look at vashj, mg, and bwl. stating the rules and banning the offenders does in fact work, and it has worked for over a year in each case. sure, they're smaller communities than they once were, but that has little to do with enforcing their rules. banning offenders will of course shrink the community, but if it's a community worth having, it won't be wiped off the face of wow. as Kochist put it,
there is no need to keep someone as mod all night and day. why do you think vashj, mg, and bwl work? it's not because they're smaller communities; it's because their members understand the rules and are willing to enforce them. it's not only Licholas, Reflexz, and Snowjobs enforcing their community's rules; it's (most) everyone. it's a group effort, and because AP H is so much larger, it will take a larger group. but so what? you've got the numbers and you've got the influence - use them.
what is the difference between the banhammer and a channel split? one is a split between those who are willing to abide by the rules on which AP was founded and those who are not, while the other is a split between those who want a break or don't care and those who want to work on the community.
division by banning is not 'mean'. it is how you take what AP has become and return it to its former respectable state. a few users stated that you can't bring back the past - well, you can. you can bring back the basic tenets of AP and enforce the fuck out of them
instead of leaving the chat to all those who do not wish to abide by AP's rules, take it from them. they don't like it? they can reroll, or they can stay banned, or they can leave chat. it doesn't require constant banning. there's no need for a list of the banned. the ban lasts at most a week, and that's a fine system. if X banned person decides they want to remain a part of your community, they'll buck up and follow the rules or they'll be banned until the next server reset. someone unbans them? bfd! you've dealt with it before - you can reban them, or you can wait until they break a rule again and then reban them
directly quoting you and the white knight, AP is a community and those who joined it agreed in one way or another to follow its rules. personally, i think that's bullshit - if you're not explaining the rules, how are people agreeing to them? but that's irrelevant - if you start explaining the rules, members of the community have no excuse to break them. fix your community
tl;dr? not if you care about AP
EDIT: what would a player new to AP think when joining a chat filled mostly with the people you all DON'T want to be around?