[WikiEN-l] Do NOT appeal bans, for your own sake (was Re: Admins who do not have email this user enabled (list inside))

[Vee]

On 18/09/2007, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Oddly enough I actually agree with this. If I was banned I wouldn't kick
> up
> > a huge fuss fighting it (even if it really was unfair) because in those
> > cases people tend to react against you even more and you'll never hear
> the
> > end of it. Best to just drop it and move on.
>
> That depends how you go about appealing. If you post hundreds on
> {{unblock}} tags to your usertalk page, and email wikien-l hundreds of
> times, yeah, people are going to react against you. If you send a calm
> email to an arbitrator explaining your case, they will open an arbcom
> case for you and you'll get your fair hearing (you will probably even
> be unblocked so you can participate directly - just don't abuse it,
> whatever you do).
>
> (Note: That's the way to deal with bans, not blocks - if you're just
> blocked, arbcom is probably overkill.)


Reasonable advice. I guess I just don't have the time or the patience for
wikidrama and ArbCom cases seem like they would be too much effort. Clearly
I am far too apathetic about WP to ever get banned in the first place :P
I've seen quite a few people like that though - newbies who come to WP with
something to contribute, get blocked for NPA when someone bites them for not
filling in form 2451x.2b correctly, and leave in disgust, confused about the
whole thing and lacking the motivation to bother getting unblocked. This
isn't very widespread, but it does happen.

That said, I don't think it's a particularly big deal. If you're getting
banned in the first place you're probably enough of a disruptive element
that it's better for you to (a) leave or (b) get a new account and edit
non-disruptively without the shadow of all the drama over you.