[oleganza]

When everyone's money is at stake, it'll be very quick. This March, when the network forked, miners with newer version 0.8 agreed to forego mining rewards and abandon their own branch (incompatible with v0.7) just to resolve the issue quickly to not shake the confidence in Bitcoin.

[nwh]

They got their money back anyway. A user paid every single missed bounty from blocks on the abandoned fork.

[oleganza]

v0.7 miners got those rewards, not v0.8 ones.

[nwh]

v0.8 miners were paid back for the lost funds from a private fund, leftover from the original Bitcoin Faucet.

[oleganza]

Yes, but this was not planned ahead. Miners did abandon their rewards even being on a longer chain just to maintain trust in the system. They did not know if they will ever get their money recovered.