I know "why has my account been blocked?" must have been asked a thousand time but my question is this :

I am learning iOS development. I'm going through Apple's documentation. I get stuck, desperate and then I go over to SO and post a question

The question might be "stupid". It might be unhelpful to others. Badly formed. The answer might even be obvious. The question might even be "lazy".

Yet, what is there to gain by such a harsh punishment as blocking a user's IP permanently?

Is there something to gain in this? Are lazy & unhelpful questions floating around somewhere in SO oblivion somehow clogging the system? And even if they are why not simply have them deleted automatically based on downVotes? Why this harsh permanent "punishment" ? If a bad question is bad for the site's reputation or clogs the searching process with unhelpful results then have it deleted but why ban the user forever? We are not trolls. We are trying to learn and even if we are lazy or "bad" when it comes to stating a problem, what's wrong with that? Delete everything that we post if it's pointless but why delete us?

Excuse me for the long text but I'm in the process of making my MSc project and SO has helped me much more than the over-verbose and confusing Apple documentation and I'm very dissapointed by having my account banned forever rather than just simply deleting all of my "stupid" questions.

I've made around 15 posts. They've all been answered successfully and I was helped and I must have gotten 5-6 votes in total.. So what ? Why do I have to go back to each and every post that has  already been answered successfully and  try and change my them over and over again in the hopes that someday the gods of SO will decide I'm worthy enough to post again?

Exsume me SO gods but this elitism it's completely irrational. And a website dealing with programming is the last place I thought I'd come across irrational decisions.

Like I said before, be rational, have everything deleted automatically and it all goes away, don't ban permanently. No one learns by being banned.. I'm not a troll and this isn't IMDB. I believe new developers should be treated with more respect than this.