I remember..back in my day we didn't have no health meters, and mods could just bring down the banhammer and smite their justice upon the land like Odin. And they forced you to walk to the smiting hill before they did it, uphill, both ways. And we didn't have none of them fancy jumping physics; you had to walk all the way up there.
*ahem* Anyway, the forums have, for the most part, gotten much more lenient, I think. I do know that after the US election, the mod squad got together and went Vlad the Impaler on the R&P section. I've never seen that many bans happen at one time before or since...march madness earlier that year anyway.
However, I will agree that while the forums have gotten more lenient, the judgement is just as if not more inconsistant than before. While I don't know the history of every poster that gets banned, I find a lot of the posts that get people banned to be very tame or inoffensive at all. However, I also understand that part of the mod system is us reporting posters, so part of the blame falls on the mods, the other part falls on the mob mentality of this site.