It was for a long time our policy to try to do the hard graft of moderation discretely, by PMs. We have no interest in publicly shaming people. However, this can become difficult when the posting is as busy or as touchy as it was, for instance, during the week following the comic in which Claire outed her trans-gender status to Marten. It's also hard for both those being warned and other people (especially new members who are not familiar with our procedures) to see that action is being taken - in particular that more than one person in a dispute may be being warned.[/size]
At such times, it can be helpful to use the public warning system that this forum offers. When invoked, this has the following effects depending on the level of warning issued:
(1) warnings are visible to all
(2) the warned member's posts may be individually moderated for a day
(3) the warned member may be banned from posting for a day or more, up to four days.
The warning level reduces every 24 hours (counting from that member's most recent warning), and the sanctions reduce automatically as a result - but of course they can be increased again if the member's behaviour doesn't improve.
We will continue to use our established more discrete approach alongside this system when it seems appropriate.
