Relsqui comments on Defecting by Accident - A Flaw Common to Analytical People - Less Wrong
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This is not the answer to your question, but it might be relevant/interesting that communicating respectfully/politely by default is one of the stated rules of #xkcd. Obviously it doesn't actually happen every moment, and people aren't kicked for being rude once, but there is an atmosphere of not tolerating rudeness for its own sake. The ops are reluctant, but willing if it goes on long enough, to get rid of someone whose only crime is being incredibly unpleasant to interact with. This is in line with the community's goal of being pleasant and entertaining; if the goal were getting some sort of work done, it might be important to tolerate people who are rude but useful, but that's not the case.
The specific relevant text in the channel rules (in a section on "generalities," not specific things to do/not do) is this:
There's also a simplified version of the rules page that exists to give people a general sense of how to behave without swamping them in specific examples. It includes:
It's clearly possible to abuse that last one by asking someone politely to stop doing something which is totally reasonable, but in actual practice that hasn't been a problem.
Thanks. It's an interesting example of balancing the need for clear rules without having so much specificity that it's easy to game.
I found this experiment with requiring non-redundant communication, but nothing about how long it went on or how it worked out in the long run.
Yeah, that was one of the major goals in the channel rules. Both the long and the short versions are explicit that if you come up with a way to be a pain in the ass that we haven't already thought of, we'll still kick you, even though it's not already in the rules. :P If you're curious, the long version is here and the short version is here. I didn't compose all of them but I did write them. (That is, I didn't choose everything that went in them, but I picked most of the words and put them on a page.)
It's still going on, in #xkcd-signal on Foonetic. I don't follow the channel actively right now, but my experience when I was there and the channel's continuing reputation are that it has high-quality conversations at very long intervals. That is, it tends to be quiet for long periods, but the conversations that do happen are relatively free of noise.