Maybe the post was unclear. I agreed to not killing, and suggested an email to alert the users that their queries were excessively long duration to help with process improvement. After all, if no one says anything they assume all is well.

If it is external users repeatedly hitting this then routing the emails to their 'handler' would be appropriate, as well as a link to the documented indexes suggested for large data queries ...

Yes, we should not incite a flame war. Yes, to lessening of drama. But also yes, to pointing out issues as issues. Sometimes you have to tell them to put on their big boy britches when their work causes extra work for others.