@Ashaz#17190 In JC's cases I'm almost certain that most (if not all) of their smites came with verbal reasoning from whoever punished them, whether in the smite message itself or in /say and chat afterwards. (I would not be surprised if people have previously PM'd them either)
Yes, joke banning may be a mixed message to new players (and yes, if it's done it needs to be much more subtle with -q IMO) but the visible responses admins give to JC's behaviour should've been more than enough for them to understand what they are doing is wrong rather than being for "fun".