It's rare, and you know it's rare, when I agree with @LordLundin, or when he agrees with me... I think it's something to consider, and I'll show you why:
1. When Dark, Sebbi, Arqmeister, I and others were mods you thought we banned too speedily. We can argue about that as much as you like, whether we were in fact right or wrong for doing so, but it is what it is.
2. The rules were less outlined at the time, so there was in fact, a greater chance of you unknowingly breaking them because rather than treating you all like spoiled children, we chose to err on the side of letting you prove your maturity on the forum, or letting you grow into it if it wasn't there. Again, arguable and questionable practice, but it is what it is.
3. We left. Rules became more transparent and some of your moderation panel decided it would be best to add in this community failure clause. More leniency to be a dirtbag and get away with it, but at the same time, more chances of, in the event that you were doing something in absolute and innocent naiveness the most you would get would be a caution your first time around. Dark and I? We didn't give cautions!
4. Now that this system is in place, you want the ability to use it against others within the community because *throw in example of bad apple here to support your opinion,* which tells me that you either,
a. Do not trust the mods you currently have working for you to dilligently do their job and keep you safe from bad apples when they present themselves or,
b. Will not be satisfied until you can control the forum yourselves, however that actually takes shape, even if you have to use the mods to do it for you.
In essence, what I feel those of you pushing for this thing want is a group of puppets, not mods. IN an atempt to strike of the shackle of rule you feel the mods have over you because rules exist, you seek to erode the rule by bending the mod over little by little until he has no say left because you have subverted it with your will. No, for the record, I'm not saying that mods/admins are not corrupt/cannot make mistakes/will not ever screw it up. They can, they do and they will, just as much as anyone else in this community can, does, and will. What I am saying, however, is that in order for this thing to work at all there has to be stability involved, and that does not come from moving the anchors around with all of your whims and wishes and fancies. I said power belongs to the people, and I will keep saying that. What I do not believe is that power belongs to any one subset of people, and it belongs less to the individual.
To conclude, you have the ability to PM mods. You have the ability to report offensive posts. You have the ability to see who's been put on watch. You have the ability to even speak up about these things within the topics that offend you, provided you don't go stupid crazy and start spewing insults and throwing out baseless accusations. What you want now, is the ability to act as enforcers of the rules. You want to police your own forum and see to it that people are gone as soon as you can collectively get enough people together to suggest that such a thing should happen. Post 1 is entirely indicative of what I've written here by saying things such as the every day forum user should have some way to impact moderation decisions. I do not believe this is needed nor should it be wanted, anymore than it should be possible for the every day citizen of a country to have a say on who is allowed to live in it just because opinions don't exactly match.
When life gives you oranges, demand lemons since everyone else is obviously getting them.