Gotcha. For the record, "kek" is a term that has been appropriated by trolls, but is not in and of itself a troll term. In the future, you should think twice about banning someone on that merit. The links you gave are better evidence, though, thanks!
The links are a little snarky, not terribly helpful, but not especially out there. If you're banning that then banning those making racist remarks like up-thread seems right.
dang, there is no way to tell who the mods are. So those "requests" to change behavior aren't exactly clear that they are from the mods. And non-mods have certainly asked me to change my behavior in the past, and sometimes I have taken their advice and sometimes I have decided not to.
It's true, yet I don't feel we should change that, e.g. by putting "mod" beside our names. There's a downside to that sort of thing too, and for HN, I think it's the greater downside.
I'd rather trust the community to figure things out, which it does extraordinarily well.