Just a thought I had yesterday, & it still seems attractive to me today, but I don't know if this solves the problems we currently have with Wikipedia -- or any problems. (And if it seems acceptible, I would want it adopted only after it passed a poll, made known to all Wikipedians.)
We allow sysops to ban users with accounts for 24 hours, subject to the following procedure:
1. Immediately following the banning, notice of the ban is entered on a page, say, [[Persons Banned for 24 hours]].
2. Within the next 48 hours a certain number of other sysops (say 3 or 5), must add their votes approving this ban.
Failure of both of these acts (or one sysop voting _against_ the ban) then forces this act to be immediately reviewed by a committee (say the Arbitration Committee), who may then remove sysop powers from the person making the ban, reprimand her/him, or decline to act.
The point of this procedure is to allow sysops to ban people they believe are disruptive to Wikipedia _if the sysop is willing to risk her/his reputation_. Hopefully, this will allow sysops to deal with contributors who are disruptive or causing trouble, while checking abuse with the possibility of a severe penalty.
Any thoughts? I'll assume if no one comments that this proposal doesn't answer any pressing need on Wikipedia.
Geoff