The ban section is often used to hand out warnings. Of course the players rarely receive these warnings unless they read the forums, which this would not solve.
In the ban section, it's not unusual to give some new player a second chance. If he does it again, he will get banned. Best way to make sure rulebreaking new players know the rules is to ban them and then have them come to the forum to see why they are banned. After that it's easy to direct them to the server rules and have them reread the rules and unban them.
Like this:
http://bundle of sticks-banned/
http://forum.meleegaming.com/closed-requests/kletus_knihts_who_says_ni-ban-for-leeching/msg335773/#msg335773If they get banned again, any admin can easily see that they have previous bans, and if they have been previously banned the assumption is that they have looked up the server rules to see what they are and avoid doing it again. Of course, not everyone takes the initiative.