Sindome Lore tells of a time when there was indeed a MOO wide OOC chat channel and the MOO was basically a glorified chat room where 90% of the activity was on the channels and most people never left the coffins. I initiated the decision that finally saw it removed from the game, one -single- player threw a big ass wobbly about it, said it'd destroy the 'community' and supposedly quit the game. Course, he came crawling back pretty soon after under a different name…
Anyhow, the resulting increase in RP and IC activity was nothing short of astounding... infact, there was more IC activity in that period than there is now.
And as a side note, the admin do still have the luxury of re-enabling that global channel if there was ever a need for some kind of mass discussion, not that I can ever see it happening. Course, I bet most of the admin didn't even know it was possible, let alone what the command is ;)