A lifetime ban is a desperate attempt by a community to stop "bad" behavior by preventing a "badly behaving" individual from taking part in the community. In the real world, this means prison or exile, though even the very worst crimes rarely result in "whole life" prison sentences. In the on-line world, it's not so easy.

There is no such a thing as a lifetime exile. There should be no such a thing as a lifetime ban.

An AntiPattern.

Someone in your community does something quite bad, so they get banned from the site for a month. Someone else does something much worse, so they get banned from the site for a year. Finally, someone does something truly heinous, so you think you must try to make them a permanent CommunityExile with a permanent HardBan.

This is a solution, but it is a bad solution.

• On most online communities, bans can be circumvented with relative ease. Thus justice is not seen to be done, and the community appears weak and ineffectual.
• A permanent ban causes all sorts of unpleasant consequences a year down the line, as people ForgiveAndForget at different rates, and new people join the community. An ExileLog can help, but is not a complete panacea.
• Without the possibility of a return in a years time, the nasty person has no motivation to accept their exile, as you have hit your ScopeLimits.

Instead, ExpandScope, and get the RealWorld authorities involved. If some act is heinous enough to make you consider a lifetime ban, then it should be heinous enough to be against the law, and certainly against the terms and conditions of their internet service provider. Once they're in prison, you can discuss when they might be permitted to return to your community with their parole officer.

That's just passing the buck to another (larger) community, but no more than when we say MeatballIsNotCanonical or "Wikipedia is not a dictionary". It's canonicalisation again - this time making sure that we create procedures for dealing with serious crimes Wiki:OnceAndOnlyOnce.

If the heinous crime isn't horrible enough to bother the police, consider if it's really as horrible as all that. A related anti-pattern is to DemandApology, which has the potential of transforming a temporary exile into what is, for practical purposes, LifetimeBan.

The above text is PrimarilyPublicDomain