Nearly all threads in this forum are going off-topic. What does that say about us? (*) Are we rude, impolite people? Or is our attention span too… Erhm. What was the question?
(*) Beside that, I’m curious how off-topic an off-topic thread without a real topic could be. That’s the real reason why I created this off-topic topic.
Almost nobody cares. Those who cared threw the towel a long time ago.
Because we want to SPAN our knowledge…
… SPAN SPAN SPAN…
Great. Now I got hungry…
The question is rather: When will the release date for the Blackberry port be announced?
I assume that it’s because there are either too many or too few threads on this forum.
… or maybe there are too many anarchists here.
His attention span is definitely too short:
I was thinking the same a while ago. I was about to suggest getting a mod for here, but then I got scared I get beaten up.
It´s sometimes hard, cause you need to read every single thread, even when you are not directly interessted in it´s topic.
Her´s a lot of good stuff, that nobody would expect in the threads it is in.
Well, if we want to discuss this topic seriously…
The point is that we already have moderators, but they fix only the most critical issues (spam, etc.). I find it unlikely that they will enforce the forum guidelines and etiquette.
To fix the off-topic issue we just might need a bit of self-moderation: understanding that it can be annoying and moving off-topic posts to a different thread. (Discourse makes this easy)
Still, I prefer this chaotic forum to the forum of AdventureGamers. They are more self-disciplined, they care about not publishing unrelated stuff and it’s a pleasure to read their threads, but I like the TWP community more.
I usually read every thread, but when some of them do not interest me anymore, I click on the “Tracking” button, below, and choose “Normal”: this way, I am notified only is someo…body quotes me.
Mostly my fault, guilty as charged 
Furthermore, I think the level of kindness, intelligence and pleasantness of this forum’s users are above average, so even if there are many off-topic topic, it’s not so much annoying.
I will quote you anyway. 
But back to the topic:
Yes, I like it too. If you let the discussion “open”, more things were discussed. On the other hand, it is very difficult to find informations.
It’s a general behavior, in my opinion no single person is mainly responsible for it.
I would be the first person to like more self-disciplined threads, but the kind of environment that has developed here is very friendly and casual and as a consequence our threads are more similar to random chats around a beer in a pub, more than a formally classified discussion. I would like to have both positive aspects, but if I have to choose only one of them I choose the friendly environment.
Yes, kindness and pleasantness are well above average (very intelligent people are everywhere, though). Beside the usual rudeness that you find in bigger social networks, the main reason why I never joined the AdventureGamer forum is that there are a few unpleasant people there, calling “idiots” anyone who doesn’t see things as they do.
That’s a minor problem, for me. I extensively use the search engine and it does a good job.
The only thing that annoys me a bit is that whoever wants to go off-topic could still do it without shifting the topic of the current thread: you just need to create a new thread or to reply to a different more-in-topic already existing thread. That requires a bit of effort, but we are lazy. 
Another problem may be the fact that some topics use to get discussed repeatedly. Maybe this makes some people here become inattentive, so that they tend to post some jokes. On the other hand, these forums would be less likable if jokes were not tolerated here.
Up to now, I’ve just lived with the spam. If there are too many replies inside of a thread, I only read the last ones - and maybe the initial post, too. If I still cannot follow the discussion then (or wouldn’t like to), I just ignore that particular thread until I happen to notice an interesting reply there.
Just speaking for me, I usually do that when I see a discussion going in circles and feel like I could lighten the mood. I would´ve stopped long ago had I ever gotten the feeling this didn´t work.
Also, I see this forum as a big improvement from the development blog comments, where things were completely chaotic. That was one of the reasons why I was just a lurker of the blog. So, from my multi-year perspective, the forum can improve but the trend is already very positive.
I think this is the sign that a good community has been created.
I mean, it’s never the kind of off-topic that ends in flames, spam, insults and so on. If topics evolve naturally outside of the narrow scope given by the title, it means that the community is engaged in discussion and feels free to broaden the topic, and the fact that they continue to diverge way further shows there’s an overall sentiment of complicity and friendship between the users.
It might be a bit annoying for those less involved in the forum, OK, but it really means that the user base is strongly bonded. And it’s quite surprising, since we are all here for a single reason: we liked the same videogame. If you took THAT criterion and built other 1000 different forums, I wouldn’t expect a single one of them to carry on so peacefully as this.
It´s just the way my mind works, it´s very associative. A lot of things remind me of a lof of other things, because I just know too much stuff.
I completely agree with everything you said, but I have to point out that I have seen (elsewhere) perfectly on-topic discussions full of flames and hate. I don’t think that off/on-topics and civility are strongly related to each other.
Actually, I think that the main reason why this community is so enjoyable is related to one thing that you hinted at: the “seed” of this community was a development blog about a very “gentle” kind of game. 