Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-28109473-20160402003630/@comment-1267828-20160406000655

Contributing to hate articles is considered a ToU violation. VSTF likely decided to ban you based on that, but I couldn't say for certain.

Let me use a metaphor to explain.

Let's pretend you're given two options for an April Fool's day prank: Hide your friends keys, or grab a stranger's phone.

If you hid your friend's keys and then went "April Fool's!" then s/he'd probably be mad, but would get the joke eventually. On top of that as long as you didn't do something like make them late for work, then they probably won't be too mad.

A stranger however would not care your justification for taking their phone. You can shout April Fool's all you want, what they see is a crime.

You contributed to a hate wiki. I am not VSTF nor staff, but given contributing to such a wiki is against the ToU, if I were looking at that wiki I would just assume you're posting hate articles about people and ban you. Remember VSTF don't take the time to personally get to know you before they make a ban, and they shouldn't either.

The lesson isn't "Don't edit on April Fool's Day", the lesson is "Use common sense when doing an April Fool's Day prank".

Editing on a wiki nobody goes on that is closed now is totally irrelevant. If you burn down an abandoned building that nobody has used in years, it is still arson. You can try to explain to the police "But it belongs to nobody! Nobody got hurt! It was a joke! It was abandoned! Someone wrote hate speech all over the walls so it was offensive to some people!" It won't matter, because arson is still arson, and you contributed to a hate wiki whether it was a joke or not.

The other users that contribute to the wiki for hate articles will be dealt with as VSTF and Staff see fit. Whether it's fair or not, I don't know, but their bans are irrelevant to your ban. Who VSTF/Staff bans and for what reasons are entirely up to them, and they won't tell us why they did/didn't, so I would focus on trying to get your ban overturned and not bother mentioning others. I'm sure you don't mean for it to sound like this, but saying "User X should be banned, not me!" sounds like you're trying to shift blame to someone else, and that doesn't make you look good.

I would just keep your conversations limited to VSTF. VSTF are the only ones who can overturn your ban, nobody here can really assist you, and VSTF will discuss a ban only with the banned user.