Shutdown-petition

Off Topic
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A similar conundrum presented itself a long time ago in a very famous MOO. Have a read:

read #104168

*** A bright, blue and orange EXPRESS MAIL envelope. ***

On December 9, 1992, Haakon posted ‘LambdaMOO Takes A New Direction’ (LTAND). Its intent was to relieve the wizards of the responsiblity for making social decisions, and to shift that burden onto the players themselves. It indicated that the wizards would thenceforth refrain from making social decisions, and serve the MOO only as technicians. Over the course of the past three and a half years, it has become obvious that this was an impossible ideal: The line between ‘technical’ and ‘social’ is not a clear one, and never can be. The harassment that ensues each time we fail to achieve the impossible is more than we are now willing to bear.

So, we now acknowledge and accept that we have unavoidably made some social decisions over the past three years, and inform you that we hold ourselves free to do so henceforth.

(snip)

  1. Rejection of the New Direction?
    ==================================
    We realize that not everyone will agree that this is the best new direction LambdaMOO might take. We don’t doubt that some of the polemics among you will be able to come up with a different slant, e.g. (just to save you some trouble),

    wizardly blackmail
    military coup
    martial law
    nuclear terrorism

Some of you may find the new direction so disagreeable that you will consider ways to force an end to the new direction or ways to make the wizards’ lives miserable because of it. Instead of making the use of civil disobedience or wizard harassment be the necessary means for shutting down LambdaMOO, we will accept a simple majority decision of the following form:

Any eligible voter may author a “shutdown” petition. This will be a
pre-vetted petition with a specific, fixed wording. Should the
petition reach ballot stage (by acquiring the usual signature
threshold), a vote will be held to decide whether LambdaMOO should be
shut down. If the number of YES (we should shut down) votes equals
or exceeds the number of NO (we should not shut down) votes
received, LambdaMOO will be shut down after an 8-week grace period.
(Note, only one “shutdown” petition may be active at a time.)

Shutdown petitions will be implemented at the earliest opportunity.

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