I've learned the hard way that flaming doesn't generally work. However there are a few exceptions, namely being Thor and Grif. They can be harsh, but they get the message across and in general they help the community. Remove them and you get disasters like http://www.datarealms.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=311144#p311144. That topic would have died within minutes if Grif or Thor had seen it. They would give the user a harsh but necessary comment, before reporting the topic.

tl;dr People should listen to Thor and Grif because they have good opinions and they keep the community in order.

You could just report the topic. You don't need them to do that yourself.

And moderators usually point out what the OP did wrong if it wasn't already obvious.

Yes usually they do, although a large group of people don't learn when moderators warn them about what they did wrong.
That's completely true. I should have had that in my post.

Whenever you get warned the mod who posted the warn sends you a pm with the details of why you were warned.
EDIT: And if you're still not sure why, you can pm them back.

Why do you say that, shadow?

Because humans only learn from mistakes, and only if those mistakes have non-beneficial consequences.

Like getting warned or banned. Got it.

Like getting warned, yes. Believe it or not, getting warned for doing something stupid might have the same effect as flaming, and send the person in question running to mommy/daddy/Cthulhu/w/e, or it will be ignored, in which case it didn't serve its purpose. It would not be a negative consequence to an action.

That is purely circumstantial, but I doubt anyone would go Boo-Hoo over a warning.
Stop making up stuff, please.

And I doubt there are people who would rather wait 4 hours for a reply on a topic rather than google for something, that doesn't make it true.

Sounds like you guys are doing a lot of speculating. Let me join in! (also: woah, epic derail)

Everyone knows "Being a jerk" on the internet probably isn't going to be acceptable in any forum. To get a feel for "how far you can take it" in any environment is done simply by looking around; if a newb joins this forum and sees a bunch of swearing and flaming, they'll join in.

If everyone is posting my-little-pony sparklies and lolling at each other's cuteness, they'll lean more that way.

In my mind, the real "Forum Guidelines" is the content in the forum - and that's what I've been hired to fix. The content. In my experience, the actual posted rules and FAQs are only consulted once somebody gets into trouble - and is usually the cause of people whining and saying "but that's not fair! There's nothing in the rules about that!". This is also the source theory behind my original (failed) "rule change" of "chill". [it's worked on all my other forums, you guys are just really sensitive]

(it even happened yesterday when people were saying "♥♥♥♥♥♥" in IRC - immediately got whines that it wasn't in the rules and they got kicked anyway)

When it comes to punishments: The more harmful the offending material is to the community, the more the punishment has to "hurt." How much it hurts is subjective though; if someone's life is all DRLFF, being away from IRC for 10 minutes can be incredible-rage-making (see: recent IRC bans). For people who are more aloof, even a 7-day forum-ban might not even be noticed (the first person I banned on the forums didn't notice until day 5).

Talking about warez and being incredibly offensive on the forum is also a lot more damaging; it might be awhile before a moderator catches it and it can scare away a bunch of newbs. Woe betide us if google crawls the forums before they're edited out, and as such it should be punished a bit more harshly (7 day+ bans)

Doing the exact same thing on IRC in the middle of the night when nobody is on, on the other hand, has absolutely zero negative effect on the community (except perhaps reinforcing that the behaviour is "ok" and causing trouble later), so it's still frowned upon but probably would only have a sub-30-second ban.

Furthermore, sometimes the ban and warning reasons go beyond the scope of the post or offending material itself. If someone has an overall bad attitude and hasn't ever quite crossed the line, you have to stop them somewhere and let them know that - individually, each post might be good - but overall, there's something off, and that should be worked on.

There are so many factors to consider in this whole mess that it really comes down to "gut instinct" or "feel" for the situation as to what deserves a warning, what deserves a ban, and for how long. As long as the moderators are doing what's best for the long-term health of the community, I'm going to support them. I do a lot of discussing with the leadership team and sometimes "what is best" (in data's opinion) is different from what you guys will think is "best" or even "logical."

If you are particularly concerned about anything - the direction the forum is taking, a particular rule, or a particular punishment/stance on an issue - let me know! I'll happily discuss it with you in-depth and give my reasoning for it.

[/rant]

(this should probably be it's own post)

Tl:dr version:
1-Newbies learn by example.
2-Punishments cannot be fixed, they must be decided on the spot.
3-People don't understand the fact that rules are not pre-defined, and anything can be considered an offense.
4-One can't be a good mod/admin if they're either too logical or too emotional, they must be balanced.
(weasel, feel free to correct me if I misinterpreted something)

1-Agreed. As much as I'd like to, I can't argue with that. Well, actually, I can. That only happens to lurkers, not to people who register the instant they find the place.
2,3-These next two are fundamental stuff, been here forever as far as I'm aware.
4-Can't really argue with this one, I'm personally biased towards logic.

[wz approves of this post]

:O amazing

I've always found the "but its not in the rules" excuse pathetic. People know when they're being a ♥♥♥♥.

True, but I'm thinking they learn by example over the course of their.. first 10 posts. Those that lurk will fit in better on their first few than those that don't, but judging from the quality of replies they get (if they get them), they should end up stabilizing at the same quality level.