Note that, in the unlikely event that Wik returns after his ban expires, the other components of the arbitration ruling will still apply. However, there is a broader point. There are roughly three schools of thought: A) A ban of one month lasts one month, regardless of attempts at evasion. B) A ban of one month requires one month of uninterrupted absence from Wikipedia - any attempt to evade that ban automatically resets the ban timer. Banned users with poor self-control may end up banning themselves indefinately. C) Evading a ban is itself a bannable offence - doing so automatically triples the ban length (after which, (B) applies). (B) has precedent in that it's how we dealt with Cantus when he evaded a quickpoll ban. I'm unaware of any other precedents on the matter, so I intend to write this into [[wikipedia:banning policy]], and copy this post to the Talk page. Those who favour a different approach are welcome there. Another issue that has come up in this case is dealing with known users who go on a "vandalism spree", which I believe may apply to at least two people in this case. In the past this has been a quickpoll matter leading to a one day ban, but that process was suspended for 30 days, owing largely to disputes over its application to revert wars, but a sufficiently bold member of the cabal may wish to ressurect it for dealing with vandalism sprees. There may also be an option for sysops to make unilateral judgements to temp-ban following vandalism sprees, even for users who have made a few non-vandalising edits, but I'm not clear on this, so perhaps someone more experienced in vandalism-defence could clue us in? -Martin