The 3RR does allow administrators some discretion, such
as the ability
to unblock people where they have shown remorse for breaking the rule.
Enviroknot has not expressed any such remorse, and has not addressed
the allegations of sockpuppetry. Instead, he or she has spammed the
mailing list and attacked Wikipedia Administrators as a whole. Had
Enviroknot come up with a good explanation for sharing IPs with other
users, expressed some sort of remorse for breaking a very basic rule
and agreed to work collaboratively on the relevant article's talk page
to reach consensus, I have little doubt the ban would have been
happily lifted by a number of administrators.
I totally agree with this. If environknot had been less hostile, his
chances of being unblocked would've been much larger.
--Mgm