What are warning points?

Ohh man I forget how this system works. We have barely had to use the progressive discipline system since before we switched software a couple years ago. I believe that one point is a three day ban, two is a month long ban, and three is a permanent ban, and the points go down every three months, or something like that (don't hold me to those details!). The idea is that we'd issue a point for breaking policies and causing too much trouble in a thread.

In practice we've found that almost all of our drama comes from specific discussions that get out of hand, so we monitor those discussions when they arise, and close them if necessary. A few times the system will also let us block a member from posting in a specific thread, either for a few days or permanently, and that's been effective on occasion. We very seldom ban anyone for reasons other than spam.

Once in a while we issue a 0-point warning just to look serious.

 

Aside from spambots, the only case I can remember actually banning someone from the site in the last few years was someone who came in cursing people out.

 

Spammers, which are mostly computer-run bots, sometimes create accounts to post links to shopping sites or essay writing services, and sometimes they post nonsense that almost looks real hoping to edit the links in later. They can really kill a web community if we don’t keep on top of it.