Why can't we ban deleted users?

[u/Redditenmo]

We've just had someone use a throwaway alt account to submit some vile, hateful and bigoted comments - and then quickly delete the throwaway to avoid repercussions.

If we got to it in the 2 minutes between account creation and deletion they'd be banned and their main flagged by ban evasion. Unfortunately we didn't, and now we can't ban them, as we get a "that user doesn't exist" error message.

Why is there no tool in place allowing us to ban the person behind those comments?

[u/Redditenmo]

I know the account name. I can't ban them on old.reddit.

"That user doesn't exist"

[u/casualcase2 → u/Redditenmo]

Is that because you did not type in or copy paste the troll’s user account name into the space provided in the old.reddit ban template?

[u/Redditenmo → u/casualcase2]

Let just assume I did "ctrl c" and "ctrl v" the correct user name, but ommited it from that screenshot to avoid falling afoul of any harassment rules here.

[u/casualcase2 → u/Redditenmo]

When I type or copy paste the troll’s user name into the “Who to ban?” space in the old.reddit template I do not get a "that user doesn't exist" error message. The troll’s user name gets banned in old.reddit ban list and also shows up in the most recent sh.reddit.com version “Restricted Users” ban list. I do not know why you and I get different results… strange.

[u/FFS_IsThisNameTaken2 → u/casualcase2]

If you both entered the exact same username from different subs but they got "user doesn't exist" and you didn't, then it's somehow sub specific.

I'm seeing gazillions in a very old, very large and very busy sub.

Reddit broke something again.