Infractions are publicly viewable

[Erin]

Just a quick note--I've flipped the switch to make infractions publicly viewable. In a word, this means that violations of forum guidelines show up in posts.

You might see something like this:

(an infraction)

or

(advice or warning)

in a post.

If you see one of those, it means that a forum moderator has seen the post and has given an infraction or warning to the poster.

If anyone's curious, the most common infractions are for textese, posting contact information, and copyright violations.

The reason I've made this change is simple--I'm hoping that if people see the infractions or warnings, they'll see in the post what we don't like or don't allow in the forums.

And down the road, I hope overall this helps maintain the quality of posts in the forum.

[Tseprep]

Hey Erin, if someone gets a warning or infraction, does that record stay forever or like the DMV will disappear after awhile (if it does, how long? I hope it is not 3 years :-P)

[Erin]

Good question. I assume that they stop showing when the infraction expires. Some infractions, such as those for copyright violations, never expire. Others last three months.

Edit: I just checked. They never go away, even after the infraction expires. This is actually a good thing--it shows other posters that the thread has something in it that we don't like.

[samarfadl]

hey Erin!

sorry for being off point, but what happened to thy lovely avatar, although thy new avatar is nice with that little Asian baby , i'd like to say that i will really miss thy previous avatar.

again sorry for being off point, i didn't know where to express my feelings (my feelings of sadness), and thank u for informations posted in this thread, they are useful to us.
thank u Erin and enjoy thy new avatar

by the way, are these thy photos in thy profile????
forgive me for my curiosity

[Tseprep]

3 months sounds pretty reasonable, as for copyright, I understand where you are coming from. We don't want problems from ETS or others.

[Erin]

3 months sounds pretty reasonable, as for copyright, I understand where you are coming from. We don't want problems from ETS or others.

I've edited my post above. In a word, the posts continue to show the infractions, even after they expire.

[Tseprep]

Does that infraction also show on the poster? For example if I made an infraction, everytime I make a post is there an infraction icon on my post? While I don't plan to make any copyright infractions or any other infractions, I do want to know what the rules and how they are carried out.

[asquare]

The infraction shows on the post(s) that received an infraction, but not on other posts by the same user.

[Tseprep]

That sounds pretty reasonable.

[Erin]

It's not that hard to make infractions show up in other places, but my concern for the forums is to let people know that infractions are given and we really don't like certain things, such as textese and posting contact information in posts.