I think the community does a great job policing questions/answers, etc. and the community has some good tools available to do this. Between flagging questions with some reasons behind it and editing posts, closing them, and deleting them, the only thing that seems to be missing to me is the ability to flag a user.
Reasons to flag a user as abusive:
If you flag a post from that user for moderator attention, it is highly likely that we will look at their other recent activities, including (but not limited to) questions, answers, comments, votes - and correlations to other users if there is a suspicion of a sock-puppet.
If they are being a nuisance, there are a range of options - but also don't forget that just because they've annoyed you doesn't guarantee that we're going to throw the book at them.
The e-mail approach works too, but don't forget the team is US-based, but between us the moderators have pretty-much the whole day covered; if they are actively an issue, a moderator flag may get acted on quicker than the e-mail. Or do both.
Also; don't forget you can flag... if somebody is being offensive, flag them as offensive. For most puppet accounts, the penalty (100 points) may be enough to take away much of their access.
I remember requesting this a long time ago and I'm surprised that nothing really ever came about from it. They went ahead and implemented the ability the flag a post and inform moderators, but not an actual user (which I think tends to be more important in the grand scheme of things)
There are flags (text-based) on users, but can only be added by, and are only visible to, moderators.
When Gordon Gano sings this line in Kiss Off, it's a reference to what the principal of his high school told him after the band played at a National Honor Society ceremony. While they were still in high school (before they made it big), The Violent Femmes were asked to play some music at the NHS ceremony. They said sure... and then they played Gimme the Car. The students in the audience went crazy, pandemonium ensued, and the principal told Gano, "I hope you know that this will go down on your permanent record."
Unlikely to be ever implemented for anyone other than moderators as explained in Podcast #22 :
In the rare event where a user goes haywire — remember that it costs $5 to even join MetaFilter — these users will be given “timeouts” of a day or two until they cool down. There are no scarlet letters or black marks that can be placed on users. The history of the user’s actions, particularly if that history is public, is usually enough to handle the problem. We definitely agree with this philosophy.
