I must say this came totally out of left field with little to no real reason behind it other than a "we haven't liked him for the longest time" vibe. Mike and I were never really friends, and in fact I spent most of my first year arguing with him fairly often before realizing it was better just to let him be, interacting and occasionally joking with him in small doses. He could be long-winded, and engaged in ad hominem far too often, but he was hardly a detriment to the board for the most part.
It seems to me that the methods of banning nowadays are based more on the whims of the current crop of mods rather than any possible egregious offense by the banned. In the past, it was easy to know when posters were banned because it was usually preceded by a large flame war between the banned and other posters with mods mixed in here and there. Now it's like the message board equivalent of Paulie and Silvio taking a marked poster out into the woods and putting two in the head, leaving someone else to find the dead account and questions as to what the fuck happened.
...plus, how can there be justice on a message board where Mike is dead while INXS posts freely?