In DART restraining orders were a problem for most people, the reason they were a problem was because mods got to decide if interactions between 2 people were worth a restraining order, however this is a flawed concept for 3 reasons
1: This is an online website, not a actual real life situation where there is provable and real world evidence of need to restrain a person from physical and emotional contact from another person.
2: Conflicts are only verbal, not physical. There can be escalation of verbal assault, abuse and harrassment to the point of potential doxxing or real world consequences. But in general a restraining order is not made in concept to restrain words, but physical contact.
3: bias dependent on moderators. And no, its not suppose to be, humans are naturally biased, why would a person have to contact a moderator to let them know they dont want someone talking to them? You introduce a human element that affects bias and communications that dont need to be had, and will shape their opinions of others, because they do not have the same training and neutrality as a real life judge has.
That being said, blocking someone should be more inclusive to fulfilling these needs, by simply writing the code to make it where you dont see the posts of the other person. This is a website under free speech (supposedly) so it doesnt dictate that a person MUST speak to people they disagree with, much less to have that disagreement to be interpreted by a 3rd party.
My suggestion is just to make blocking all inclusive, where you cant debate with them, cant private message them, and cant see their comments on forums. This will remove the need for bias and judgement on both sides, and you wont have as many complaints regarding spamming, trolling and other issues, as the people can block them.
And if they feel like its a personal attack, they can choose to be more civil and kind, or choose to leave.