Copy of text of /u/theymos' self-post at 2:54 am (UTC), August 17.
Unfortunately, I was on vacation this weekend, so I was unable to prevent /r/Bitcoin from becoming messy. Sorry about that. I and other moderators more-or-less cleaned it up. Report anything that we missed.
Because people are still probably in a "troll-happy" mood from the lack of moderation, moderation will be increased for a while. Everyone needs some time to calm down. In particular, posts about anything especially emotionally-charged will be deleted unless they introduce some very substantial new ideas about the subject. This includes the max block size debate (any side) and /r/Bitcoin moderation. Also, people are continuously spamming links to inferior clones of /r/Bitcoin and the XT subreddit -- these links will be removed and the posters banned unless the links are remarkably appropriate for the given situation. When this sticky is removed, the rules will return to what they were previously.
It is possible that some people have been or will be banned too readily due to the increased moderation. If this happens to you, mail /r/Bitcoin with a justification of your actions, then wait 2 days and mail again if there's no satisfactory response, then wait 4 days, then 8, 16, 32, etc. If your mail to /r/Bitcoin is too high-volume, we may block all further mail from you, which will make it impossible for your to appeal your ban. About XT
/r/Bitcoin exists to serve Bitcoin. XT will, if/when its hardfork is activated, diverge from Bitcoin and create a separate network/currency. Therefore, it and services that support it should not be allowed on /r/Bitcoin. In the extremely unlikely event that the vast majority of the Bitcoin economy switches to XT and there is a strong perception that XT is the true Bitcoin, then the situation will flip and we should allow only submissions related to XT. In that case, the definition of "Bitcoin" will have changed. It doesn't make sense to support two incompatible networks/currencies -- there's only one Bitcoin, and /r/Bitcoin serves only Bitcoin.
If a hardfork has near-unanimous agreement from Bitcoin experts and it's also supported by the vast majority of Bitcoin users and companies, we can predict with high accuracy that this new network/currency will take over the economy and become the new definition of Bitcoin. (Miners don't matter in this, and it's not any sort of vote.) This sort of hardfork can probably be adopted on /r/Bitcoin as soon as it has been determined that the hardfork is not absolutely against the spirit of Bitcoin (inflating out-of-schedule, for example). For right now, there will always be too much controversy around any hardfork that increases the max block size, but this will probably change as there's more debate and research, and as block space actually becomes more scarce. I could see some kind of increase gaining consensus in as soon as 6 months, though it would have to be much smaller than the increase in XT for ~everyone to agree on it so soon.
There's a substantial difference between discussion of a proposed Bitcoin hardfork (which was previously always allowed here, even though I strongly disagree with many things posted) and promoting software that is programmed to diverge into a competing network/currency. The latter is clearly against the established rules of /r/Bitcoin, and while Bitcoin's technology will continue working fine no matter what people do, even the attempt at splitting Bitcoin up like this will harm the Bitcoin ecosystem and economy. Why is XT considered an altcoin even though it hasn't broken away from Bitcoin yet?
Because it is intentionally programmed to diverge from Bitcoin, I don't consider it to be important that XT is not distinct from Bitcoin quite yet. If someone created a fork of Bitcoin Core that allowed miners to continue mining 25 BTC per block forever, would that be "Bitcoin" even though it doesn't split from the Bitcoin currency/network quite yet? (I'd say no.) Can I still talk about hard fork proposals on /r/Bitcoin?
Right now, not unless you have something really new and substantial to say.
After this sticky is removed, it will be OK to discuss any hardfork to Bitcoin, but not any software that hardforks without consensus, since that software is not Bitcoin.