I'd like to preface this by saying I completely understand where you're all coming from, and I'd just like to give my perspective. Not only as a member of staff, but as someone who has been part of the community for 5 years now. I think it's important to remember that the staff members aren't robots, we do use discretion when it comes to punishments - it's not as though if you have one infraction, we're immediately going to perm ban you (contrary to what some people believe).
If you were muted for spamming 3 years ago, learned from it and never received so much as a warning since, then spam again, we aren't instantly going to mute you, we'll give you a warning. We only stop giving warnings when punishments have been consistent and we know you know the rules by that point. Again, because we use discretion when it comes to punishments. Not every case will be the same, so we do take that into consideration. In the specific instance you're referencing here PK, I think you know you weren't going to receive a warning for a bannable offence, especially since you have a history with it. You are only on the verge of a perm-ban if you do the same thing you know you shouldn't be doing. That is your choice, it's not the fault of the staff team if you choose to break that rule again. If you want to discuss your punishment, you can contact a member of staff and they'll be happy to talk it out with you further. My DMs are always open.
In terms of not holding punishments against players, I think it's important to keep in mind that not every punishment is for "hate speech" or "hacking" - we have had some incredibly malicious players within the community - the fact those punishments remain in place is not just to keep the server safe, it's to keep you all safe. We don't need to get into specifics, so please do not bring up the past with specific incidents - there really is no need. We do understand how long permanent is, and in some cases, it's not long enough in my opinion. But, if you broke a rule when you were 14, got permanently banned or muted, and have genuinely changed, we have punishment appeals which we do take into consideration how long ago the punishment was, the severity of the punishment, and (where possible) we look at the behaviour of the player since the punishment. Discord activity, forums, in-game, you name it, we check it.
The main reason myself and many others applied to be staff, is because we want to help the server. We want to be role models for players to talk to and to feel safe coming to with issues. We know you're human, and sometimes you will make mistakes - personally, I don't hold grudges when it comes to punishments, especially non-malicious ones. We don't "hold the punishments over your head" unless you give us a reason to (i.e; continuously breaking rules). If you make a mistake and receive a punishment for it, then never get punished again - no one is saying "But remember that one time you got banned!" - it's there in case you break a rule in the future, so staff can keep track for appropriate punishment lengths - warnings are there to show staff have tried to get you to stop without resorting to punishment. Not everyone is going to get one punishment, learn from it, and then never do it again. If we held punishments against you, you would require to have a squeaky clean record to apply for staff, but that's not the case, we've had staff that have been banned before they applied, and they still get accepted.
A punishment on ManaCube is not indicative of who you are as a person.
