How QOTW and QOTWOT are related
Back when there was just QOTW, the regulars often found eachother's stories so interesting that they felt the need to discuss them. As the stories became more and more interesting, a bond was created between the regulars and they often liked to chat together. Over time, the chat deviated more and more from the current weekly question. This chat was filling the QOTW with many offtopic posts. At first, a reply mechanism was created to keep the top-level answers on-topic. But such was the momentum of the QOTWers that even this wasn't enough to keep off-topic chat off QOTW, so a separate QOTW-forum (QOTWOT) was created. This was soon populated by many of the QOTW regulars, so much of the atmosphere was carried over. Many of the QOTWOT regulars also post on QOTW, so the two forums have plenty in common IMO.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Sat 24 Jan 2009, 13:44, Reply)