I really am not sure if this should go in Guidelines or Forum Mods, because it's both.

One of the cool things that IP.Board 2.2 did was create "user notes". Now, these "user notes", as originally implemented, could only be added to the warning log through the Admin Control Panel (or ACP), which is all and good but useless if we want our moderators to use them.

So, I wrote a fairly small modification to the warning system (and language and skin caches) so that our moderators could add them through the warning system without actually changing a user's warning level. (Unrelated, while I was there, I also added something so people will always get a notification when a warning is added or removed or a new reminder is added - we'll always be on the same page).

This will impact how things are done around here in several ways, and we're still working out what exactly will happen.

Right now, it looks like what may happen is this: for most things (duplicate topics, swapping outside the swap area, etc), instead of getting a PM or a warning, the first time will get you a reminder. A second offense will get you a warning. We may or may not take time into consideration (but, of course, will let you know how it ends up), so it could be that if it's been a long time, that second offense will just get a reminder as well. There will still be things that go straight to warning - but these are major offenses like trolling or abusive behavior.