Yes Paul, you've made a sensible post and I especially like the reminder that membership is a privilege, I shall remember to use it more often <img src="https://www.ubbcentral.com/boards/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" /> . However in my experience someone's controversial behaviour often acts like a magnet towards other users, and there is nothing unnatural in this. Besides you can't possibly express the opinion of 8000 people about whether or not someone should be banned, even if you have 100 moderators. Maturity is when you can tolerate misbehaviour. And those “bad” people are either calm down after stirring the waves or go away anyway. Having abilities to ban is power, and power should be exercised with caution. Some people like authority, some people don't. If you want to have both you have to find really fine balance, which is not always easy. Banning however is a one-sided approach. This is why ignore is so much better. Instead of playing mother when some whiny member does not like another member, you can tell the whiny member to just switch on the ignore and be done with it. There is no point to make a big deal out of that, really.
