The example about the ever-increasing list of assignment requirements appears in many other domains than teaching. Think of the AirBNB with a fifty-page guide

The example about the ever-increasing list of assignment requirements appears in many other domains than teaching. Think of the AirBNB with a fifty-page guide whose 'rules' are all thinly-disguised anecdotes about something that went horribly wrong. And I'm sure we've all seen business processes like this... This ends up (somewhat) preventing asshole behavior at the expense of making life worse for all of the non-assholes. But in reality, assholes will find new and imaginative ways to be assholes, no matter how many specific rules are in place. One hopes that better solutions are possible. In the teaching example, we could imagine keeping the rules broad and simple, and including a reward for any student who doesn't require 'special treatment' through regrade requests, etc. (I have seen systems where regrades include a grade reduction if no errors are found.) In AirBNB, deposits and waive-able cleaning fees serve a similar purpose.