I'm not sure this experiment is really working.
There's a qualitative difference between publishing and conversation, and a site that's as dormant as this one... doesn't really keep up with daily content renewal. It's a little hard for anyone to engage with more than five comments at once, which would be the case for anyone sticking their head in every two to three weeks.
The conversations that started a couple pages back seemed to have stopped. (Can I use a plural there, even?)
Hmm.