We pay close attention to the top ignored users. If they aren’t breaking guidelines but are just…annoying to many users, our mods reach out via DM and engage in discussion with them about how their behavior impacts other users and offer ways to take a different approach. As a first step, we do not use an official warning - just a one on one conversation. If their ignore rate goes higher, then we escalate with an official warning, then start to lower trust levels, eventually locking them at trust level 0 for a while. But, all of this is done incrementally and with clear communication to the user.
But - if the user is unwilling to engage or becomes combative about it, we have escalated more quickly.
It has been working well for us. Ignore rates are going down over time, and the discussions have been far more generative. Page views and mau/dau are all up, too.
It is more labor for moderators, but we are a nationwide member-run, member-led org aligned on shared values - so our forum is members only and we don’t ban anyone (the forum is the only communications platform across the org), so it’s in our collective best interest to elevate discussion if we are all gonna be a part of it. (though we do silence users in the most egregious cases)
I think my response would be different if it was a product support forum, though!
edited to add:
If there are 100 people who sought out the ignore feature on a user so they could continue participating, it is assured that there are more users than that 100 who find the behavior annoying - and many of them are likely to see an annoying poster and just stop participating and find a new place to have discussion. Some may be annoyed but not know about mute/ignore, some are willing to put up with it for a little while, but they’ll both just slowly drift away if the problem isn’t dealt with.