My humble opinion is that the people frequenting this BBS are generally above average in intellect. That's the start. Posters here know how to apply common sense and are genuinely smart (in a well-rounded way, beyond intelligence or "book-smarts").

The relatively small size of the membership has helped a lot.

There are also some other things people may not pick up on or ever mention. The forum software is set up in a very usable fashion. For me, having the alternate skin with larger fonts has always been a godsend. The color palette is unique, but very relaxing. I suppose these are all tangible, but often forgotten as contributors. Including the search capabilities working reasonably well.

In contrast, look at the forums for Slim Devices. An equally geek-oriented product, but their forum's signal to noise ration is very low. The forum software (VBulletin) absolutely stinks, including but not limited to, the most useless search feature you can imagine.

There are plenty of people on there that write fairly well. But some of these same people will ALWAYS quote back an entirte previous post. And they'll top-quote it to make matters worse. That's a lack of common sense. The forum software isn't threaded and obviously makes it super easy to perpetrate the practise as well.

If I got rid of my empegs tomorrow I'd still frequent this board. It's the only place I can say I post with any frequency as it is. Any other forum I will visit during an initial break-in period with a product (such as Slim's Squeezebox), but none offer any compelling reason to stick around.