Wouldn't it make more sense for one of the mods to come out and address the latest plagiarism rules rather than leaving us with so many assumptions over the last few months?
@Halab addressed that yesterday and it seems like there are no official rules or policy regarding plagiarism.
What I can say is that there is no official policy change for plagiarism cases... because there are no official rules for plagiarism. It's case by case. Often I find reporters are very strict, you cross outside the crosswalk, you go to jail !! You have to judge on several factors : did it happen once ? Is it an honest omission ? Does he really take ownership of the copied text ? Etc...
I think that some middle ground approach is needed here; giving perma ban for the first offense is too much imho and temporary ban (or even better longer signature ban) would make more sense and then perma for the 2nd as they can't claim that they didn't know about the rules.