by the way, not questioning a moderator’s actions.
Maybe this was covered earlier (when the same stuff kept getting repeated I tended to go into tl;dr mode), but Marley and Colibri seem to be contradicting themselves here. Is “Barry O’Bama” a political jab? Calling the President “Barack HUSSEIN Obama” every time (like I’ve seen some Republicans / Tea Partiers do) seems to be similar in vein, but more pointed. Might not pass Marley’s test for warning, but it seems to pass Colibri’s. And of course, if I called Israel “the Zionist entity” that would also be altering a political name to make a point, but I imagine that would get me a capital W Warning post-haste from any mod (rest assured, that’s the only time you’d see me do that - I’d be cheering on any Mod issuing a Warning to someone who does that For Real).
I really hate when jokes have to be pointed out because some people are so tone deaf (or whatever is the equivalent when reading the written word). Some things are obvious, and some people work really hard to miss the obvious.
I suspect Colibri’s statement was about politicking in GQ. I would suspect Barry Obama would get a pass, as would/did(?) Shrub. I don’t know if your pejorative would cloud a question so much that the question fails in GQ, but it might not cause a ripple in GD, depending on the rest of the post.
We do have a rule against political jabs in GQ (in order to forestall derailing threads by other posters who might respond in kind). Personally, I wouldn’t consider “Barry O’Bama” by itself to be over the line; whether the post as a whole got a note would depend on how dismissive or derogatory it was. “Shrub,” as a mildly derisive nickname, would be in the same category. “Barack HUSSEIN Obama” would probably get a note, especially if it were done repeatedly, since it is clearly intended to make an issue of the president’s middle name.
I probably wouldn’t say anything about a reference to “Zionist entity” as long as the remark was made in passing without other adverse commentary. If it led to a squabble, the most likely result would be a move to GD (where most questions about the Middle East seem to end up anyway).
In practice, I rarely issue Official Warnings for political comments in GQ, especially for a first offense. I normally just give moderator notes to remind people of the rule. However, if the comments are over the top (an obscene rant, for example), or if a particular poster has made a habit of them, they may receive an official warning.
Apology accepted.
Okay, I’m not entirely certain that was ever official policy - but it was certainly a strong rumor for the early days of the board (circa 1999) - especially given there were no “suspensions” available, though there were a few non-permanent bannings.
First, not true - suspension is also used. Second, it’s a semantic debate. Because an official Warning results in an official record of the event that is used to evaluate continued posting, it is possible to consider the act of putting the name in a list as a form of punishment. Technically, getting told “knock that off” is not in itself a punishment, but keeping a list of your infractions like a check off sheet does make it a penalty - if a mild one compared to suspension or banning.
Suspension? You mean a temporary ban?
Nah, keeping a list of infractions isn’t a punishment; it’s a record of second- and third-chances.
Hey, if we’re going to parse the difference between a “warning” and a “Warning”, we can certainly parse the difference between a “temporary ban” (suspension) and a “permanent ban” (banning).
For what it’s worth, I’ve used “friendly reminder” and “Official Warning.”
For situations that call for a less-friendly reminder, there’s also “Make My Day.” 
Very smooth, sir.
Count me in as someone else who’s seriously baffled that anyone would find this system confusing. It’s always been explicitly clear to me that any instruction from a moderator acting as a moderator is meant to be taken seriously, whether a note or a warning (in fact, that’s why I make a point of questioning even notes that I feel don’t make sense under our current rules–because I do take them so seriously).