There's really nothing tricky about it: Don't insert charged political commentary into boating threads. Don't insult other users. Be helpful and patient with new owners -- we were all them, once. And finally, don't post long lists of links to black market prescription drugs.
And if you have a history of contributions like Stu has, or T-Bird Scott, trust that nothing will happen suddenly. You'll hear from the mods several times first.
The biggest traps are politics and insults. Sometimes, very intelligent, articulate, and astute forum users can't resist drawing political conclusions from posts here. I get it: they're passionate, and that's good. But this is the wrong place and it eventually leads to trouble.
Likewise, when a new boater says he wants to tow his 26 footer from CA to NY with the rudder down, sure, you can tell him he's a frickin' idiot, or you can say, "Well, you could do that but there's a good chance you'll damage your rudder." The former tactic causes bans, the latter creates leaders.
It's just common sense. Play by those few rules and you'll never have any trouble at all.