One thing I've noticed is that it's difficult to create a successful gaming thread. Most of the more popular threads are childishly provocative in nature. The closest I've seen to a popular meaningful thread is those where the posters take part in peaceful debates. They are rare, but they do exist.
It just appears to me that people don't really care much to talk about games anymore. There are multiple threads in existence where there is decent discussion but most of them are short-lived, and the ones that do see high success are rare. It looks like people just want to argue, and not in the good way, for the most part.
I will say that I've tried contributing to the off-topic section. I've recently created some fairly successful off-topic threads. Some of which have even reached 100 posts. I hope that helps.