You say “I’ve been a mod for 2 years now” but I said
"It used to be that any prolific poster was nearly certain to be banned- "
All right, I am older my memories may be playing me false. Handy, Satan, Zenster, DtC, etc- well, Ok, so let’s list the 10 most prolific posters ever banned, and then a link to the thread discussing their banning.
I would expect that discussions of specific banned posters will run afoul of the “don’t speak ill of the dead/DNFTT” rule.
But I have been a member for some time, and FWIW I go very much against the grain of these boards, and I have had two Warnings in my time and one was rescinded. If your point is just that the longer one participates in the SDMB, the more likely you are to have a bad day (or hit a mod on his or her bad day) and get Warned and then the warnings accumulate. It does not seem to me to work that way.
Most, even prolific posters, who get BANNED demonstrate a pretty clear pattern of increasing violations before being sent to the cornfield.
Regards,
Shodan
You’re looking to your right, where a select group of posters - all of whom misbehaved (some spectacularly) - stand. Look to your left and you’ll find a much greater number of posters with registration dates 10+ years back and you’ll find they’re not banned. Most of them likely won’t even have warnings (though even I got one once upon a time. I appear to have come through the process unscathed).
Well, yeah, but we have some dudes that post once a decade. The top ten posters: have they all rcvd warnings?
Shodan No, we have done this before, right here. Someone even posted a cool list of the most prolific banned posters. And a link to the official note they were banned? That’s OK too. I have even seen posts like “He certainly deserved banning” with no issues. But bashing them, PITing them, and possibly a in depth discussion of their morals and posting no-nos would likely be out of line.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15079944&postcount=85
But honestly, so what? People receive warnings for various things. Get rude, do whatever and a warning is given. It’s not a surprise that posters get warned and the longer a poster is here - and the more posts they have - the higher the likelihood they will get a warning.
But a warning is not a ban. I really don’t have any further way of telling you that one warning doesn’t make a poster permanently unclean and that we don’t take old warnings into account for such discussions. To get banned a long-term poster has to have begun behaving in such a way as to catch our attention and be an ongoing disciplinary problem.
That list you linked to has six posters with greater than 10,000 posts. Just in this thread alone we have 21 (by a quick count). Your theory is not backed up by evidence.
Me too. Damn you Samclem!
DrDeth I have a feeling you won’t let this go but you are wrong. There have been long term posters who for some reason flame out. But that is for bad behavior over a short amount of time not because they hit a magic number of warnings across a decade. It doesn’t happen that way. Not since I’ve been here and that is over a decade.
DrDeth I think your examples of prolific posters who have been banned are perception biased. You remember those guys because they were high profile. And they were high profile because they were continually controversial, and often not in a good way. That’s why you remember them, but they are not typical. There are bucket loads of 10+ year, 15,000+ posters who never get warnings but they just aren’t notorious enough to register.
Marley23 currently has the highest number of posts and amazingly enough never got a warning even before he was a mod.
Satan and handy at least were banned long before the formal warning system was set up. Diogenes the Cynic was banned for a persistent pattern of behavior over a long period of time, not because he got an odd warning every two years or so.
I’m certain not one of the 10 most prolific posters ever banned would fit the pattern you describe, because that’s not how bannings are determined.
You may be correct, memory is a funny thing, eh?
Ok, maybe my memory is playing funny tricks, as Princhester sez. You guys are probably right, then, I concede that point. (Grumble grumble, must be somebody who qualified…)
OK, then what is the purpose of tracking warnings from years and years ago? 
In fact- *forever. *
I was banned once, never looked back!
Because it is just easier to not mess with the software or to go out and “clean up” old infractions when all we actually have to do is ignore old ones–which we do.
In other words, never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by laziness (or cheapness).
The software can be set to have the warnings expire. It’s part of your tool chest. It does not require any coding.
He has also banned more users than all other mods combined! 
"He wears a live rattlesnake as a condom."
“Did I ever tell you about the time Marley23 took me out to go get a drink with him? We go off looking for a bar and we can’t find one. Finally, Marley takes me into a vacant lot and says, ‘Here we are.’ Well, we sat there for a year and a half. Sure enough, someone constructed a bar around us. Well, the day they opened it, we ordered a shot, drank it, and then burnt the place to the ground. Marley yelled over the roar of the flames, ‘Always leave things the way you found them!’”
"If he were to punch you in the face you would have to fight off a strong urge to thank him"
“He taught Chuck Norris martial arts!”
Yes, for Vbulletin, there is. It’s called Tachy Goes to Coventry (no, really..that’s the exact name of it in the admin CP too). Google it for more info, but the basics are: It automatically adds the user to everyone’s ignore list and they’re not aware of it.
I wasn’t aware such a feature existed until the day I was put on it on another message board (long, long story that happened long, long ago in my more sinister-acting days).
More sinister-acting?
<raised eyebrow>
Yeah, we post, but we’ve all been banned - the same day I think.
Hell, I’m pretty sure I’m in the top dozen or so prolific posters currently active and in 12 years I’ve only racked up two warnings that stuck and one banning. One of the warnings was definitely deserved. It isn’t hard to go for great periods of time and not get warnings.