Block Appeal

{{unblock|Please hear me out.

Below, I will explain why I was blocked on my previous account, why I created another account after the previous one was blocked, and why my second account was blocked as well. I will also explain why I believe that my blocks were made in error, and why I believe that they should be lifted.

Here's what led to my previous account's ([[User:PathOfExile]]) being blocked. This section will start from the very first edit I made on that account, and will conclude with the account being banned.

#I saw a mistake in an article.
#I corrected the mistake.
#Some other user (using his IP to contribute) reverted my edit.
#I left the user a message on that user's user page explaining why I made the edit.
#The user ignored the message, and reverted my edit again.
#I left the user another message and corrected the mistake again.
#The user made another revert.

At that point, I '''SHOULD HAVE''' - which I'm now very well aware of - posted at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Edit_warring about this situation. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't aware of the existence of that place back then, so instead, I foolishly kept reverting what I considered vandalism at the time. And as far as I could recall, reverting blatant vandalism wasn't against the rules.

Obviously, that was because at the time I wasn't aware of what Wikipedia's current definition of "blatant vandalism" was. To me, it was clear that the IP reverting my changes was either ill-intentioned or simply unable to understand the explanation I gave for my reverts, and as such its activities were nothing but vandalism. However, to Wikipedia's official policies, it was clear that I was wrong, and that the IP, although misguided no doubt, was not vandalizing but simply making misguided contributions, presumably in good faith.

If I could turn back time, I would've used the 3RR noticeboard to report the IP's activity instead of engaging in an edit-war, there's no doubt in my mind about that.

After about a dozen reverts, it was clear to me that the IP wasn't going to stop. I then decided to contact an administrator and wait for a response. I carefully went through the list of admins to choose one that was active recently and that seemed reasonable, and then I left them a message on the talk page. You can read that message by going to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:2over0#Help_request_-_vandalism.

Please note that after leaving the message, I stopped reverting the changes made by the IP which should clearly show you that I had no intention of being disruptive; on the contrary, my only intention was to fix that one little mistake I spotted in that one article and which was clearly subject to correction.

Before we proceed, I would like to briefly explain what the edit I wanted to make was, and why it was in no way malicious. I will explain it as if I was explaining it to a person completely unfamiliar with the subject matter of the article. Please do not feel offended by it as I mean no offense whatsoever.

The article I edited was [[Permanent_death]]. Permanent death, or PD for short, is a computer/console game mechanic whereby dead characters are permanently removed from the game upon death, as defined by the article. In the article, there was a list of games that feature PD. One of the games on the list was Path of Exile. Path of Exile is a game where dead characters are never deleted from the game, but are at the worst moved from one league to another instead, which clearly makes Path of Exile a game without permanent death. That's why I removed it from the list.

The IP that edit-warred with me conceded that characters are never deleted from the game in Path of Exile, but claimed that being moved from one league to another is just as bad, and so we might just as well put Path of Exile on the list. This may seem like something I'd make up, but please, take a look at the discussion we had at [[Talk:Permanent_death]]. This is exactly what the IP said. I will now quote from that page: "The fact that youre [sic] too stubborn to understand that it's an equal punishment doesn't mean that it isnt [sic][.]"

Does being right justify edit-warring? No, and I admit I should've taken this to the 3RR noticeboard, which I didn't know existed. Does the above prove I had no bad intentions, and that the IP clearly was in the wrong? I believe it does. Take it for what it's worth.

Let us now go back to the main storyline, if you will.

Having left the message on the administrator's talk page, I proceeded to wait, and after about an hour or so, I was blocked. Reason?

"Your account has been blocked indefinitely from editing Wikipedia because it appears to be mainly intended for publicity and/or promotional purposes."

It didn't make sense to me at first, but I kept reading the notice.

"Your account's edits and/or username indicate that it is being used on behalf of a company, group, website or organization for purposes of promotion and/or publicity. The edits may have violated one or more of our rules on spamming, which include: adding inappropriate external links, posting advertisements and using Wikipedia for promotion. Wikipedia has many articles on companies, groups, and organizations, but such groups are generally discouraged from using Wikipedia to write about themselves. In addition, usernames like yours are disallowed under our username policy."

It took me a while to process all that as I knew for a fact that I hadn't done any of these things, but then it dawned on me: the username I chose for myself, PathOfExile, corresponded to the name of the computer game which my edit pertained to, and the fact that I made multiple reverts a.k.a. participated in an edit war, could've been construed as "spamming" if one was willing to go out on a limb.

That's how my first account was blocked. Was the block made in error? Did the admin that blocked me fail to [[Wikipedia:Assume_good_faith|assume good faith]]? I'll leave that for you to decide.

This concludes section one. In section two, I will explain why I created a new account - the one I'm writing this appeal on - and then proceed to explain what led to its being blocked. I will then conclude my block appeal by explaining why I believe I should be unblocked. But before that, I'd like to thank you for making it this far. I understand that reading block appeals is a tedious task, and the more elaborate the appeal, the more difficult it is to read it without falling asleep, but please, bear with me.

Having been blocked, I did some research on why I was blocked, and what I should've done differently. I then sent an appeal through [[Wikipedia:Unblock_Ticket_Request_System|UTRS]] in which, as far as I can recall, I apologized for my lack of knowledge regarding the username policy and promised not to engage in any more edit wars. I no longer have a copy of my appeal, but I'm sure it is still available somewhere.

That appeal was rejected by [[User:Yunshui]] who wrote (copy-pasted?) the following:

"I am declining your unblock request because it does not address the reason for your block, or because it is inadequate for other reasons. To be unblocked, you must convince the reviewing administrator(s) that either the block is not necessary to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia, or that the block is no longer necessary because you understand what you have been blocked for, will not continue to cause damage or disruption, and will make useful contributions instead."

To cut the long story short, I then appealed two more times - the second appeal, which I posted on my user page, was rejected by [[User:Kinu]], and the third, which I sent via the [[Wikipedia:Unblock_Ticket_Request_System|UTRS]], probably hasn't even been received due to my account's block having been extended.

In all of the appeals, I made it clear that all I wanted was to correct that one little mistake that I noticed on that one article page. None of the admins showed any semblance of interest in fixing it. If they had, I would've probably not created another account as I would have no need to do so. Again, take it for what it's worth.

Seeing how the article still contained that obvious mistake, and that I was not going to be unblocked for some reason, I decided to create another account, and posted a [[Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment|request for comments]] on the article's page, which I gathered was the proper way of handling the matter. I then notified some of the main contributors to the article, about five users in total, about the fact that I did so. One of such notices was posted on the talk page of the admin that blocked my previous account, as a token of good faith. I also posted replies to a few other RfCs, so as not to make it appear as if I were asking for other people's time without giving anything in return, and then eventually I also posted another message at the talk page of the admin I initially contacted regarding what I erroneously interpreted as vandalism.

Soon after, I was blocked again. Reason?

"This account has been blocked indefinitely as a sock puppet that was created to violate Wikipedia policy. Note that multiple accounts are allowed, but using them for illegitimate reasons is not (...)"

Now, if you look through my contributions, you'll notice there's nothing in there that could possibly be construed as "illegitimate." The word clearly denotes the fact that I'm evading my block. A block which was imposed on me because I had the wrong username which I couldn't change due to my appeals being consistently rejected.

Surely, by now the [[vicious circle]] I got caught into when I chose the wrong username for myself that caused one of the admins to [[Wikipedia:BRICKS|come down on me like a ton of bricks]] must be clearly visible to anyone that has read through all of the above.

Please help me break out of it. I mean no harm to Wikipedia, never have.

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