Fuzzy Bunny said:
All in all I'm not overly in favour of a warning system, but I do see the need for it in some circumstances.
Broadly, in a large forum where the Moderator to User ratio is very high (i.e. very few Mods to very large numbers of Users) it can help Mods coordinate by understanding the history of a User without needing to trawl back a few hundred posts to find that one post where an issue was highlighted. After all, the system remembers the issues for the Mod Team without the need for some separate record.
Also, in a forum that has a fair number of transitory users it can be helpful to have a low maintenance way of rapping a borderline new user for poor behaviour. User moderation (as opposed to specific post moderation) can take up a lot of the Mod Team's time and energy so reducing that load for users that are arguably "less important" to the community (by virtue of being transitory) could well be a good thing.
However, I have a philosophical problem with warning systems where the community size is both smaller and less transitory. I believe it can, in some cases, distance the Mod Team from the community by allowing a system to "pass down judgement" without clearly providing a channel for feedback. I believe that a forum user needs to feel that their Mod Team isn't autocratic and does have an interest in the people involved, as people not just user number X, and this sort of system can get in the way of that.
Conversely, it can provide clarity on when moderation action is being taken -- in a sense, it allows board users to "change hats" from an everyday member of the forum to their "Moderator mode" where their purpose is about keeping the board orderly, enforcing the board rules, giving guidance on etiquette and so on.
My overall feeling is a negative one, though. As a user I'd much prefer that a Mod PMed me, personally, with a description of the issue and how I might correct it and then I can directly reply to said Mod, apologising if necessary, explaining where appropriate, or refuting where I feel they may be incorrect -- it keeps the process discursive for a little longer and that, I feel, can defuse more situations than it exacerbates (and it does exacerbate a few...
).Fuzzy Bunny said:
So that was my long way of saying "I'm not keen for this type of system".