People who do appeals tend to spin the story in their favour whilst making the mods look cruel and unfair. This alone is usually a very good sign not to let them back on the server.

One must be very careful when issuing a permanent ban. In general it is only applied when someone has three red cards or has breached a very serious rule, such as no hacking. In general I trust the decisions the staff make, as they have a lot of experience and because we, the players, rarely know the full story behind the ban.

In this case we do not know which rule SpiderDeluxe’s friend broke. If it was a serious rule which SpiderDeluxe was helping him to hide, then the staff would be more than justified in punishing him as well.

Enjoy the time off. Perhaps think things over, like approach.

Reading this from @Calliemav makes me wonder: Were you intending for the ban to be temporary? Because the screenshot in the first post shows that it is a permanent ban.