What exactly is the magic that makes this community work?

[elmuchoprez]

In thinking about this project, I started wondering if anyone could pinpoint the exact voodoo that has made zefrank.com such a hit?

Yes, The Show is what brought most of us here, but for some reason lots of people stuck around even after the show was done. There's something going on that is more than just the show; after all, if it were just that, sites like rocketboom would play host to a similar community, but they don't. And it's not like there's been any orgy of information here since the show ended; it's a blog update every couple days (that's really just links to other stuff) and that's about it.

And yet people keep coming back here; poking around the old videos(that one about Ze taking improv lessons gets better every time I watch it), splashing around the ORG (which I still don't quite get), trying to beat their own high scores in that racing rocketship game (I don't think the ranking system has ever worked quite right)... I don't know what else other people are doing, but it's clear based on the number of people interested in this project that it's far from a dead community. Not only that, everyone that comes here wants to get involved with some new project (and the fact that most never come to fruition doesn't seem to bother most).

So, the question I'm curious about is: What is it about this place that keeps everyone so interested in keeping it going? A community based learning endeavor would be easy if you could define and harness whatever the mojo is around here that keeps people active and engaged.... any thoughts on what that might be?