Upvoted for valid point. I agree, but I think there is enough of a difference between 'being treated as worthy of respect' and 'not being banned' that we can probably ride in the middle ground comfortably without any significant image damage.

On consideration, though... maybe I'm prejudiced against banning because of the sense of finality of it. I guess it's not hard to make a new account.

I'm still opposed to deleting past comments though, because deleted comments make a mess of the history.