What I don't understand is why we suggest time of commiting plagiarism as an excuse. I totally understand the reason behind pardoning those that have been productive to the forum over the years but we shouldn't used date of commiting this crime as a reason to pardon them, all in the name of they were newbie then. Don't forget the newbies we're banning today for plagiarism are also newbies now.
Since we're discussing alternative to the current punishment I second this
(or deranking to Newbie) would be even better so that they would have to earn their way back.
this will reduce the rate of creation of alts by banned members