!foss_requests@libretechni.ca was attacked by a spammer(usrahonehub@libretechni.ca). As the mod, I was able to ban the user from that specific community only.

When dealing with a manifestly malicious actor, the only tool at my disposal was “ban from community”. That community-specific feature is useful in cases of users who break the rules of the community. It’s a bit weak for addressing malicious attack. A threat agent banned from one community can retaliate by attacking other communities moderated by the same mod.

The only other action I can take is to “block user”. But I think that’s a user-level action that would actually be irresponsible for a mod to use because it would hide that user’s future attacks from the mod in other communities they moderate. Correct? (question: or is lemmy designed well enough to limit the ‘block user’ action to communities that blocking account does not moderate?)

Features needed

① Mods should be able to pre-emptively ban a malcious account from all communities that they moderate, not just the community that was attacked.

② When visiting that user’s profile, there also is no quick option to report the user to the admin. Perhaps DMing is sufficient, but it requires an extra level of ambition of the mods. OTOH, a quick button could be abused by mods. So I guess it’s not so clear cut.