why do ninjas not lock topics and ban people any more?

Times have changed, the site has changed, and the member/ninja toolset has changed as well. Locked topics are a thing of the past. The ninja no longer have the ability/tools to lock threads. I admit, I do kind of miss that. It was a quick way to say "this isn't a good idea and so it is being locked in order to both close the thread and to give folks something to see so they can get an idea of what is appropriate (either for a specific forum/tag or for the site in general". But locking is gone. Warnings and bans still exist and occur more often than most folks realize. Unlike the "old ways" where a ban resulted in a locked topic with the warned/banned members post content removed, a warning or a ban now removes (in the case of a warned/banned OP) the thread from view. The "old-school" way (where the thread was left, but the content was removed) had the advantage (like I mentioned above) of showing other members that "something had been done". Now, with banned/warned OPs being removed from sight, it SEEMS like no one is being warned/banned. No "bodies" left for people to gawk at. Most of the ninja enforcement (warns/bans) come to us via the report queue. A much smaller amount of our activity (related to enforcement) is when we are cruising the forums and see something in need of our intervention. It's just a matter of logistics and numbers. There are only a couple of dozen moderators and there are tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of active members posting/reading the forums. It is utterly impossible for us to dive into each and every topic, scanning all of the replies and sub-threads looking for problems. But with those same tens/hundreds of thousands of members going into each of those threads/sub-threads, if they consistently use the report tool, they are our "eyes and ears" and their reports of inappropriate content, misplaced posts, or rule breaking content do make it to our attention and we can then act. The "evidence" of our actions is (as I mentioned) no longer left out to rot in the sun, but are removed. It's a different system, and has advantages/disadvantages compared to the old system. Our hosts are open to suggestions and the ninja are capable (and often do) offer suggestions, ideas and proposals for changes to make the forums/tools more helpful and effective.