[WikiEN-l] I've added a note to the 3RR policy page

Wed Mar 16 16:37:42 UTC 2005

>As I have argued a few times on WP:AN, I think administrators should
>avoid second-guessing each other.   Therefore, I don't think people
>should be advised to go to a different administrator to unblock them
>than the one who imposed the block in the first place.   This just
>encourages people who have been blocked to  "forum shop" for the
>softest/friendliest admin they can find, playing administrators
>against each other.   It is clear that there is antipathy between some
>administrators, and people shouldn't be able to exploit this.

Or (in my experience) sometimes they just e-mail all admins, hoping someone 
will (for whatever reason) unblock them. It's kind of like standing in an 
apartment lobby and buzzing all the apartments; someone inevitably buzzes 
you in.

>In the case where the 3RR violation is not disputed, and a person
>wants to apologize, express contrition etc, he or she should do that
>with the admin who imposed the block.

I've unblocked 3RR violators immediately for doing exactly that.

>In the case where the blocked member wishes to dispute the 3RR block,
>that should be done initially with the admin who imposed the block, so
>that admin can recognize and reverse his own error,  and apologize if
>appropriate to the blocked person, minimizing future bad feelings and
>conflict.  Only if that fails should the blocked person be able to ask
>a different admin to intervene.    The intervention in most cases
>should be to leave the block in place but to open a discussion about
>it on AN/I, so that a consensus can be formed about whether the block
>was proper or not. Once a consensus is established, any admin can
>implement it.

Well, one of the downsides of the more efficient ArbCom is that users want 
to bring every grievance they have there immediately.  It doesn't help that 
RfC is only intermittently helpful, and RfM appears (at least in my 
experience) to still be completely non-functioning.

Jay.