The way I see it is a bit like going to work. Lets say that alongside our busy lives we all have a part time job contributing to an on-line dictionary, we have an office in a large building and we can go whenever it suits us. Sometimes we have more time, sometimes we have less time to spend. Some of us meet lots of other people each day in the rest of our lives, some of us don't get to meet many other people.
Most days we wander in, give everyone a quick nod, pick up a cup of coffee and head off to our office to "work" on Q&A, Miscellany, whatever, whether seeing if there are any replies to our last post or looking out for new posts.
If we really want to chat we should perhaps arrange to meet a friend for lunch, sometimes we do, sometimes it spills over into the working day.
What happened last week is that we all turned up to work and met on the stairs, discovered that someone was missing and spent a while trying to find them. After that we've been so wrapped up in the outside world, I won't rehash the events of the week, that we have come back in to work but rarely made it past the coffee machine. Some people are better than others at ignoring the huddle round the coffee machine and getting back to work. Others aren't. Assuming things get back to what passes for normal, then most people will get back to work, if not, we'll deal with the problem when it happens.
