^_^ It's actually an interesting phenomenon. The only types of people who stick it out here are the ones who 'stick with it', who have a passion for deepening their own understanding (not just doing things like others tell them), who wish to
explore and not simply be given to, and who have either a good degree of talent or an excess in passion for creation.

There's also the inescapable atmosphere of helpfulness which promotes creative thinking and dedication to projects. The technical types we have around here probably stay for a few reasons, one of which would be that dealing with an old, unrecognized engine presents enough unsolved modding barriers to provide a satisfying challenge, in a community where their work will be openly and formally appreciated, without being highly criticized by pompous elites.
I think another general thing that keeps us all here is the relatively small size of the community. We're not too small to lose interest in coming here (having not enough things to talk about), and not anywhere near so big that mindless n00bs can have a field day posting random crap that bunches of people bitch at them for, or so big that it's difficult to become recognized, or the phenominon where you have niches of members clustering who don't communicate much with other niches.
Hmmm, pretty neat. You'll forgive me, but I just finished reading JP, having read TLW right before.. it all seems rather self-organizing to me.

Also a form of evolution, where we have a small enough environment of focused personality and profession types that the system acts to strengthen these qualities in its own parts. The "varients" that come along and aren't suited to the established environment quickly die out. The exceptionally bright or creative components encourage the rest to be even more like this, spreading through the small, dense population rather easily.
Hmmmm...