This is fantastic, RC. Taking away anonymity and keeping things local helps. It also helps that Vermont has so many small towns, people know each other or know of each other. And in small towns, word gets around so people tend not to poop in their own sandbox.
Software-wise changing some variables makes a big difference. Micro.blog superficially, looks like Twitter but there are some key feature purposely missing: retweets and likes. If you want to respond you have to type out a reply. This prevents pile-ons and mobs from forming like on Twitter and Facebook. Bullying is not tolerated. It's not perfect, but people generally try to be polite with common courtesy. A lot of people migrate from Twitter filled with anger and outrage and it's interesting to see them sort of decompress as they finally start to let that go.
I will probably blog this article without hat tip since I keep The Core incognito.
