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Yesterday when I tried to post an answer, I got the following message:

enter image description here

Transcription:

  • This account is temporarily suspended; suspension ends on Jul 8, 2124 at 14:07.
  • Sorry, we are no longer accepting answers from your account because most of your answers need improvement or do not sufficiently answer the question. See the Help Center to learn more.

Later that day, the suspension disappeared, as mysteriously as it appeared.

  1. What triggered the suspension? I guess there was a bug, but still I would like to know what triggered the suspension.
  2. In future, if I am mistakenly suspended like this, and the suspension does not disappear, what should I do to get un-suspended?

Details:

The suspension included all actions (answering, asking, editing, commenting, voting, etc.) and it was network-wide, including meta.

My reputation year rank is #15. I don't think my contributions are bad enough to warrant a 100 year suspension.

In the suspension notices, there was a link to a Help Center page, which advised me to improve my existing answers and questions. But when I tried to edit them, I got a message "Account suspended" and was unable to edit. It felt like a sick joke.

The Help Center page for question bans told me not to create a new account.

I tried to contact Stack Exchange via the contact page > "Account issue" > "I want to appeal a suspension", but then it said "If you are question or answer banned... we are unable to address your situation through this form." I filled out the form anyway, describing my situation, but when I clicked "Submit", my message did not go through. (Edit: When I clicked "Submit", I got a message "Oops! Robot detection failed".)

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    $\begingroup$ Network wide suspensions can be issued only by SE staff and not by site moderators. A suspension followed by an unsuspension within a short interval of time suggests that it (the suspension) was probably not intended. Will have to check with CM team to figure out the exact reason and hopefully someone should communicate to you about this. Please understand that moderators can not discuss any user specific details regarding suspensions in public. $\endgroup$
    – Paramanand Singh Mod
    Commented Aug 2 at 7:05
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    $\begingroup$ Separate from the answer below, I'd like to follow up about the trouble you had submitting a ticket via the Contact Us link. To my understanding, you should not be restricted from submitting Contact Us tickets while suspended. Can I ask what the page displayed to you? Or, could I ask you to submit it as a separate [support]/[bug] post (possibly on Meta Stack Exchange) detailing what happened? $\endgroup$
    – Slate StaffMod
    Commented Aug 2 at 15:43
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    $\begingroup$ @Slate When I filled out the form at the Contact page > "Account issue" > "I want to appeal a suspension" and clicked "Submit", the page said "Oops! Robot detection failed" and I did not see any indication that my message went through. $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Commented Aug 2 at 22:30
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    $\begingroup$ @Dan Honestly, that sounds like the captcha failed to load for some reason. When you submit a Contact Us ticket, (most of the time?) you have to fill out a captcha to verify you're a human. If you're not seeing a captcha when you load the Contact Us page, check for any errors in your browser console (if you know how), try a different browser, check to see if any plugins restrict captchas, or report a bug on Meta Stack Exchange. $\endgroup$
    – Slate StaffMod
    Commented Aug 5 at 13:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Slate Indeed, I did not see a captcha. Thanks for the tips. $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Commented Aug 5 at 13:52

1 Answer 1

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You've done nothing wrong here; this suspension was due to a minor mistake on our part which we quickly corrected. My apologies for the inconvenience.

As part of our routine efforts to restrict fraudulent activity on the network, we issued suspensions across a wide range of accounts. These suspensions were not designed to be disruptive to users who participate legitimately. When we issue suspensions for the purpose of protecting the network from fraudulent activity, it is also standard procedure for us not to notify the suspended accounts, as we do not believe there is another human on the other end of the line to notify. (And if there is, we don't necessarily want to announce what we're doing to them.)

In this particular case, we issued a large set of suspensions in response to fraudulent network activity. You did not receive a message about this suspension, per our standard procedures. We then realized that the set of suspensions was farther-reaching than originally planned, and had inadvertently impacted some legitimate users. We reversed the error shortly afterward. The maximum amount of time a legitimate user could have been improperly suspended for was approximately two hours.

I want to be clear that you did not perform any action that could have flagged you as an illegitimate contributor, and you don't need to worry about whether your regular/routine usage of the site tripped our detection systems. In the future, if something like this happens, and you are not quickly unsuspended, please write into us using the contact form, which you can also access via the "Contact" link in the footer of any Stack Exchange page.

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    $\begingroup$ OP claims in the question that they attempted to fill out the contact form but their message was not submitted. $\endgroup$
    – F1Krazy
    Commented Aug 2 at 15:29
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    $\begingroup$ @F1Krazy I'm not sure what's up with that to be honest. The form should still allow you to fill it out and submit. To me, the behavior described reads more like a failed captcha than something related to the suspension. I'll test that at a later point, but in the interim, using "Other" is fine if it really is failing due to the category selection. It's not really a suspension appeal, as much as it is, notification of a system error or mistake. $\endgroup$
    – Slate StaffMod
    Commented Aug 2 at 15:34
  • $\begingroup$ @Slate Thank you for your answer. Apology accepted, no hard feelings. There is still the issue that I tried to contact Stack Exchange via the contact form but my message did not go through (just now I added a comment to the OP giving more details about this). Also, as mentioned in the OP, the Help Center page, to which I was directed during the suspension, advised me to improve my existing answers and questions, but the system did not allow me to edit (this might be an issue for legitimate suspensions). $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Commented Aug 2 at 22:36
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    $\begingroup$ @Dan from the screenshot, looks like there were 2 restrictions in effect: account suspension and answer ban. The help center specifically means for answer ban where the user should be able to edit their answers, but in this case, since the account was also suspended, they couldn't. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Aug 2 at 23:23
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    $\begingroup$ @AndrewT. OK, that makes sense. Perhaps the system should be adjusted so that the advice about improving answers & questions is only given to users with non-suspended accounts. $\endgroup$
    – Dan
    Commented Aug 2 at 23:48
  • $\begingroup$ For clarity, the tool staff use to impose network-wide suspensions doesn't trigger a moderator message. The tool that volunteer moderators use to suspend users on a specific site does always send a moderator message, on the other hand. $\endgroup$
    – gparyani
    Commented Aug 3 at 22:44
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    $\begingroup$ This does leave some effects on these users, though: the system doesn't distinguish between suspensions that expired vs. were manually lifted, so these users will still be soft-blocked from nominating in moderator elections for a year and mods will still be recommended to suspend them for longer periods. $\endgroup$
    – gparyani
    Commented Aug 3 at 22:46

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