I'm going to correct a few of your misconceptions.

1) "It facilitates that desired community very well exactly because a crude community of immaturity could exist on the same site and not touch their conversation. But that crude community is never given the chance."

This is simply not true.

Let's be honest: There's a core of maybe 50 people that essentially keep the lights on in here. This page shows the community, essentially. A lot of it is old. Some of it is new. We all remember when nowaypablo showed up because suddenly he was everywhere and he added a lot. Existentialist, on the other hand, has been here less than a month and is already contributing lots of content. Who remembers when the CIRCLEJERKERS showed up? Nobody... because they left. Who remembers when Laurelei showed up? Nobody... because the Circlebroke posse left, too. There's a large percentage of Reddit that thinks Hubski was founded by Syncretic, because he bailed on Reddit, flashed around here for a week, then went back to Reddit... but he left essentially no mark here.

2) "The site hasn't seen an influx of waste in its gutters because not enough people are there to dump things in."

Au contraire. All one needs to do is wait for Reddit to get mad. As I recall, you were here for one wave, forgot your username, then came back and were annoyed that the username you wanted was already taken (by you). We've had plenty of "waste in our gutters." The thing is, the community that sticks around here is self-reinforcing and self-refreshing while the other communities that attempt to exploit what Hubski offers... aren't.

I'm not willing to say the hubski crew has built a bomb-proof site, but it really does seem that the architecture and interface of the site supports the community we all want and doesn't support the community we don't.

3) "The second is, maybe this is just the work of a strong personality. Klein is a strong personality. I have a hunch he would be the first person to tell you that. If that's true, there might just be a case of "this town's not big enough for the two of us" and instead of trying to create a different atmosphere, new cowboys just move on to greener pastures."

Certainly. However, as I've said, me and _wage worked out just fine, despite the fact that we really didn't get along. theadvancedapes and I are civil, despite the fact that we are about 100% diametrically opposed on most things. yellowoftops likes to snark at me but he's still here and has been. My interactions with insom are pretty much archetypal: strong people interact, conflict, grow, accept and cherish. We aren't all gonna be bosom buddies but if we all have something to add, we all have reason to stick around.

People do get pushed out. We've lost a lot of good ones (and I include _wage in that list, despite the fact that I wouldn't trust her as far as I could spit). But the community maintains an attractive level of discourse that persists.

You have a lot of theories. We have a lot of practice. What you see is what we've built. Not me, not mk, not thenewgreen, not anybody, but everybody. We're invested in it, so it reflects what we like.

That's essentially what defines a community.