[Not Insane]

I was a member on a political site that had a "no holds barred" attitude about ad-hom attacks. One day they changed their rules and no longer allowed ad-hom attacks. At first, people got one or two week suspensions, but eventually a lot of members simply went away. They could not argue politics/culture without calling their opponents names and most of their posts could be summarized as "You're wrong and you are stupid and/or evil."

The whole place changed. And here's how: The conservative voices got louder and more numerous, and the far left kids went away, leaving in their place, the thoughtful liberals that could actually form cohesive arguments and, as a bonus, actually post in complete sentences.

i.e. it was good all around and became, in many ways, a much better and fairer discussion of current events.