User:Weeklyd3/Essays/A squirrel did it

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People vandalize Wikipedia every day. Usually, these are spotted and undone by people browsing Special:Recentchanges or using some other tool like meta:SWViewer. The patrollers post user warnings on their talk pages, and after the 4th warning this month, someone reports them to WP:AIV. Then they get blocked.

Well, after a user gets blocked, what can they do to get unblocked? They use the {{unblock}} template. However, unless the vandal confesses that they vandalized and won't do it again, they won't get unblocked. And if they get unblocked, they can't vandalize again! Not fun.

You can also try blaming it on your siblings, but that's been tried so many times, and doesn't work.

Here's another idea: Why not blame it on an animal?

That will explain why you were caught vandalizing during your vacation announced on your talk page. Could a human have inserted all that patent nonsense into featured articles and started reverting constructive edits with nonsense edit summaries? ^[a] The admins are more likely to believe you if you said you left your computer unattended, and a squirrel or some other animal came and started hitting random keys. That'll explain why you reverted edits with reasons like "qwertyuiop" and "zxcvbnm"! And say you'll never let your computer go unattended again. That will give them good reason to unblock you.

Seriously though

Blaming your actions on someone else, human or not, will not get you unblocked. If someone, even if it wasn't human, gains access to your account, then your account is WP:COMPROMISED and (at the very least) will get stripped of advanced privileges ^[b], or even blocked or locked (so that nobody can log in to your account). So please, when requesting to be unblocked, write a good unblock request instead of complaining that someone (even if it wasn't human) gained access to your account to compromise it.

Note

This essay was inspired by MJL's gameshow, in which one of the tasks was to write an unblock request which said that a squirrel was responsible for bad edits.

Notes

^ Well, a human could have, but unless you promise to stop doing it, you won't get unblocked.
^ That means no more using counter vandal tools to revert at lightning speeds to boost your edits per day! Oh no.

[1] Well, a human could have, but unless you promise to stop doing it, you won't get unblocked.

[2] That means no more using counter vandal tools to revert at lightning speeds to boost your edits per day! Oh no.

[a]

[b]