Is the Permanent Ban System Too Harsh?

Over 9 years ago, when I was 14, I was permanently banned from Wynncraft for making excessive forum alts and disregarding moderator authority (for some reason, I was allowed to keep this forum account). I have appealed many times since, but have always been told that I will never be given another chance. I am not making this post expecting to be unbanned, but I just felt like venting since I still like Wynncraft a lot, and felt nostalgic with the news of the upcoming Fruma Expansion.

While probably negligible compared to many players nowadays, I had logged over 800 hours in my less than couple of years of playtime, with a level 100 mage account and several mythic items. I loved hanging around Detlas, chatting with fellow players, engaging in duels, experimenting with different builds, exploring the world, etc. Since it was so long ago, I don't remember exactly what I did to get banned from the forums in the first place, but I created alts in an attempt to continue engaging in the community, particularly the trade market.

In hindsight, it may have been for my own good in some sense that I was banned from Wynncraft. I am not sure I would have gotten to attend Stanford University if I continued spending all my free time playing Wynncraft. Regardless, a large part of me still misses Wynncraft, and I think the permanent ban system is too harsh. While Wynncraft isn't Hypixel, it would be nice (from my perspective) if Wynncraft also adopted a no permanent ban policy, with a max ban length of 365 days. What are the community's thoughts on that?

 

I think there are some instances where a permanent ban is acceptable. Sometimes there's bad actors who simply need to be removed and their actions are irredeemable, but I personally don't think that this is the case here. Almost a decade feels like more than enough time for a person to have significantly changed

 

While there are some rules like doxxing and hacking that do deserve permanent ban, even a few months is enough to change a person, let alone 9 years.

 

I got perm banned in 2017 for having lots of punishments and 99% of them were for being childish in chat. I was also told I would NEVER get a new chance for years. I asked for a new chance to appeal around september 2025 and actually got one. It got accepted too :D I also think perm ban is way too harsh. But I think in some rare cases, its suitable.
Have you tried requesting a new appeal on discord? You create a ticket or something. That's how I finally made it.
Best of luck

 

this is such a funny humblebrag lmao

as someone who was a really fuckin dumb kid, anything that idiot said is not reflective of who i am now. so yeah, i'd say it's a fair ask

 

I also remembered that there was a glitch at the time where even if you were banned from the server, you could join the "waiting lobby," seemingly based on random chance.

Since I was really desperate at the time to get unbanned, I would frequently attempt to join the server, hoping that the nightmare of me being banned would come to an end. You can imagine my surprise when one time I clicked to join the server, and it...worked?..

I figured out that by spamming to join the server, I could protest in the waiting lobby or something. This resulted in me getting banned many more times. I likely have over 20 bans on my account from that alone.

 

To answer your pinned question. Yes permanent bans makes sense. I helped a lot on a German community MC Server and saw many bans over the last 11 years.

People can change if they want but there are actions that unforgivable. We had for example cases of grooming or harassment mostly against woman and trans people where we directly and without question banned the people.

Here we never give / gave them a change after years to apply for unban.

Thats the harsh side of the spectrum, scamming, harassment, trolling and everything you actively do to get an advantage or “funny time” that hurts someone else should depending on the case also end in a permanent ban.

I liked to use the permanent bans more often because I want the people to actually think and reflect about their behavior. And I can tell, we as humans only change if we need to and sometimes it’s need to hurt to give us the push to reflect and think.

We used a similar system like Wynn where you need to write a post, reflect, apologize and talk with the team to get unbanned. But people need time to change, so it’s good to give them sometimes weeks or months to learn.

I can say most of them don’t want to change and they don’t apply for unban. A lot of people with temporary bans came back and where the same as before. I saw how 1-3 people can destroy whole networks with the behavior. They fuck around and nice player just leaves. Sometimes without us noticing. There are many Projects where lovely people spend hundreds or thousands of hours in it for people to have fun and sometimes it’s take hard actions to protect them.

And that is the reason to ban, to protect your project with lovely people in it against these people that want to bring harm just for own advantage or just out of fun. Keep that in mind.

But I can say it’s easy to not get banned. I played so many years online games with active community participation without ever getting warned by a mod. Just don’t be a dick and ask yourself if you next action / next words would be nice if someone else do it to you.