On any other forum I know, users don't get banned if they copy some text that can help someone else, and it's a pretty common thing to do since the beginning of the internet.
That may be so, but it isn't right. And on top of all that, people are usually earning money when they plagiarize someone's text, which makes it so much worse.
I'm not a big fan of Theymos's declaration that there will be some exceptions to the rule, but such is life. I think if he's going to allow successful appeals, they should be granted only for exceptional members who've contributed a lot to the community and only rarely. By rarely, I mean probably 3 cases per year. Rank shouldn't have anything to do with it, nor am I sad when a Legendary account gets busted for plagiarizing something. There are plenty of shitposting sig spammers who ranked up that much before the merit system.
Anyway, I don't think OP is the best candidate for a ban lift.
LOTS of thing can come under the " it isn't right" heading here.... "on top of that they are making money" ..." shit posting sig spammers"
Your reasoning here seems to be polluted by a certain bias, so must be treated with caution. I will demonstrate why...
Let us consider the OP a person that did one or 2 copy and pastes to earn a tiny amount of money compared to someone (you) who greedily and sneakily created a sock puppet to racist troll sig spam to make much more money and actually was busted shifting from one sig campaign to another to get even MORE money??
Why would the OP be banned and you who have done worse (IMHO) get to be a DT and merit source with no red trust?
This I feel quite obviously illustrates that the OP should not be perm banned.
I don't support ANYONE getting banned if they are willing to show they are sorry and won't do it again (except proven scammers). If I was theymos in this situation I would just remove BOTH of your sigs for a few years so that you can demonstrate you are both real enthusiasts and will contribute here for free.
I feel on
matters of trust the readers must be given access to all possible information especially on those advocating punishment of others so that we may attribute the correct value to their contributions.
The op has already been vouched for by a mod of his own local board so we can see he is also a valuable contributor.
To ensure fair and equal treatment of all persons then precedents and similar prior incidents should be given strong
consideration.