What do other people think? If we can't come to an agreement soon, then I'll ask for help reviewing/submitting patches to Mike's Bitcoin-Xt project that implement a big increase now that grows over time so we may never have to go through all this rancor and debate again. I'll then ask for help lobbying the merchant services and exchanges and hosted wallet companies and other bitcoind-using-infrastructure companies (and anybody who agrees with me that we need bigger blocks sooner rather than later) to run Bitcoin-Xt instead of Bitcoin Core, and state that they are running it. We'll be able to see uptake on the network by monitoring client versions. Perhaps by the time that happens there will be consensus bigger blocks are needed sooner rather than later; if so, great! The early deployment will just serve as early testing, and all of the software already deployed will ready for bigger blocks. But if there is still no consensus among developers but the "bigger blocks now" movement is successful, I'll ask for help getting big miners to do the same, and use the soft-fork block version voting mechanism to (hopefully) get a majority and then a super-majority willing to produce bigger blocks. The purpose of that process is to prove to any doubters that they'd better start supporting bigger blocks or they'll be left behind, and to give them a chance to upgrade before that happens. Because if we can't come to consensus here, the ultimate authority for determining consensus is what code the majority of merchants and exchanges and miners are running. -- -- Gavin Andresen