Yes to your question, we were discussing "formal" infraction points, or "pips" as we colloquially call them among the staff.
There used to be three strikes/warnings/steps/points/pips before a member was on his very last "and we mean it this time" chance, at which point he/she would be banned if another violation occurred. We would give an informal "verbal warning" via PM before any pips were given.
But we found that we could never remember if a member had previously been given a PM warning for a specific behavior or not, so people ended up getting informal warning after informal warning and never being "pipped".
So we went from three strikes to four, and used the PM warning as the first formal pip, just so we'd have a record that one had been given. (points are recorded as part of an admin-only accessible portion of a user's profile, so we can always find out where a member stands)
In practice, people pretty much still get informal non-pip PM warnings anyway, so if anything it's now HARDER to get banned than ever.
That was the case with Juno's...she and ortiz had gone toe to toe and they were asked privately (and maybe in the thread, I don't remember) to keep away from each other. So when she created a thread to make a point about him, we finally gave the "official" first verbal warning and "pip".
Just a little glimpse inside our dastardly doings.
