[anoother]

I'm going to risk moving completely off-topic, because this is fascinating. Could you elaborate further (perhaps in a new topic or blog post)?

I often visit threads and see the top-most comments being somewhat incredulous reactions to a (percieved) large number of sentiments to their contrary, so it would certainly be interesting to see at what point threads begin to evolve a critical mass in terms of which 'side' of a discussion a reply is likely to take.

[dang]

I wasn't thinking of opinions for or against a position so much as the quality of the discussion. Shallowly provocative comments produce flamewars, nitpicking produces counter-nitpicking, and so on. Threads that begin with a substantive on-topic comment or two do best.