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I argued against this sort of ban when it was applied to someone calling out Dean, and I will argue against it here as well. I don't think prohibiting this kind of response is actually improving discussion quality. There are few things as infuriating as hypocrisy, where people seek to reap the discourse benefits of having principles when it is convenient, but refuse to pay the tax of being bound by them. The "heat" was already introduced when OP decided to be a hypocrite; stopping people from venting it will not let you cheat the Second Law of Thermodynamics, but just make them bottle it up and release it gradually over the course of future interactions with him (amplified by the additional anger over him getting away with the initial offense thanks to jannie cover). Presumably, this will result in OP feeling treated unfairly/diffusely persecuted by the community, which will in turn encourage him to needle his opposition more.
I tend to think that paying enough attention to people's usernames to stay mad at them for stuff they said in other threads is the wrong way to use this website.
We're not running for President here, people should be able to change their minds or try out new opinions without getting grilled on their previous record. And as someone who mostly lurks, I find that posts that attack a specific user rather than their argument are usually not very interesting to read.
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I'm not sure if this is what you are referring to as "the initial offense," but magicalkittycat was banned for it. What is "jannie cover?"
It's not strictly that call-outs that are banned, I would say, so much as heated ones. Posters who are aggravatingly hypocritical can certainly have that spelled out, but it still has to be within the context of a rule-abiding post--more light than heat, ample charity, etc. We do actually mod people when it seems like they are baiting others deliberately, but that doesn't mean we're going to refrain from moderating people who snap at the bait. As always, bad behavior is not excusable by other people's bad behavior.
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