Thay can, and I don't think this change will help much. This is probably because the "reason" for deletions and bans was too often ".".
It adds burden to legit mods. Limits their ability to directly address that specific case in the reason, and will have no effect on the malicious mods who can make up rules, or randomly select options. It removes clarity and adds nothing positive.
It's a bad move in every way. Like bone-head level of bad. I'm surprised Putt can be that retarded.
I can not see any positive results. There is no chance it will have the effect Putt predicts.
It does at least force mods to give a reason other than ".", as @xyzzy said, but that's as far as it goes. If I banned someone and did not give a reason, there would be a discussion about it that would either result in a reason being given or my removal on the sub. With this, you just click something from a drop down menu and then nothing happens beyond that.
Plus there are reasons for being banned that can not be summed up in a broad definition. We banned people from /v/ModernPowers for very specific and unique reasons that would never come up on other subs.
It does at least force mods to give a reason other than "."
I don't think it does. it just replaces '.' with 'Default reason #1'.
Plus there are reasons for being banned that can not be summed up in a broad definition
That's the big one to me. We always tried to avoid bans, and when we did it was for very specific reasons after attempting a case by case solution. Something like this would have reduced clarity, not increased it.
I don't see how this changes anything. Mods can just make up a rule and then select that rule as the reason for banning someone can they not?