Open discussion, democracy and transparency is certainly the goal of the internet at large, but individual sites have different incentives. The moderator has curating as one of their responsibilities and they probably have a general sense of the kind of discussion they'd like to foster.
Moderators and site-owners should take all measures at their disposal so that they can shape the overall experience of the site they envision. In the end, whatever mix of authoritarianism and democracy achieves that is fine.
That being said, hellbanning seems cruel. I think that all punishment should be explicit because the trick is to cultivate reasonable users rather than to pick and choose. I'd prefer some sort of comment rate adjustment as punishment (1 per day, 1 per hour, 1 per quarter hour, etc). As from personal experience, most obnoxious comments derive from a mixture of caffeine and passion.
Moderators and site-owners should take all measures at their disposal so that they can shape the overall experience of the site they envision. In the end, whatever mix of authoritarianism and democracy achieves that is fine.
That being said, hellbanning seems cruel. I think that all punishment should be explicit because the trick is to cultivate reasonable users rather than to pick and choose. I'd prefer some sort of comment rate adjustment as punishment (1 per day, 1 per hour, 1 per quarter hour, etc). As from personal experience, most obnoxious comments derive from a mixture of caffeine and passion.