Bitcoin Forum

Any user who is banned for plagiarism gets a message explaining the reasons for the ban, as @hilariousetc commented. I do not know exactly the text of the message, but it should have something saying that the ban is definitive and that there is no way to appeal.

Therefore, these topics opened by those who have just been banned serve only as a Walk of Shame. There is no gain for the forum or community. It is difficult and annoying to receive a ban or a punishment, whatever the situation, and of course the user, even knowing that he is wrong, will try to use every possible argument including an apology.

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I think after explaining which post the user plagiarized, the topic should be blocked. And only moderators or administrators post on it if the situation requires it. Any other communication should be made by the appeal email. I'm not saying that I agree with this rule of ban forever who plagiarized. Neither do I disagree with the right of defense of those who received a ban. I just do not believe that the best way to appeal against such punishment is with these topics.

I think the reason they still leave the appeals part is incase someone get banned by mistake thou it's very rare
I read a thread where someone was being maliced by certain individuals so they created articles on other sites out of the text he had posted here and then reported him for plagiarism... He got banned but luckily he managed to prove his innocence and was unbanned

Appeals are needed. Shit happens and sometimes bans need to be reversed. Even though most of those appeals are useless and a waste of time, we can't just "stop having" them, not to mention there is no way to prevent them from being created. The changed ban notice (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5083247.msg48608520#msg48608520) is good, but some banned users will still inevitably ask "which post was I banned for" and/or post all sorts of bullshit reasons why rules don't apply to them.

I agree though that the threads should be locked after the proof of violation has been provided and the bingo card has been posted.

I can suggest about starting a new board for all the ban appeals and also as @theymos is thinking of building a better system for account recovery. A new section with just apples related to banned or hacked accounts can add simplicity to finding the apples and also reduce the unwanted posts in the meta section.

We can make a new section for that type of apples as it just makes the meta section look annoying with very much less discussion related to the development of the forum and its working.

The main purpose for the meta section should just point to making suggestions to develop the forum in a better way.

Whenever I think of a meta section I feel it should look like full of great suggestions to improve the forum functionality and a place where all the creative people come together to contribute something to the forum in one or the other way. But picture here is just full of complaints about being banned ( most of them due to stupid parallelism ) and most of them are not worth reading.

Even if we were to put a direct line link on their profile directing them to the plagiarised posts, I could still bet we'll still have one or two coming into meta to either apologize or come up with flimsy excuses,i saw one yesterday who claimed his account was hacked.
That's just the truth about all this, it's impossible to stop this ban appeals,but at the end such user is always put in his place,so I think we should simply move on.
We would not change everything in a single day.

Where did he write that?

That is a very good idea, for simplicity, it could be a child board in Meta. And banned users could have access to post there without the need to open new accounts, considering that a banned user has gotten a level of evil IP, theu would also have to pay for that in order to appeal.

Thanks issue is Theymos seems to spend very little thought for plagiarists who engage in such activities for personal gain at the expense of the forum.

I think that he mention in this topic: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5083247.0

Okay so you read my mind  :)

People can make mistakes. What if mods were to ban user A and but (shit happened) they banned user B? Meaning, user B should have a way to review the ban for them. I guess in the past we have already seen a case like this.

There might have a lots of lack and we have to go with that. Some people may screw without any valid point but a lots of people may ban for silly reason and that might be reversed. 1 good profile should not be punished and s/he should have right to appeal.

Theymos has recently changed the ban message to something along the lines of you have likely been banned for plagiarism/copy and pasting. The issue is is that forum accounts are like gold dust or their holy cash cow to the type of people who get banned for plagiarism so they're not just going to let them go without a fight and will do and say anything out of desperation if they can if they think they've got even the slightest chance of getting their accounts back. A criminal would do the same after being accused of theft but until they see the evidence they'll try anything they can to wriggle out of something and avoid punishment and that's why users request proof even when they know what they've done because they're hoping we just can't find it or have a made a mistake or whatever.


I wouldn't be against some sort of appeals sub board and maybe only staff can posts in there, but locking thread is a tricky issue. Who gets to say when the issue is closed? True, ban appeals are often an open and shut case but many times users still want to protest. Even if we locked the thread there's nothing stopping them from just opening another which they likely would if they feel the issue is unresolved.


I didn't. Temp bans state the reason and as I said above theymos has recently changed the permaban message to include that they were likely banned for plagiarism but it doesn't explicitly state what they were banned for.

That is a terrible idea.

Imagine a court room where only the prosecution can speak in private to the accused.

I think all ban appeals here have been useful and actually demonstrate the correct decision has been taken in the first place in 99% of cases.

However everyone deserves to know why and have a fair chance to get the feedback from a larger sample size - the larger sample size can also do more investigative work.

There is no need to lock the threads because it seems the OP usually gets more data presented that reveals they have done it several times not just one isolated case and the decision is therefore valid.

What else will we talk about in meta except merit if there are no ban appeals?

In this case we should have a sticky for all the Ban appeal posts, or a sub-board, where people are only allowed to open a topic if they're banned and want to have information about the possible unban...
It would make the Meta thread easier to read, because nowdays every second topic is a kind of 'unban me please I was hacked' topic...

That would be better than the current system.

I am not against the right to appeal. It is exactly the opposite. I believe that the format that exists today is bad for the forum, for the user and for Bitcoin.

The only thing that allows is a last walk of shame. Where the user tries desperately to reverse the situation. A fairer and clearer form of appeal is needed.

I am preferred for the ban appeals here in the meta section. This is really useful of course because after getting ban we can identify the possible mistakes and that we could learn on it somehow and help the OP to get also the real answers with the other user's feedback. Administrators can also lessen their burdens on the users that are appealing on the email provided for the ban appeal.

Appeal is very much acceptable in the forum it to a great extent upholds transparency and genuineness.

Some members that get banned don't get reason to why they where ban except they appeal and some time appealing to the email used to send the ban message may take to get a reply.

I think it's alone the fair thing to do to allow appeal it really does not hurt any one