I propose to change the maximum punishment from perma-ban to 6 month ban.
Specifics:
Currently we have:
Minor Infractions: Warning, 24 Hour Vacation, 72 Hour Vacation, One Week or One Month Vacation, Permanent Vacation.
This includes but is not limited to: Spamming, Off Topicing, Forms of Flaming/Trolling, Necro-bumping, Oversized Signature, Avatar Abuse, Chat/Forum Newbie Abuse, etc.
Major Infractions: Warning, One Month Vacation, Permanent Vacation.
[i]This includes but is not limited to: Cyber-bullying/Harassment, Bigotry, Intentional Deadbeating, Repeatedly Holding Players Hostage, Serial Teammate Killing, Hijacking Accounts, Systematically "Farming" New Recruits, Illegal Point Collecting, Gambling, **Point Dumping** etc.[i]
I propose Permanent Vacations never be given out to any user who still plays the game. So forum bots, or spam bots, or users only advertising their porn website could all be immediate permanent vacations. However if a user still has interest in the game I think the Permanent Vacation be changed to a 6 month vacation as the maximum punishment.
If the user comes back he has a 3 month trial period in which he can immediately receive another 6 month ban for any infraction. However, after the 3 months are over if he has not had any infractions then he gets reset to warning.
Reasoning:
A permanent ban is forever, if the person lives 54 years, then it is a 54 year ban. So let's look at minor infractions. After 5 times of being off-topic in a post a user can technically receive a Permanent ban from the site. This doesn't only hurt that user but everyone who is friends with that user.
For example... Dancing Mustard. He probably had many enemies, but he also had many friends. For him, it's not too big of a deal, yeah he can't post on the forums anymore, oh well. He will probably end up playing the game for a couple months and then stop playing out of boredom, because the community and friendship is the glue that keeps people interested in gaming websites far after the game has lost it's excitement. However, now all the people who play here and knew him or had memories on this site with him will have a huge chunk of their CC experience gone and never to coming back (permanent). This is something that could potentially make others quit, especially if Dancing Mustard or whoever received the Permanent Vacation was their only "friend".
A 6 month ban is long enough to let people know that you are serious about the rules but also not forever so people know that if they wait out the 6 months they get their friend back, so they don't quit out of anger or lack of friend. You can continue doing the 6 month ban over and over. If the user refuses to follow the rules then he will only have the opportunity to break them once every 6 months, which won't be too big of a deal.