Regarding bans

You're right that it shouldn't be about your feelings for the member but that's not what I meant at all. It should be entirely based on circumstance, not feelings. If I punch someone for no reason I'm going to be charged. If I punch someone who's attacking me I'm going to get a break. Not all punchs should be treated the same. In this case I verbally attacked someone who had (imo) provoked me for several days beforehand, and in any justice system that would be taken into account when dealing out the punishment. That may make more work for the moderation team but that's your job. Everything isn't black and white. As a moderator you should be willing to do some investigation. The job is a responsibility.

On this respect, there are already situations where I do take this into account. For example, the vast majority of the time, if someone had previously no infractions, especially if they're a new user, and they have done something wrong, then I'll give them a warning first, prompting them to review the rules so that they can avoid receiving a full infraction in the future. This is pretty much the only case where I can reasonably take the circumstances of the situation into account. It's too much to ask that we review the entire post history of everyone in the dispute before dealing out any infractions. By the time such a thorough investigation were finished, people would be complaining about receiving infractions about posts they made weeks into the past. I see your point but I just don't think it's a reasonable expectation. In your example there, the proper thing to do would probably have been to report the thread, or at least mention it to one of the mods so that they could look over the thread or that person as a whole. Almost everyone's going to believe their trolling accusation is accurate, so they'd all feel as fully justified to post it as you did. That just puts us back at square one, with "troll" being thrown around like crazy. Hell, if you really wanted to, you could put together a pile of evidence of why this person is a troll and include it with your report. Bottom line is, no matter how sure you are, it's against the rules to call someone a troll.