there ya go. Now you've said something useful! I knew you had it in you.

Really, there hasn't been a lot of discussion about the warning system. I think the complaints are probably valid, it doesn't seem to be a workable deterrent and it seems to punish people for being more active (ie: more active means more likely to rack up small infractions from time to time). I think it's got its place, but that we need to define more clear guidelines for the mods to follow for it, and develop it to a more complete system, and do something so we don't have to have the moderators doing the warnings type in "User has been warned" or something like that, which sort of makes it seem like the mod is rubbing it in when it's more to make sure that other mods don't come along and re-warn the same person. That's just annoying.

The invisible mod system was largely a response to the fact that everyone was sucking up to the mods and trying to have "buddy admins", so they can go and bitch to a mod when someone says something they don't like. It's stupid political shit like that, more than anything else, that we were trying to avoid. To an extent, we've succeeded. I've seen a fair few of the current mods participating as regular forum users in threads, without the irritation of people constantly kissing their asses. But it's a matter of style, and I think the jury is still out on it.

Every community is different. This community is shallow and sporadic, with a high turnover rate. What works for SA (a deeper, more active and more dedicated community, with a deeper, more dedicated admins and mods) may not work for us, because our crew isn't the same. We have some mods who might log in to the forums twice a week these days., and that's if we're lucky. Some admins are even less present than the mods, either logging in pretty much never, or not taking part in the community. So maybe some arbitrary system we decide on will work better here than other places. Maybe not, only thing we can do is try it out.

Which is pretty much why I didn't lock this thread right out. I'd sort of like to keep this open to discussion. Really, if there isn't the slightest inkling of dialogue or discussion about the system as it is, we're not going to know how people feel about it, because we (the forum admins, not so much the mods) are really pretty out of touch with the community as a whole. At least, that's how I feel about it.

I tend to be pretty forgiving as a rule. I'm one of the more "laissez-faire" people around here. I can think of at least 3 or 4 mods who would have locked this thread on sight, no questions asked, and tossed another warning at ?igma for good measure, and the only reason I didn't is that I felt there was a kernel of valid discussion in what otherwise amounted to a steaming pile.

But, you're right. This thread should die, before it degenerates into more of a "bitch at the mods here" thread than it's already become.