Like with baseball, 3 strikes and you're out. I consider a verbal warning, the first strike. I use the warning levels to indicate how many strikes a person has. (so if a person has a 33% increase, then they have 2 strikes left.)
However, the offense will determine how many strikes you have. Posting porn, warez, malicious links, racist and/or hate speech, being underaged and other direct violations of the T.O.S. will get you banned immediately.
PM/Email Advertising will get these priveleges permanently revoked. Then the person will be placed in the group that doesn't have these abilities, site link will be added to the word filters, and your warn level will be increased to 50%. Trying to bypass the filters in an attempt to continue advertising will result in a ban.
Posting a cloaked url will result in a 50% increase, and repeated posting of them will result in a ban. I do this to ensure the safety of both the members, and the forum itself. I have been on boards where someone had posted these kinds of links and they ended up being malicious. If the site you are linking to is on the up and up, then there is no reason to cloak the link. I don't have url length restrictions on my forum, and so, there is no need to shorten it. The link might be truncated in the post, but when you click on it, the link will still work. So, there really is no need to use a cloaked link.
Immature behavior in the mature areas, (such as flaming someone during a debate, or immature replies in the other mature areas such as those dealing with dating, sex, and personal issues) or if it was found out that one member ripped another person's art work then those people will be placed in the restricted groups for these areas.
Other offenses such as spamming, disrespecting the staff and members, trolling, etc.. will result in the usual strike, with mod queue with the second strike, and then a ban.
