In the community where I generally participate, a user was banned by the admins recently. Some users have started a thread asking for that decision to be reversed, while others have expressed gratitude for the step. I see this as a prime example of the need for an ‘ignore user’ feature, as well as why it is a reasonable request.
Allowing each user to decide for themselves whether to see this person’s posts is, in most forum applications, a standard feature. The powers-that-be at Discourse evidently don’t feel the average user is mature enough to make that decision. They seem to think only the forum admins are capable of making that decision.
On the other hand, the Discourse folks don’t respect the admins either. If they did, they would provide the tools so that the forum owners can decide for themselves how to run their forums.