Wierd introduction to Wikipedia. Got a new net account, with what I thought was a stable IP address, unfortunately, I inherited it from someone who was banned from WP (for life, I think) for... Well, vandalism doesn't quite describe it. He just seemed clueless. Adding discussion-style comments to main articles, adding commercials or copyright material, then reverting obsessively when it got deleted, all without so much as a "what the?" in the talk pages.
Anyway, he then used an IP address to create new accounts, did exactly the same thing, got those accounts banned. A month late, I got that address.
For a newbie to find he's been banned for six months for being a sock puppet to a banned vandal is disconcerting, to say the least. "But I only just got here."
Then you go clicking around to find out what to do. Read the help pages.
"Wait it out, it's only 48 hours." Umm, no, it's six months.
"Contact the admin who banned you by clicking the Email link in the toolbox." Umm, what email link, he doesn't have one... Never mind, I'll just add a note to his talk page and... well, no, the ban prevents that.
Ah hell, I don't care, I'm new, if I want to add or change anything, I'll just mention it in the articles talk page, someone else can add it if it's any good, right? Except the ban includes all talk pages too.
So, eventually I figured out I could do an unblock request, although I wasn't expecting much, since the other guy, the vandal, send four (failed) unblock requests on one day, over just a few hours. Noone is going to take a subsequent "but I'm not him, honest!" request seriously...
But within a few hours, I was unblocked. That "assume good faith" thing, these guys actually believe it. After seeing the "battle" side of wikipedia, it was weird seeing the happy-fluffy-bunny side.
Then I had the fun and games of finding a log-in that wasn't taken. Back to the "battle" side of WP again. And just when I was getting completely pissed off, I found that not only is every single name already taken, so is the pitiful cry of desperation "Every name is already taken".
Well, I got a laugh.
