"==Questionable punishment of D*98==
The January 2010 block against User:Darryl98 was extremely harsh, IMHO, as being a 1-month block for a WP:3RR violation that was escalated by a more-experienced user who was well aware of goading people into a revert-war. Perhaps an 8-day block would have been more fair, with an attempt to discuss the situation during those 8 days, and possibly remove the block sooner than 8 days, after true consensus (that means a mutual agreement). Please understand that Wikipedia policies are actually much more fair, in writing, than the way some users (and admin users) misapply those policies: the typical block for WP:3RR is only a 24-hour block, not 1 month. In fact, per WP:Blocking_policy, use of excessive blocking is a violation due to the reasoning that new users will become highly irritated by excessive punishment. The idea of fair punishment isn't just a matter of human decency, or common sense when trying to actually ""collaborate"" with other users, no, much more than those reasons, fair punishment is a stated policy issue. I think what needs to be added, to avoid excessive punishment, is to develop a type of ""Code of Hammurabi"" as a list of wiki-punishments for each situation, based on length of tenure, total edit-count, and repeat-offenses, so that the punishment does NOT just become a matter of ""lengthen the block so a user won't come back soon to cause more trouble"". Meanwhile, rather than reducing future conflicts, excessive punishment poisons the Internet community with unhappy users who spread the word of how they were mistreated. Typically, users will not see unfairness as a few admins crossing the line and violating policies in a harsh manner, instead, a user victim is likely to ""blame Wikipedia"" for being a ""bad system"" that harrasses and abuses people. What needs to be emphasized, in discussions during a shorter block, is that some (many?) users (admins) violate policies, but this is not condoned, it's just hard to enforce because a banned user can return using a social-networking site that has thousands of IP addresses and Wikipedia cannot easily stop them. Also, Wikipedia has very limited appeal processes, and so there is nothing, yet, as sophisticated as even the ""American notion of justice"" in Wikipedia: there are no trials by jury of informed peers (chosen at random). Instead, many issues are decided by ""dog pile"" groups, who collect around a common bias or mindset, as a sort of ""feeding frenzy"" or hive mind that sees a negative remark as a veiled attack against the hive, and many members of the hive must sink into ""sting mode"" to counter-attack a person who states angry remarks. Currently, Wikipedia likes people who are ultra-mild and don't claim any Bill of Rights but simply beg to belong with the others. Hence, people from democratic republics come to Wikipedia and might demand their rights under the law, without realizing it is the Law of the Old West: be as nice as possible to avoid getting shot by other users/admins who are toting wiki-guns. Only some people think users have any rights to fair treatment, despite current WP policies that even require actions to be fair within those regulations. Perhaps WP needs to teach ""fairness classes"" to users who come from fascist countries or domineering parents: being fair and courteous is not a strong force of nature, but rather must be taught to users. - 
Wikid, I'm sure that you are well aware of why WP cannot tolerate the improper use of WP:Sockpuppets. Just as your socking as Wz777 had to be stopped, so did PilgrimRose's socking as Darryl98. But blocks are not regarded as punishment, they are regarded as protection of WP from those who, like yourself, are having difficulty working within the rules. The indef block of a sockpuppet is applied equally to all such.  come howl 
 If you read that user's larger prior talk-page revisions, you will see that the stated preference was to become named as ""Darryl98"" so I am respecting that request. In changing names, that user was not aware of how people can be goaded into a WP:3RR excess of revisions, and that escalation seemed to be the most serious of the policy violations. It is not a violation to have multiple usernames on Wikipedia. Plus, as an occasional user, it seemed that Darryl98 had spent extensive time to read the policies about WP:Sockpuppetry and properly explained each issue as it applied in the situation: no clear violation of puppets, but rather just being accused of ""nefarious"" intentions, which was noted as a violation of WP:AGF. Again, the largest disturbance was engaging in a WP:3RR violation, typically risking a 24-hour block, wh