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I suppose this has been done to death, but if so I haven't smelled any corpses redolent of mortal corruption just yet ...
Anyway, what drives threads? Somebody has an idea to throw into the ring and duly does so. People respond and the thread rapidly but surely veers wildly off in some unintended (but usually interesting) direction totally unintended by its author.
Like this one will.
Then, after a while, they just "peter" out. Stop. Cease. Desist. People no longer post to them, and they are eventually archived.
Why? What drives it? I'm currently watching the thread I started on Rodent-Related Sayings. If no more posts are made to that thread for, say, the next couple of days, I'm picking that it'll die.
Comments on the back of a postcard, please ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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enthusiast
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in some unintended (but usually interesting) direction totally unintended by its author.
This is always amazing me : I read once that anyone can reach any other one in 6 steps - I mean, someone knowing someone knowing someone...
Here it seems to me that it is possible in few posts to start from whatever subject and to arrive to an absolutely arbitrary other subject!
Ciao
Emanuela
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In reply to:
Then, after a while, they just "peter" out. Stop. Cease. Desist. People no longer post to them, and they are eventually archived. . . . I'm picking that it will die
Lay dormant might be nearer the truth. Look at the thread on handles, recently revived after months in abeyance. I'm sure that like any good rat, your rodent therad will hang around, waiting for some unsuspecting, diligent "stranger" to stumble across it, and revive, or even revivify, it. 
p.s. The answer to your question, "what drives threads", is, of course, 42.
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Max concluded: p.s. The answer to your question, "what drives threads", is, of course, 42.
40 + 2?
6 x 7?
84 / 2?
I haven't seen any white mice, either. Slartibartfast isn't a user here. Quo vadis?
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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40 + 2?
6 x 7?
84 / 2?According to the scrabble bag, the question was: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?" Or perhaps, "how many threads must AWAD pass through, before words are forever gone?" Fortunately you are all spared my Zimmerman impersonation! 
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According to the scrabble bag, the question was: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine?"Just the riposte I'd expect from a mediocre telephone sanitiser! "how many threads must AWAD pass through, before words are forever gone?"The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind, the answer is blowin' in the wiiiiiiiind.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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The answer to your question, "what drives threads", is, of course, 42. I'd rather say fortuitousness
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have to agree with Max on this-- it's 42
its something you grok or you don't!
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What drive threads, why do some go on and on, and others peter out quickly–
there are many factors at work, but what I have noticed is,
1) extended thread have topics that are broad– Streets ahead started broad, and then it became a cribbage thread. I have never played, don't have a clue about the game except it uses a cribbage board... So the thread be came less and less interesting...
2) some topics go off on tangents– and luck here, either the tangents are better than the original thread, or the thread soon breaks..
Fortnight comes to mind-- almost halted when tsuwm pointed out –Merkin– but went on to concepts about calendars– which make some sense– a word about an expression of time, goes off to discuss our concepts of time; when does a week start–, weekends, and then on to how the french express time and even to the french practice of policing concepts! (Isn't that what they are doing when they attempt to block words?)
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H, the ___ who ___ a 1000 ____, suggested:
have to agree with Max on this-- it's 42
its something you grok or you don't!
42 ... grok ... I've heard of mixed metaphors, but mixed sci-fi metaphors - Adams and Heinlein sounds like a law firm.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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