SomethingAwful pioneered it, along with a lot of other dramatic moderatory practices ("User was banned for this post", Mods challenging users to do some trivial

SomethingAwful pioneered it, along with a lot of other dramatic moderatory practices ("User was banned for this post", Mods challenging users to do some trivial thing to get banned, bannings for "Mod-sass", etc.). But even for them it's a rarely (and specifically) used tool in a large suite of techniques: they give public timeouts and probations, bannings just cost another $10 to reactivate your account, permabannings mean you have to pay $10 for a new independent one. Hellbannings are for situations where the annoyance of the user's reaction far outweighs any interest from the community — the kind of crazy users who despite being uninvested in the community, will sue you over it and retain Orly Taitz.