My feeling is this: the banning on the forums is both too frequent, and not particularly good for the community. I don't recall particularly agreeing with most of the bans that have occurred around here.
Kicking someone out of a community that they have gone to the effort to make a home in is demeaning to them personally. If people are going to get a suspense every once in when, it should be handled with delicacy. Failing that, the offended parties might very well move on. Or go silent, and stop contributing stuff.
As a regular, I've had a message or two edited. While I didn't happen to agree with those, either, I think that's a good way of dealing with site moderation, because it sends a message: post this kind of content, and you're wasting your keystrokes; don't bother, because it will go missing.
All this said, moderating game community boards is an sob. Nothing quite like having to moderate a mix of preteens and adults both: you're never quite sure how to treat the person on the other end.
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