I don't understand why we're backing away from our nice three-step process. An "unofficial" warning from a Stompy makes no sense to me. We worked out a procedure: Warning, Suspension, Banning. Period. Clearly, we're all willing to give people a chance and all of that -- whenever there's a problem poster, people point out the issue to them and try to engage them in dialog. This happens fairly regularly. When that doesn't work, the next step should be a Warning.

Also, if

• whitefonting spoilers
• fixing broken posts
• issuing warnings
• at a last resort, banning posters

The Stompies are moderators. It's a light-touch moderation, but it's moderation. Period. The discussion is not over whether or not to have moderation, it's about what kind of moderation we want. Knee-jerk anti-moderation sentiment not only misunderstands the actual dynamic of the community, but makes it harder to have that important conversation.

I really think the admins need to word the warning.

Also a warning from an admin does go on someone's "permanent record".

I think a standard warning letter is a great idea. Not only might it save the Stompies some time and trouble, but if we all know what the wording and import of the letter would be, it might be easier to agree that one is needed in a given case. The example Cindy posted would be a far different thing to me than one that said, "You're being a jerk. Knock it off or we'll boot your ass." I didn't really think something as strong as the latter would be sent, but my point is that I didn't know exactly what would be sent. I think it could be easier to agree on sending something when we have a clearer idea what it is. (This is not meant to insinuate that the Stompies would be anything but gracious and clear. Just that I have trouble discussing the sending of an unknown.)

I really don't like this trend of backing down off our warning/suspension/banning system.

By the time people come to the admins to complain they have already bent over backwards trying to accomodate the problem poster and have already made polite requests (or been driven past polite requests into terse requests).

The time for gentley worded requests for pleasant behaviour is past and it's now time to say "look, you've made many people upset, you've broke our rules of etiquette and this is a warning for you to stop. If you don't and have to be warned again you will be suspsended for two months. We'd rather that it not come to that so please respect our community and our rules."

Which is still polite but to the point.

I prefer Lyra's wording -- straightforward is better than clever in this case -- but agree that this is the official warning. This is what gets sent from "Admin" after individual in-thread efforts have failed, the last chance before suspension.

I don't think I'd have a problem with the system being changed from warning/suspension/ban to warning/warning/suspension/ban, but that's a much bigger policy issue.

Am - thanks, I've corrected.

Sorry, I wasn't drafting an official warning, I was drafting the notice, the kind that doesn't go down on the record, askye. I thought we had a draft for the warning.

I agree with Laura that mine needs to be chopped, and although I like bringing the fun in, Lyra's suggestion that it be more straight forward is an important one.

I prefer clever wording. But it is an offical warning and on your permanent record.

Like I said, I wasn't doing an official permanent record type warning. I got confused as to what people were discussing.

(I may have skimmed)

Honestly, if I recieved Cindy's warning, I would have no clue what it meant.