Don't judge a post by its author. If the user has done anything to merit being hellbanned on HN, that's a seperate matter. This submission looks fine as-is and there's no reason to flag it on its own merits. I would always vote for telling the user that they're doing something wrong and giving them a chance to correct the behavior before hellbanning them, too.

Users get shadowbanned on Reddit all the time for stupid reasons.