Wow, looks like he was hellbanned for a year and a half, still contributing, and I don't see anything wrong with the few posts prior to the ban. Account hasn't submitted spam. What an abuse of the hellban feature.
To say that, don't you need to know that no other reason was in play? For example, he made a lot of unpopular comments before he was banned. Perhaps he made some other accounts to upvote himself to counteract this. My point is, you don't actually know that any abuse occurred unless you know why he was banned, and you don't.
That doesn't sound like an offense that should be hellbanned.
I can put it another way: if your comments contribute then your account shouldn't be banned. External factors don't matter at all. Even if you're hitler.
So it doesn't matter if there was something behind the scenes, it should have been dealt with there.
Are your really saying that accounts who sockpuppet and vote-ring shouldn't be banned? (not saying this is what happened to the account being discussed)
Regular-banned maybe. Good potential for them to reregister and stop the bad behavior. Best method is blocking them from getting upvotes but if their comments are productive then they should not be hidden. Hellban is the worst option, even below ignoring the situation. Who cares if someone gets fake points, especially when points are hidden. (Fake votes on submissions are a potential issue but that's not what we're discussing)
It's still a net negative and downright disheartening to see an obviously contributing account nuked... HN has the most opaque moderation system of any community I've ever been in..
How about neither? How about HN's community being good despite the sometimes idiotic moderation that takes them for granted, simply because a bunch of smart people found together... ?
No, you don't, IMO. If you think of what hellbanning is actually doing to a person on the other end - it's basically counter-trolling this guy for over a year, who thinks he is contributing, and he's really not being disruptive - it should be reserved for blatant abuses like intentional, repeated trolling. Not unpopular comments.
You need to make a new account.