Hellbanning (as opposed to the many, many other options available to a moderator) is one of the most disrespectful and passive-aggressive types of moderation.
To clarify, a hell-ban is the type of ban where a user's posts are hidden from everybody except themselves (and on HN, those with "showdead" enabled in their profile settings).
It ranks right between simply redirecting a login to a browser-bomb page (which is slightly more evil, except for the part where it doesn't potentially waste months of a person's time) and slow-bombing/random timeouts/delays (which is ever so slightly less of a dick move to do to someone's account, yet almost always works better than a hell-ban).
Except in the most extreme cases (anything short of a mentally disturbed, obsessive, or dangerous person that otherwise just won't go away), reaching for a hellban is always the wrong choice, because there's always another moderation option that deals with the situation both more effectively, as well with more respect and dignity to one's entire userbase.
To clarify, a hell-ban is the type of ban where a user's posts are hidden from everybody except themselves (and on HN, those with "showdead" enabled in their profile settings).
It ranks right between simply redirecting a login to a browser-bomb page (which is slightly more evil, except for the part where it doesn't potentially waste months of a person's time) and slow-bombing/random timeouts/delays (which is ever so slightly less of a dick move to do to someone's account, yet almost always works better than a hell-ban).
Except in the most extreme cases (anything short of a mentally disturbed, obsessive, or dangerous person that otherwise just won't go away), reaching for a hellban is always the wrong choice, because there's always another moderation option that deals with the situation both more effectively, as well with more respect and dignity to one's entire userbase.