@1miau: I support some of the proposals, others not. The rules you propose are a bit "mild" in my opinion, as the problem is important.

The "warning points" would not be a bad idea, but I think all obvious copy-and-paste intents from 2017 onwards should get an outright ban. Why after 2017? Because it was this year when the spam problem, as a side-effect from the Bitcoin bubble and the ICO boom, went rampant. Those that have participated to lower the quality of the forum in these last years should not get special treatment.

However, the "warning point" idea could be used for earlier abuses. As some already wrote, in 2014 the forum was a different place - as far as I remember (I registered in early 2013) only the altcoin subforum was already getting spammed hard. I think it's very likely that some users that offended in this early era, were in their teens or even earlier at that time.

I would, however, favour a one-warning system, not 10 points - those that plagiarized after they got the single warning, should only get less than a ban in very special occasions (e.g. if they really developed into a very valuable member, e.g. people posting good Bitcoin tutorials and participate in development). In this particular case I think a community vote could be part of the "recovery" process. But I would require at least 500 self-earned Merit points (so I would still not qualify, for example) for that, because it's a pretty labour-intensive task for moderators to evaluate these cases.

To your other proposals: I don't think trust should be used (sig-ban is a better "milder" punishment). And to the ban evading issue I've no opinion 'cause I never stumbled upon it here ... so I don't know if it's important.

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In this particular case, the user - after the ban - wrote in his ban appeal that he was young indeed when that happened. In his case I think even the "milder" two-month ban and one-year-sig ban is a little bit harsh, albeit I think it's still in the OK range.