I think much of this "comes from the top". This site has a rather active collection of de-facto leaders that mostly foster the atmosphere of respect and even politeness.

Some other on-line forums I've used had real attitude problems that resulted from either a lack of leadership or de-facto leaders that fostered rudeness either unintentionally or in a misguided hope of stopping the "newbie problem".

In reply to Re: Any interesting and poignant quote by Anonymous Monk
in thread An interesting and poignant quote by r.joseph

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