combining those lists into one identifier seems logical to me
Maybe something like (just off the top of my head):
$ilist(stuff-here,bei)
where ,bei means ban/exception/invite and say, if a number is before the comma, it returns the Nth entry of the list. Like $ilist(0,b) returns the amount of bans and $ilist(1,b) returns the first one on the list, etc etc etc.
Signed