Well, them and Gene Simmons, of course.
Would that be a Deathtongue we are talking about here?
Yes. An 18" double-headed 1920’s style Deathtongue.
IMO, you need to suspend much more often, and ban less often.
The problem that I perceive you guys having is that because banning is so final (yes I know a ban can be revoked, but it’s rare) that you leave it as late as possible - to give the person every last chance, and to be sure of making a fair, incontrovertible decision.
But if people were suspended more quickly - and repeatedly - they would be gone sooner, and they would have a chance to think about their behaviour. People do eventually grow up and out of their difficult phases. If someone was a bit of a brat, being suspended time and time again would either get them so frustrated that they would go away permanently, or they would actually begin to modify their behaviour. For prolific posters, a month’s freeze is quite a severe hardship. It would hurt.
Socking would also be less of an issue. A suspended person, knowing they get to return, wouldn’t want to risk an actual ban by getting caught socking. There is also considerable pride in board “identity” (such as post count) - so I think most people would prefer to return to their pre-suspended known identities than just create a new one.
And because it isn’t permanent, you could suspend more quicky and after fewer warnings, and for lesser offences if you so wished. Because people would be less bothered about making a big outcry if they knew the suspendee was eventually returning.
There are so many posters who contributed a lot to these boards who are permanently lost - not just in terms of content, but in terms of their $$$ to you.
I agree. There seems to be a dramatic jump between a warning and a banning. Using a broader range of interventions would seem to me to be of benefit for both the moderators and the members. A few days time out, thirty days in the cooler… Some interim period for punishment and reflection doesn’t seem particularly unwieldy or unreasonable.
A sort of enforced timeout/cooling off period, IOW? Sounds logical. It would serve as an effective punishment as well as get the irritant out of posters’ hair. I like the idea, and will fly it past the group. Thanks.
Veb
Another vote for suspensions as a regular step in board discipline. Sorely needed, and might well keep some bannees whom we’ve lost forever. The real jerks would end up banned; the salvageable transgressors could choose to learn from experience; the angst over Doper X’s exile would simmer way down.
Heck, it might even take away one of the toys of the snark boards. 
Gotta agree on the suspensions idea. Simply brilliant and brilliantly simple.
If we get suspended, do the Mods also send a note home to our parents? 
Your parents!? We don’t dink around with no steenkin’ parents.
A gen-u-wyne SDMB suspension gets noted on your credit report, college transcript, driver’s record and a leper with a lung transplant will have a better chance at ever getting life insurance.
For the terminally paranoid among us, the above is NOT TRUE.
Breath threats, maybe.
Madam Thorstein, you closed a thread after saying,“This thread is fluff with a few token fucks,” yet this thread, which has been hijacked from here to Kingdom Come with only a few attempts to keep it on track, still lives. Care to explain this apparent paradox or do we chalk it up to yet another example of inconsistent modding?
I’m not a jerk but I play one on the internet. 
TV just doesn’t like token fucks. They have to be real fucks for the thread to stay open. Believe me, there are some real fucks in this thread!
Hijacked? The reason this has mostly been a joke thread is that the OP was incomprehensible, to the point of comedy. Though some commentors may appear to be “on topic”, I submit that they are the true hijackers of this thread.
Its your OP. You want it closed? Just ask a mod I am sure they will consider it. But just because you are pissed that must of us did not find you OP particularly clever is kind of a silly reason to lock it. You keep whining that we are not taking your OP seriously, let it go or ask a mod to close it.
Hey, we’re not complete Nazis. (Well, I’m not anyway.) All we ask is that threads start out in a Pit-worthy direction, which this one did. We’re not going to close threads the moment someone makes a joke or an off-topic remark. They may get closed eventually, but we’ll usually let them sputter out by themselves first if possible.
(sigh) Note the smilies, Skeptic. I put them there for a reason. Maybe not a GOOD reason, but no worse than the bad reasons I do most everything else.
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate smilies?
Sigh.
Ooookayyy. Since you put the pernicious little things in there I guess I can’t rip your arms off and beat you soundly about the head with 'em.
Oh…and the Giraffe speaks truly.
You better not let **Lynn Bodoni ** hear you say that. She will rip out your tongue and choke you with it then cut off your genitals and eat them then change your title from Mod to Banned.
(Dropzone-sorry I missed the smileys)