Forum:AG's speech

This is a speech by AG (he's not unbanned, this is Sheepman posting for him).

Big Speech
I am not here to fight you. I am not here to trap you. I am not even here to try to convince you of my innocence. I am here to warn you. There is a terrible threat coming, a threat we have created ourselves. It is a Crisis, and one unlike any we have seen before. I have lived through every Crisis ever to stalk the face of any Wiki, and I know the signs: every Crisis was preceded by a fight between two Users, each of which gathered followers to his(or her) cause. Think back, we have all seen Crises. You will see, if you do, that I am right. And the signs are chilling. Communications breakdowns, imprisonment without trial, ultimatums: you expect to hear of such things in a newspaper report on a distant war, not the recent changes log! And so I ask you, to set down your prejudices, your opinions, your side in this, a digital battle. What I am proposing is radical, true, but I cannot see any other option: a total freezing of all community activity. No Court House, no BOB, no Forums, only talk. We need your help, we need your thoughts, we need your best ideas, we need them all in our quest for a solution. We will need strict discipline: anyone caught being objective will have to be punished severely. We will need everyone, from both sides, to produce ideas, to produce methods, to produce resolutions. I have, of course, examined the other courses of action, and I shall set them out below, but I cannot find any really usable. If you can, please tell us, but if you can't then we must follow this course. You may not trust me, but do you trust yourself? Agentgenius (posting done by Sheepman)

Ideas
Unusable. There are two problems: Unusable. There are two problems: Unusable. There are three problems:
 * 1) Ban all people on one side.
 * 1) How do we decide which side to ban?
 * 2) What about those who are only partly on one side?
 * 3) Declare amnesty for both sides.
 * 1) What about those who have committed serious crimes?
 * 2) Amnesty is immaterial. Inevitably, someone is going to bring up these crimes someday, even if they have been pardoned. Trust me, I know full well that people cannot leave a past misdeed alone, even if you have been proved innocent, let alone pardoned. It's just human nature.
 * 3) Flip a coin. Let the winning side pick their punishment for the losing side.
 * 1) How do we rule out cheating?
 * 2) What about disagreements within the winning party?
 * 3) Who would consent to be ruled by chance?
 * 4) How do we rule out cheating?

Converts

 * 1) Agentgenius
 * 2) Sheepman

Objectors
Note: Don't discount this just cause he's banned. He is right you know. One more crisis might finish us off. -- Sh ee p m a n ! Wheeeeeee! 10:10, 16 May 2009 (UTC)