Just before the forum got upgraded, the moderators started experimenting with handing out infractions to people who break the rules of the site (eg. posting pictures more than 800px on the longest side, starting more than one critique thread a day, etc). People make mistakes, especially if they are new or haven't been on the site for a while and the moderators can generally smooth things over. However, each bit of fixing takes time and also sets a bad example until someone is able to deal with it so we wanted to make use of the infractions mechanism to help us pick out people who flaunt the rules rather than just make a slip and then learn their lesson.
Getting an infraction doesn't mean you are a bad person and it will disappear automatically after a few days. However, please play attention to why it was handed out. The rules are in place to keep the place reasonably tidy. For example, the posting limitations prevent one person flooding Share Your Shots and pushing other people's work out of the way so quickly it gets ignored.
If you do manage to pick up multiple infractions, it suggests you might be happier on another photography forum with different rules and you may find yourself encouraged to look with a temporary or permanent ban!
Wulf
ps. Thanks to everyone who does take time to check the sticky threads in various forums, to browse the
FAQs and to keep things rolling without moderator intervention - you are in the vast majority