No it isn't exactly what you're saying, though. You're conflating two things together here.
Semi-transparency revealing overall moderation policy =/= SA-style transparency (publically-viewable rationale for individual bans)
Several of the moderators, including myself... and including EL, whose decision this 100% is... have replied on the specific subject of a ban record. I've been an SA member for 6 years longer than I've been a GAF member. I get that not everyone agrees about what's best, but there's not really much more to be said on the subject.
The big reason why not is because bans are a cumulative thing, not necessarily subject to one post, and ban records often don't give good context. It's also because we don't necessarily want to name-and-shame everyone who does something wrong. to be honest, "public bannings" are very uncommon... one of the first things in the mod tutorial guide is "You're not a moderator to be a "personality."... That is, do not ... derail discussions because of your status, or perform "public hangings" when banning people." Obviously everything has context and I'm not going to second guess bish, but my point is that that's not the way things get done in general.
I think we generally do a good but not perfect job at making the rules clear, and I think fear of "unwritten rules" is pretty overblown if people really just read the TOS and FAQ forum in a holistic, not-hyper-literal way.
I also think people overthink the significance of someone getting a 5-day cool-off. No one is being considered a terrible irredeemable poster because they blew off steam on a bad day or stepped slightly over the line.
Ban messages in 2012 are better than they were 5-6 years ago in terms of imparting info. Again, not saying they're perfect, but in general someone who gets banned now should understand why they were banned even if they don't agree.
Finally, a lot of people who are bitter about their bans hold a vendetta against the people they believe have banned them. In some cases, it's that people disagree with the rules and so think they shouldn't apply--that's not how any system works. I totally get why people would disagree with some of the rules here. But they do apply. So "shooting the messenger" by implicating the mod who banned you isn't really productive. If you really feel someone in specific has it out for you, PM another mod about it and try to be detached and rational about it instead of getting aggressive. Either way, we don't want to enable or empower this kind of thinking--even if Kabouter (or Mumei, or charlequin, or Blackace, or myself...) bans the same person 8 times, that doesn't mean that 10 other mods wouldn't have made any of those calls.
Those are some of the reasons. I'm not sure if every mod agrees with me on all of those issues, and some mods might actually want a public ban list, but that's how I feel, and a lot of it is stuff that EL has said before as well so I feel confident saying he's basically in the same ballpark as me.
The public ban list isn't going to happen in the immediate or mid future. I think we all understand why some people want one. I think we've expressed why there isn't one. Is there anything that's unclear going forward?
In the mean time, if people have questions about specific rules, specific bans, moderation policy, anything like that, I'm happy to keep replying.
Normally we lock threads like this, but I think it's served as a good pressure-release valve to prevent meta-garbage from overwhelming other threads. So if the response is that a thread like this indulges in the kind of gossip the above answer says we're trying to avoid, I agree that it does, and it's kind of a harm reduction thing. I'd rather avoid the gossip altogether.
. But seriously, there's a tendency on Neogaf for people to just pile on a poster who says something controversial. Just look at that thread where the OP used the term ladyboy not knowing it was offensive.
