@yagmoth555 If someone gets banned for an entire year, then it's not a first offence. It means that they have had repeated warnings and ignored them. Suspensions are escalating, so to reach a 1 year ban means they've had multiple shorter bans and continued their behaviour.

@IanKemp there have been plenty of dickheads doing dickheadish things on this site before and we've never. Ever. Had this level of outrage over it. I also never said we shouldn't do anything about it. I think the action that was taken now is 100% the correct action (merge, leave a message). Everyone is just super passionate about this particular dickhead suggesting all sorts of nuclear options that are, in my mind, unreasonable and over the top.

@yagmoth555 That "startup" thing you mentioned, some people have already tried it before. That's astrotufing. This was not that either.

@yagmoth555 sigh. There is no one week ban for spammers. Spamming is an insta-kill. But this was not spam. The only rule that he actually broke what what we used to call "not a real question", but essentially you're only meant to ask questions about problems you've actually had. And that isn't even enforced very rigorously. I agree this was a dick move, but I really don't see why everyone is so furious about it.

@HopelessN00b failing to see the downside of that, assuming that the question isn't horrible.

@HopelessN00b except... Where's the bit that he spammed? Where did he actually post an advertisement on our site? Also basil is correct, at this point in time it's just wasting bits to discuss it further.

@HopelessN00b then you should remember the checkbox you have to select when nuking a spammer. And the text saying that it's primarily a spam account. This account is not an account that was created explicitly for spamming. This account was in good standing and could return to good standing in the future.

@yagmoth555 at no stage did I say there should be no repercussions! I just do not support this specific nuclear option, as there is no precedent to justify doing so.

@AndrewB they couldn't have selectively chosen smartass comments if there were none to choose.

Imagine the great publicity we could have got if more people wrote answers like Journeymans, and were way less dickish in the comments

As for people saying we are too stupid to understand block level recovery, that is 100% our fault. We write smartass smug answers and we reap what we sow.

@AndrewB I didn't say he was right. I just said that his opinion isn't invalid.

@iain that doesn't make his point any less valid.

@Massimo Oh I think that is highly unlikely. Lots of people are from the same country!

@Massimo there are a lot of deleted comments on that post. Not just yours. As to why they were deleted, I'm unsure.

@Iain moderators do not enforce the community's wish. They enforce the rules.

@Iain Show me where it says that moderators can unilaterally delete someone's entire account based on their own discretion.