This is a fairly radical idea, perhaps a little ahead of its time, and some people may find it hard to get their heads around it, so bear with me, but this is what I propose:
1. Everybody (and I mean everybody, including me) puts on their big girl knickers or big boy pants (depending on gender or preference) and start to take responsibility for their actions. Realise that there are real people behind the usernames and treat your posts here as if you're talking to the people face to face. Be courteous and polite and do not deliberately antagonise anyone (unless it's fun)
or encourage others to, or jump in when someone is being attacked.
2. Everybody (and again I include me in this) ****ing lighten up and learn to take a little ribbing. It's not the end of the world if someone slags you off; this is the online version of real life, and whereas you might not be happy if your mate or brother or husband or girlfriend started slagging you, you wouldn't run to the police to complain would you? So no need to be reporting people unless there's an actual serious issue. Take part in the fun; we're all friends here and if someone says something you don't agree with or that you feel insults or degrades you or in other ways annoys you, talk to them and try to sort it out before you fly off the handle. (Trollheart, take note)...
3. Everyone realise that we're not here because we have to be. We don't work here. Nobody pays us, and the world won't end if we don't turn up. But we LIKE being here, we enjoy it and often look forward to it. So to that end, everyone make a conscious effort to try to make the environment mutually friendly and drama-free.
If we follow these simple steps, we can police ourselves (we're adults, are we not?) rather than instigate a police state or semi-police state here, which is likey to be detrimental to the majority. As Grampa Simpson once said, there's nothing here that can't be fixed with a bit of determination, common sense and gumption, so let's all roll up our sleeves and ....
Wha -- who? Sorry, where was I? Oh yeah: three important phrases which will get you through most drama:
Sorry
No offence meant
None taken
Simple, huh? No poll required, no big amount of work needed, no redesigning the wheel. Just everyone try to make this a better place and work with one another. If you do wrong, accept it, take your warning or infraction or even ban without whining about it. You know you did wrong, and if you don't think you did, then speak to a mod about it privately, don't make it a steward's enquiry and involve the whole community.
****, maybe if we do this we might even get that Utopia that tore longs for...