Oh man, I'm arguing that blogging ability is innate.
Obviously there's an innate portion to blogging ability. We can still manipulate the environmental portion.
I hope I didn't come off like I'm going to automatically shoot all suggestions to reinvigorate LW out of the sky. That's most of the problem with the userbase! I genuinely wonder what such a Class Project would look like, and would also be willing to participate if I am able.
Since my comment was written in the context of Nancy_Lebovitz's comment, I'm specifically curious about how one would go about molding current members into high-quality contributors. I see a lot of stuff above about finding ways to make the user experience more palatable, but that in itself doesn't seem to ensure the sort of change that I think most people want to see.
If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post (even in Discussion), then it goes here.
Notes for future OT posters:
1. Please add the 'open_thread' tag.
2. Check if there is an active Open Thread before posting a new one. (Immediately before; refresh the list-of-threads page before posting.)
3. Open Threads should be posted in Discussion, and not Main.
4. Open Threads should start on Monday, and end on Sunday.