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As of this time @HlynkaCG has been permabanned. I'm posting this message at the top of the thread, because its not really for Hlynka, its for the community to know. There were a few different posts I could have chosen in the modqueue, and many of them were too buried to be visible. The mod team has given him repeated warnings and bans. And I personally reached out to him last ban to warn him that a permaban was likely coming if this behavior continued.
I mostly do not feel this is a good thing, but it is a necessary thing. Hlynka had quite a few quality contributions, and I don't think I was alone in appreciating his often unique (for themotte) perspective. But he repeatedly did it in a way that just wasn't acceptable for the rules around here.
I would like people to have a few takeaways:
Please keep any discussion civil.
I'm sorry to hear this. I've had my own tussles with Hylnka but didn't think he was at the point of permabanning. But I'm not a mod, and I do believe this wasn't a kneejerk reaction.
Any chance of redemption, or is this "banned forever, unless you get a brain transplant and change all your views"?
We made multiple attempts at redemption. I don't know if people realize this, but tempbans are our attempt to get through to users and say "hey you need to change". They aren't just punishments for doing a bad thing. We would prefer if we just needed to warn people, and then once they were warned they forever stopped that behavior.
I am theoretically not against redemption for a permaban. However, every time I try and think of a process for redemption I remember what kind of users we permaban, and realize that such a process is useless. The process for redemption would involve showing an ability and a willingness to change the behavior that lead to a ban in the first place, and for them to humbly ask for that chance at redemption. The users that get permabanned often lack a willingness to change, so they usually can't get through the first hurdle of simply asking for a chance at redemption.
Even removing the requirement that they ask us is sufficiently difficult for most permabanned users. Because they still lack an ability and a willingness. As others have pointed out, banned users can create new accounts. But then to not get banned they have to act sufficiently different from how they were before. And not just removing the bad parts of their behavior which were the most obvious, but the identifying good characteristics that kept us patient with them for so long. If you are capable of doing this and basically putting on an entirely different persona that conforms to the rules of this place then my hat is off to you and thanks for rejoining. From my perspective its basically like getting a new user.
If people asked to be unpermabanned in a believable way, would there be a decent chance of it being granted?
I don't know. The mod team would discuss it. Individual facts in the case would matter. Its never happened before.
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