The point of hellbanning is keeping the spam coming from one username or IP, and then not displaying it. If you throw a "You have been banned" message back to a

The point of hellbanning is keeping the spam coming from one username or IP, and then not displaying it. If you throw a "You have been banned" message back to a bot, then eventually a human is going to read it, make note of it, and recreate the account or connect from a different IP.