First: I'm not active in Collectibles, and I've only sparcely seen ChiBitCTy on the forum. I've got
many accounts banned for plagiarism, and none of them will be missed.
I did not purposely plagiarize. Those sig campaigns require you to have a certain amount of words in your posts. If I quote that person, I get more words..why would I want to purposely leave that out and have less words for the post? I wouldn't as they ask for A LOT of words.
I don't get it: if you quote someone, the quoted part won't (or shouldn't!) be counted for the 200 character requirement for your signature campaign. And in that case you did purposely plagiarize by omitting the source.
That being said:
But someone who at any point copy/pastes garbage like this has proven that they have an utterly broken mindset when it comes to the forum, and I have a really hard time believing that such a person will be a net positive going forward.
Lack of sleep, worries and stress can temporarily cloud someone's judgement. I don't generally care for sob stories, but I do know it takes its toll on you in real life.
I'm always thinking: what if it happens to me someday? I must have embedded some images I found on Google in some of my old posts. The reference is in the URL, but not in the post.
Recently, I was typing jibberish and totally messing up quotes when I had a fever, and as a family with young kids and busy days I suffer from a continuous lack of sleep. I'd hate to lose access to my favourite forum if I ever mess up one way or another.
Lone shark shouldn't have been unbanned without adding exceptions to the rules for everyone not just one case.
But the rules
do allow exceptions:
NOTE: This is meant to serve as a reference/educational/informational thread, NOT a rock solid list of rules.
I knew that I would receive crap for my last post but it was honest. I f*#$d up during a difficult time, period. I cheated, I was wrong, it's 100% stupid and I understand what those consequences are now. It was over a very short period of time where I wasn't by a computer and I made a major lapse in judgment and took the lazy way out. It was mindless, a mistake..but I was wrong. I'm guilty and I've never denied this.
This would be a good statement to put in your signature for a month, if you get unbanned.
People who get caught copy and pasting should have their signature removed for a year or something. See if they stick around and contribute something worthwhile and if they do then they get it back. That way you can still contribute but you can't earn and having the signature removed for a year is better than indefinitely with a ban.
This will be a waste of time for a generic shitposter who commits plagiarism. But I'd be in favour of this as an exception for good posters who slipped once.
If I may add my 2 satoshis, also considering Lone Shark's unban and ChiBitCTy's contributions (which I saw listed for the first time when I read this thread): I believe a (long) temporary ban would do the community more good than a permanent ban.