Every community owner does not want to reduce their members by banning the ones that misbehave. Banning a member just means there will be less interactions. But it gets to a point where they are left with no choice.

To what extent does it have to go before you ban members?

I have been part of a forum where memebers used to get banned without any warning. They just used to ban member for really small mistakes. Many forum members got frustrated with that. This led to many active members leaving the forum as well. Nowadays that forum is not that much active. Having said that, banning members unnecessarily would lead to problems.

Throughout the many many years of being on forums I think I've only had to use it a handful of times. That's not including bots though.

I am not so quick to ban people. So, I prefer warning first. Banning members reduces the activity and can disrupt the activities of the community.

It could be very painful when someone starts to post toxic rubbish or spamming the forum. In that case you should use warnings and if he failed to comply, then banning is the next option.

The banhammer for the same spammer came out today on gDNA and Spark Promotion. Literally within seconds posting on each site.

99% spammers.

1% are the very few who act like jerks enough to get booted out, like making threats or trying to intimidate me. They get banned immediately, and I don’t unban them.

I don’t do it too often. I have been running forums for more than 8 years and so far I have banned only a handful of members. I ban member for repeated offense like spamming, posting duplicate content, posting links within the posts, trolling other members, and posting links that links to porn or phishing sites.