Martin wrote:
I fail to see the benefit of requiring an apology. Such an apology, given under duress, has no value. Only a freely given and sincerely meant apology can aid in healing the wounds of conflicts past.
An apology is an admission that a person did something wrong and this is the first step toward learning not to do whatever got them banned again. Without some demonstration that the person plans on working to reform their ways there can be no lifting of a hard ban.
Only the most anti-social people get banned to begin with and it is therefore no surprise that we haven't heard many apologies from them. They don't seem to think they did anything wrong and are likely to relapse to their anti-social ways.
But even given your criteria 142, Adam, and Micheal would still be hard banned since they often come back and try to sneak edits in.
Also anybody who hasn't edited Wikipedia for more than there months (such as Helga, Clutch or TMC) are likely never to return anyway.
That said I still think it would be interesting to try your idea on the next ban. If it works we could then expand the program retroactively.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)