This thread raises alot of issues for me. I am a person with what could be seen as a fairly short temper (I don't actually mean to come across like that most of the time, not actually being angry, it's more a mixture of understatement and bluntness) and a fairly dark sense of humour. While I have never to my knowledge had any action taken against me by mods, I do often get the feeling when I read other peoples posts that if I posted a bit more, (massive lurker tendancies) I probably would.
When I read threads and check out why people have been banned/probated, I do often think "What the hell, isn't this a bit heavy handed?". I can't really bring out any specific cases that have not already been discussed, because well, I don't actually care all that much about any induvidual one. But I do have a feeling, which could be simple paranoia, that since I joined this community the mods have become more and more heavy-handed and in some ways, more petty.
Now, I agree that to a great extent it's important to "police" a forum fairly effectively, some people are just annoying (see the first 5-10 posts of any Zero-punctuation thread), sometimes people are just plain offensive and a few, rare induviduals combine the worst aspects of both. But it's possible to weed out these induviduals without coming across as unfair. Something Awful does it just fine and if anything they're more heavy-handed with their moderation.
Some of this perception of unfairness is possibly to do with the fact that on some "ban" posts moderators don't really explain why they're handing out the punitive measures that they are. Yes, they do sometimes, occasionally, and most of the time they don't need to because it's fairly obvious, but relatively often (at a rough and ready figure I'd say about once a month, but I'm not really around enough to say this with great confidence, it could actually be considerably more) there is no clue as to what the infraction involved actually is.
This was the case with Necroswanson. I still have no clue as to what he actually did wrong with that post. He called a few people hypocrites? Some people are, they might not like being called it but hey. Coupled with this I've been called worse on this forum. Alot worse and no action was taken then, not even a probation.
Basically, mods shouldn't just "ban and go". A reason should be made public on every single infraction's post. Even if it's just one word, like "Spamming". Of course, the more complicated the infraction and the harsher the penalty the longer it should be. This would go a long way to get rid of any unfairness, real or percieved.
EDIT: Oh and, it is indeed true that the perception of unfairness in the mods is one of the factors that has slowly pushed me away from this community. Not the only factor, but it's one of them.
