"Archaic Bans"

[Sally]

It makes total sense that unbans aren't formalized; for one if the staff is aware a specific person that was formerly banned is back again they can apply a probation period, keep tabs on their behavior and decide if they're worth keeping around again. The secondary reason is they get the bitter/toxic and drama-farming crowd (like Nyx above) off their backs for unbanning someone they hate (usually a big list of people) because nobody likes dealing with toxic whiners, specially on volunteer work, the banned person might also prefer to keep quiet on past shenanigans and start with a clean slate.

Other than that I mostly agree with what Magpie said too, sanctions are there to correct behavior, not solely as punishment, permabans are pointless because they sustain in the terminally-online delusion that you can exclude individuals by just deleting accounts; you can ban accounts, not people, good luck with trying this approach and fail every single time someone wants to come back, though.

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"I suppose many people will continue moving towards careless computing, because there's a sucker born every minute." - RMS