So, I found out about the flagging system in the chat area the hard way today (Its only the action as I do not know how to link to transcripts and its not like I can go to chat and ask like I normally do). From what I can gather it seems to be a 30min ban per flagging, or maybe I got more than one entry flagged but that is the only thing linked too (though I did get to say that I was just taking a line from an episode of south park before I was unable to partake in the chat any longer).
The relevant message, for the sake of posterity, was:
remember, 1/4th of americans are retarded.
It would be nice to know if something I said in jest and humor was taken offensively and I would then apologize for it. I do not like offending people and I am not a troll, I am however not a very politically correct person (as in general the whole PC thing is a bit too hypocritical to me).
Now I am not trying to convince people that what I said was not offensive, I know that word is disliked by people because of its negative connotations. I am also not looking to get my suspension time reduced so please do not take that from this post. What I am trying to suggest is a bit of a gray area where people are allowed to make up for their mistakes instead of "Go straight to jail, do not pass go and btw, you owe us $200".
When I ran/developed telnet chat programs (talkers) I know our staff always had a set steps to escalate to suspension starting with just a normal verbal warning, an official verbal warning and then suspension or banning depending on the case. It would seem the SE.chat just skip a few of those steps.
EDIT: After talking with Wipqozn he was able to sum up what I was trying to get to here very well as follows (quoted with permission)
Wipqozn Yeah, I get it. What you want is a system where there is an option to either "delete and suspend" or "delete and issue warning"
James @Wipqozn Hit it on the head.. Wish I could have summed it up that easily sooner, hehe.
From further discussion it would seem that the SE sites might not contain the ability to track the warnings received (which makes sense with the current system, the situation that arose has been handled and everyone has moved one). As alexanderpas said:
multiple warnings = suspension.
would imply the requirement to some how track if a user has had multiple warnings, as the people who can validate flags are not always going to be the same person for the same offender. Showing a little count next to the 'issue warning' to show how many the person already has would make sense as well.