Comments like the one you're replying to serve an additional purpose of indicating acceptable posting standards to readers. Dang may happen to err on the side of forgiving, and imho that helps form some of the character of HN.

The idea that commenters should "make HN good because we all want it to be good" is quite positive, and that sentiment seems to be reflected here far more than banhappy reddit.

I think we agree, and that makes sense.

Sometimes people change. It's good to try different approaches, since one might persuade where a different one fails to persuade. For example, some people respond to arguments about rules while others respond to arguments about protecting the commons.

It's better to err on the side of patience generally, and feels more in keeping with the values of the site. There's are also judgment calls about things like who seems more likely to respond to persuasion, how much history the account has, whether it's related to previous abusive accounts, and things like that.

> Why not simply ban people who have crossed the line this badly for this long?

They'll just make another account and start over.

By explaining what the person is doing wrong, maybe Dang can help them be a more productive member of the HN community.