How about giving banned accounts an actual chance at appealing the ban instead of 250 characters?

[u/GrandTheftElmo]

I obviously haven't been banned or I could not use this account to log in as it would constitute ban evasion. However, had I been banned, I'd reckon that having mere 250 characters to argue against a ban is as good as providing no appeal at all. How is one supposed to properly argue anything and to provide context with that little text? Even using shorthand for everything, 250 characters is laughable in terms of providing information.

I understand manual review could be hampered if there were unlimited space and someone had to read pages upon pages for each case, but... 250 characters?! This is YouTube DMCA counter claim levels of draconian and a metaphorical middle finger in the name of offering a mere formality instead of a chance at a proper appeal.

For reference, this post has 828 characters up to this exact point, and I can't believe someone in charge of reviewing appeals would be overwhelmed by a couple of small paragraphs. 1000 characters would be a minimum workable amount, with something around 4000 meaning an actual opportunity for an argument. 250 characters is just enough to maybe say something halfway that will make it seem whatever offense is the basis for the ban was even worse because any argument will be truncated to oblivion.

[u/alittle-Different]

OMG Is this really even a thing?

[u/GrandTheftElmo → u/alittle-Different]

I'll take "how to pretend to be fair without actually being for $400, Alex"!

[u/LemmyUser420]

I was gonna ask OP for advice but he got banned too 😭

[u/aqua_zesty_man]

In some subs you can be banned by any mod for any reason, and the other mods will not even bother to read your appeal or send a reply back.

[u/GrandTheftElmo → u/aqua_zesty_man]

I said nothing about subs.

ETA: Have average reading comprehension skills gone down that much or am I just unlucky with getting replies from people who visibly didn't understand the post?

[u/Stefan_S_from_H → u/GrandTheftElmo]

Mods can ban you indirectly from the site by reporting “report abuse” for regular reports. The appeal process regarding these abuses by mods is broken, too.

[u/StardustOasis → u/aqua_zesty_man]

They're talking about sitewide bans, not sub bans.

[u/SasoDuck]

Yeah I encountered that once myself and it was fucking ridiculous. I couldn't even get through a fraction of the complexity of the situation in the twitter post they give you to write about it...

[u/cojoco]

You expect anybody to read more than 250 characters from someone they banned?

It's not happening.

[u/GrandTheftElmo → u/cojoco]

You know what's funny? I was not banned because of comments on a thread where I was arguing that someone running from the police on a beach should be stopped even if it took kicking or punching them because there is something clearly wrong if four fat cops are chasing a guy running for his life. I was not banned because I supposedly threatened violence after one of those defending indifference reported me according to what he later commented laughing.

The last reply I read before I was not banned was, "So guilty until proven innocent?" And that's exactly how I felt Reddit treating me as I did not appeal the not ban with useless 250 characters. And the guy who did not report me right after replied to the comment for which I was not banned saying that he'd certainly drop kick me if he saw me at the beach. Guess if he was banned for threatening violence.

I think I'll edit the Wikitionary entry for "irony" to link to that thread.

[u/Stefan_S_from_H → u/cojoco]

I once got banned for 3 days for "report abuse". The post I reported got removed by the mods, but I still got banned for reporting it. The appeal was ignored.