Personally I see no problem with raising the issue of what constitutes a fair ban.

First and foremost I'd like to point out that I'm only arguing in favour of a polite and well measured discussion or objection. In extreme cases this voice of objection can be quite blunt but it shouldnt get out of hand and should always be well intended.

A healthy community will constantly be questioning and challenging itself. It shows that people are interested, involved, and want to try and improve the quality of the community as well as the experience that others get from it.

If people want an analogy...... suppose a friend asked me to read a piece of work, I know he's been working tirelessly on it for days. I could say "yes, thats great" and let him rest, thats what he wants after all. Alternatively I could read through it properly and point out all the spelling errors, all the gramatical mistakes and all the changes (hopefully small) that I think need to be made. They will then spend half an hour more slogging their guts out, it will be painful but help them achieve a higher grade (often that half an hour can make a big difference). It might be briefly painful at the time but I'm pretty sure which friend I'd want checking my work.

I see critiqing the current crime/punishment system as being the same. Its not about the individual case at all, its about the methods and the enjoyment of this site by others as a whole.

For those who are wondering.... I do find some of the recent punishments to be somewhat heavy handed. I dont know if this has always been the case but I still think that more account could be taken of circumstance in some cases.