This topic reminds me somewhat of DRM -- Specifically, #2 and #3 reminds me of Titan Quest's blocks that caused pirated copies of the game to malfunction and crash without warning.
The problem is, many believe this actually backfired for Titan Quest: people reviewed the game and said it was buggy and would crash often, so people didn't buy the game, even when these bugs only affected the pirates.
Couldn't this happen too, with websites that are trying to rise in popularity? If you have users that are getting slowbanned or errorbanned, they will move away from your site. They might also tell other users that your site is slow and glitchy, and to stay away as well. In the end, this could very well hurt your site more than it is helping it.
And also, what about legitimate users? If a user ever gets a 404, a slow loading page, or no one responding to their queries, they will wonder if they've been hit by a ban. Do you want legitimate users (the majority) to have to worry about something that effects only a small amount of problem users?
The problem is, many believe this actually backfired for Titan Quest: people reviewed the game and said it was buggy and would crash often, so people didn't buy the game, even when these bugs only affected the pirates.
Couldn't this happen too, with websites that are trying to rise in popularity? If you have users that are getting slowbanned or errorbanned, they will move away from your site. They might also tell other users that your site is slow and glitchy, and to stay away as well. In the end, this could very well hurt your site more than it is helping it.
And also, what about legitimate users? If a user ever gets a 404, a slow loading page, or no one responding to their queries, they will wonder if they've been hit by a ban. Do you want legitimate users (the majority) to have to worry about something that effects only a small amount of problem users?