DebateIsFutileResolutionForm

Purpose: For as long as Alpha Complex has existed in its utopian bliss, a resolution has been sought to the difficulty of quarreling ULTRAVIOLET citizens. There is no known higher clearance to which High Programmers have appeal, and Friend Computer has better things to do with its processing time than mediate every trivial ego clash between cantankerous white-clad gits. Unfortunately, High Programmers are powerful cantankerous white-clad gits, and have been known to escalate trivial debates over the aesthetics of Minimum Mandatory Doorway Height into sector-destroying campaigns of sabotage, misinformation, and death.

One of the more recent schemes is the DebateIsFutileResolutionForm (hereafter referred to as "the Form"), introduced six yearcycles ago by Omega-U-MAN. The initial version of the Form, though fourteen pages long, pretty much boiled down to "Omega-U-MAN is right; you are wrong". It was deemed "Inadequate But Salvageable" by the Form Approval High Sub-Committee, and seventeen revisions later, we have an eminently useful (if often mis-used) piece of paperwork.

Proper Filing: Many DebateIsFutileResolutionForms are filed improperly, rendering them void. The most common areas of error are:

1. The Form may only be filled out by those of ULTRAVIOLET clearance. Personally - no VIOLET_Supervisors.

2. The Form may not be filed pre-emptively for a debate that has not yet happened, nor retroactively for one that has already concluded.
3. A single Form may only apply to one Debate - regardless of Automatic Blanket Applicability Riders and similar paperwork!

Required Procedure and Effects:

1. Announce (in the relevant debate) that you have filed a DebateIsFutileResolutionForm. Being annoying and petulant about said announcement is optional, but relatively common.

2. Forego further comment there until another ULTRAVIOLET citizen supports your invocation. Should you continue to run your mouth off, the Form is rendered moot and you must re-file.
3. Once your invocation is seconded, anyone making further comment will be Permanently Cited as having done so.

Clarifications:

• Having a filed and seconded Form does not mean you are automatically considered Right, it simply suspends debate on the matter. (Yes, I know, the Form looks like it declares you right. No, it doesn't, really. The deceptive wording is mandated by High Programmer Happiness Regulations. Stop whining.)
• The High Programmers filing the Form and seconding its invocation need not actually be involved in the debate.
• The lack of spaces in the Form's title is entirely deliberate. By the time it is invoked, debate has often reached the point where pausing for breath is no longer considered an option.

Potential Relevance to the Toothpaste_Disaster: Earlier revisions of the Form provided for much harsher penalties than mere Permanent Citation, including termination of all citizens, ULTRAVIOLETS included, involved in or referenced by the debate. Traitorous parties used this to effect the ULTRAVIOLET_Massacre, the wide-reaching repercussions of which are still being felt - and include, among other things, the formation of Action_Squad_Alpha.

References: Action_Squad_Alpha, ULTRAVIOLET_Massacre, VIOLET_Supervisors

--Err-U-DYT-9

Postscript: Since I know I'll catch flak from some outraged ignoramus if I don't clarify: High Programmer Happiness Regulations are not regulations on High Programmers being happy. They are regulations on lower-clearance citizens about making High Programmers unhappy. Actually filling out/authorizing a DebateIsFutileResolutionForm requires ULTRAVIOLET clearance, but production of the form itself - including the writing of copy - is not done by ULTRAVIOLETs.

--Err-U

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