Plagiarism is undoubtedly both very wrong, and a major problem within the forum, but I don't see the benefit of removing someone who only did damage (plagiarized) years ago, especially if they are now otherwise being a member who is contributing to the forum.
There's a flaw in this ideology.
Let me simplify the structure of my thoughts into four alternative timelines for a given plagiarist.
P:= plagiarizing user
S:= plagiarized post.
1) P posts S. No one catches onto P. P, over a long time, contributes much to the forum. S is discovered years later. P is let go scot-free.
2) P posts S. No one catches onto P. P is an average user and much time passes. S is discovered years later. P is permanently banned.
3) P posts S. No one catches onto P. P is trying to contribute to the forum: they add
some contribution. S is discovered weeks later. P is permanently banned.
4) P posts S. No one catches onto P. P is not trying to contribute to the forum. S is discovered weeks later. P is permanently banned.
The difference between 1 and 3 is the time between the discovery of S and the time it was posted. One user is pardoned because of their contributions. Another is not because they did not fulfill the baseline requirements of minimum contribution.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Retort: "They should have contributed right away!"
If both users 1 and 3 had the same localized post quality and contributory status, the situation would play our similarly. (after all, if you're copy-pasting, it's unlikely your post quality suddenly spikes)
