Phineas and Ferb Wiki:Chat behavior and guidelines/advice

Okay, you got kicked out of the Chat. You're upset. You think the other person was wrong or it's unjustified or it was a misunderstanding or you made a mistake. You want this fixed right now so you can get back in.

Well, that may be exactly the wrong thing to do.

Here's an example of something that happened to me (RRabbit42) in January 2012. Take a moment to read it, then see what could have been done differently and some ideas about how to go from here.

 Note:  There is no need to comment on this situation. I have decided to let the matter stay as it is so that it can be a learning experience for myself and everyone else.

The situation
While looking at another wiki, I noticed one of their pages was hard to read. I left a message for an admin asking if it was supposed to look like that and offering an idea on how to improve it if it wasn't. Two other admins replied and said they weren't sure if it could be done. I replied back with a couple of simple ideas to try.

This is where it went wrong.

The second admin had also said they really didn't have time to try it so it was easier to keep it like it is. I missed that part, so when I followed up with the two ideas, that admin didn't appreciate it. However, instead of calmly repeating that they didn't want or need these ideas so that I would more clearly understand not to discuss it any further, she got upset and made it personal.

Since this appeared to be a misunderstanding and because I didn't appreciate the personal remarks, I left a message for her. I took my time and thought out my response, so that the admin would know that the situation wasn't as she thought it was.

The admin immediately erased my message without reading it, then left me another message to stop bothering them about this. This left me even more confused. I wasn't doing what she said I was and I had explained it. Did she read that? Why was this admin reacting this way?

I saw the admin was in the Chat, so I tried talking to her there. Unfortunately, I kind of barged in there. Instead of asking to talk with her to figure this out, what I first said was really an accusation.

Again, I tried to explain I wasn't doing what she said I was, but the damage had been done. She wasn't listening to me any more and when I realized that, I told her she might as well block me. She did so. I am blocked on that wiki for a year.

Now that some time has passed, I have figured out by what she said in Chat that she was having a bad day when this happened. A well-intentioned idea became an unwanted intrusion, the situation got blown out of proportion by actions on both sides and my own need to get this resolved immediately backfired. All of this happened in less than an hour.

Doing things differently
So now you see what happened to me. How do we go about getting you back into the Chat?


 * Wait. First and foremost, wait. A lot of times it's going to be better if you wait a day or two before you try to resolve the situation. Emotions may have been running high on one or both sides, so give it time for the situation to cool off before you go back to it.


 * Be polite and respectful. When you ask to be let back in, a chatmod or an admin who may not have been in Chat at the time is going to have to make a judgement about what happened and whether to let you back in. The better you can state what happened, the easier it is to make a decision about unblocking you from Chat.


 * Review what happened. Think back to what happened. Were you deliberately causing problems? Were people asking you to stop what you were doing? Was it a misunderstanding or maybe someone was having a bad day?