I would like to see a handful of the legitimate posters who have been banned be given a second chance on here. Is there a mechanism to give them a second chance, if they promise to behave? Even murderers often get a second chance.
I had one PM related to bans last week so I'll just publicly repeat my answer to that, and expand a bit.
I do not disagree with you. The moderation system is rather opaque and I often find myself wishing it was a little more transparent - but the system was set up this way and has mostly worked very well over the lifetime of SDN. The privacy policy is strict, the NDA legally binding. The intent is politeness and respect to the members who are subject to the admittedly lopsided mod and admin forum-power. So as usual, neither I or any of the other moderators can make specific comments on specific cases.
Concerning bans. For new users, there's a specific sequence of warnings, infractions, and post-holds prior to a ban. People who register new accounts and start trolling or posting ads immediately get auto-banned. 99% of these are just spammers and everyone's glad to see them gone. Apart from them -
1) Previously banned people that make new accounts that we can ID and link to a prior ban get re-banned immediately. Sometimes they self-ID, usually not.
2) Every once in a great while, a previously banned user returns, creates a new account, flies under the radar for a while (sometime a long while!), behaves and contributes, and doesn't do any of the things that got him warned, warned again, warned again, post-held, and finally banned in the first place. When we catch on and connect the dots, we'll let it slide, and these previously-banned people dwell among us in peace. After all, there's no reason to chase off someone who, for whatever reason, reformed his wayward ways and became a born-again good contributing member. But at the first hint of trouble they're banned again (ie, they don't start over with warnings and post-holds).
The moderating opacity surrounding either of these, especially the latter, can be frustrating to other members who don't see a reason for an abrupt ban.
Recently, both of these things have happened to different users.
Is there an after-ban appeal mechanism? Not really. The appeal stage is throughout the series of warning and post-hold period(s) when the user has PM access and can respond to the moderating staff, plead his case, argue, agree to behave, or finger the other guy who started it.
The "quietly come back a few months later and fly under the radar for a while" method is the usual (but still uncommon) way to overcome a ban. Certainly those users with colorful personalities or distinctive posting styles have a harder time staying off the radar ...
... which is why I basically agree with you that perhaps there ought to be a way, after X period of time, for a previously banned user to try again without a need for stealth. Even the Soup Nazi limited his bans to one year.
I'll bring up the subject to the site staff. Of course anything that is done (or not done) will be with the overall site's health in mind, of which the anesthesiology forum is just a small part.