One more question (hoooweee, I'm on a roll! ;-) Lets say, you were a long term freeper (and I would point out that I am here closer to two years than three- but anyway) and you started getting in trouble. Do the mods send a warning post to the offender at all before zotting him?
To take this a bit further, if you answer yes to that, could we- the Freepership at large- assume that once someone who has been around for a while and gets- you know, zotted- can we assume that they were warned beforehand and just ignored the warnings? That would ease my mind considerably about some things. It would be nice to think that the zot feature wasn't a sword of Damocles hanging over you head. I would feel better knowing there was some built in 'warning zot' for long termers before the actual zot if you ken what I mean ;-)
Anyone who's a longtimer and on the verge of being banned knows he's treading on thin ice. We or Jim will give warnings by mail or on the thread, and log those warnings. Unless they totally wig out (we've only had a couple that were instant bans). Those folks who've been banned and say they weren't warned are lying. They are newbie 'retreads' (people who register over and over again) and post on other sites they've been banned from FR for no reason. But, Jim does a check and 99% of the time, they were someone else. It's a game they play, be a FR martyr.