eh, screw it, I'll throw out a proposal, feel free to tell me it's too much work. have an opt-in moderation log for users. at a user's request, post their moderation history, including the posts they were warned for. (I'm assuming you guys keep a log of this already.) it should be in a clearly sectioned off area, since it'll obviously contain CoC violations, but that'd give a common ground for users to evaluate context, which as you say is important.
We have in the past
done something similar upon user request.
cool. that's slightly different from what I'm talking about, because I'd like to see the actual deleted posts, but judging by your comparison and tone it sounds like you'd be open to that as well.
out of curiosity, how often do mods take actions across forums?
Except for spambots, almost never. I can see it happening in the case of blatant violations where context is nonexistent or irrelevant--that's what spambots are, after all--but non-spambot issues of that kind are exceedingly rare.
cool.