What Makes (Made) Salon Bloggers a Community?

If we're going to keep the Salon Blog mojo/jive alive, here, somewhere, or virtually, we need to answer this question. What I love(d) about Sloggers was:

• manageable size, so we were familiar to each other, helped each other out, regularly read each others' posts etc. -- that's what made it a community, a group of friends
• no dominance -- it was a group without a hierarchy, jealousy, any of the other things that make some groups unpleasant to belong to
• shared political worldview, but with a lot of personal commentary as well, so we really got to know each other
• the cachet of being associated with Salon.com, despite the fact they treated us like shit
  
• the sense of fun -- from Raven's goofy posts to VO madness to Birdie's wacky virtual parties

This was unique, to my knowledge. If there were other similar communities, they must have had some other 'gel' that got them and kept them together, though I don't know what it was. Some of the more 'social' blog tools oriented towards younger people have tools to help you 'find' like minds and set up virtual communities with them. Now, there's Zaadz, which is really worth a look -- kinda what Salon Blogs was aiming to be, though a bit less political, and with an amazing 2500 active members. Can we learn from them? Should we join them? What else was keeping us together in Salon Blogs that we don't want to lose? What was it that really made us a community?