Board Thread:Community Discussions/@comment-26047195-20150709043335/@comment-25625534-20150709071359

Eh... I don't think this is a very good idea. If there's a user who does "nothing for the community but cause havoc and disruption," a thread submitted to an admin's wall detailing your complaints and ideally logs or links to the user in question's offenses would probably suffice, and be more legitimate than a petition where the "deciding vote" for a significant-length "(long-term being at least a month)" ban could easily be "per OP". Regardless of the legitimacy or perceived deservedness of the ban, bans "at least a month" long should be dealt with and decided more seriously than with a petition. The process for that kind of thing should be decided by the admin team who have experience dealing with this kind of thing objectively. A petition would almost certainly allow bias and personal dislike to leak into what should be a logical and fair decision with discussion and thought behind it, which should not happen.

This is one of the few areas I don't think the community as a whole should have much of a say in; when it comes to banning and especially blocking other community members, there should be a relatively detached group who examines the offenses, comes to a consensus based on their findings, and deals with the issue accordingly. The admin team is certainly the most qualified group on the wiki for such a position. I don't think it's necessary to insert a new element to an already difficult and lengthy process like this. If you feel a user deserves a ban of any sort, take it up on an admin or moderator's message wall, or in a PM on chat, but being able to start a petition - which you haven't clarified the definition of, as Obi pointed out - and have enough signatures to warrant a month-long ban within a few hours of posting, before an admin has even had the chance to examine the situation, doesn't seem like a very good idea. Even if petitions "required approval of the petition before publishing as to avoid joke petitions and stupid crap," why wouldn't you just take the issue straight to an admin discussion rather than a petition which has the possibility of an unfair outcome?

Without an specific definition of "petition" and the way this would function, maybe an example of a layout/vote, I can't really say much more. As it is, I'd rather long-term bans be decided by the admin team, rather than the whole community. I just don't trust a fair lot of people here - myself certainly included - to vote with cool heads and not submit unfair ban requests, approval required or otherwise.