Quote Originally Posted by Quertus View Post
[...] We just need to capture that secret sauce, and bundle it in a packaging that meets EPA , PETA, and Genova Convention standards.

So, you say that there was one such good thread once. Seems like the wise thing to do would be to attempt to determine what it's secret sauce was, and attempt to copy that.
The thing is... I'm not sure what it was. So let me get started with some of my rough ideas.

I think the subject had different people with different opinions on the matter, so they pushed at each other to subject dive. No one tried to push a "one true way", although we had a few "my true way" arguments people usually made the distinction. I think the subject* itself might have helped by being something people could accept different views on. So that is all I can think of for the conditions. I know we had huge posts, we developed terms that were actually useful for discussing the topic at the level of detail we were going into, but those were all effects of how will it worked, not the reason it worked. It may have been self sustaining after a while, as the main topic built up people all knew the other posters and issues got laid aside or simply buried in the rush of on-topic posts.

* It was on personality mechanics, so rules that affect character behaviour.

To Max_Killjoy: I thought that was obvious. Still I know a few other people who go for the deep dive, including myself.