I think a key social factor to EJ's coherent nature is that we all came from the same area of the internet, Somethingawful.com. That's not to say that we all identify with each other as goons, but the fact that most of us spent $10 to gain access to a particular type of forum initially weeded out most types of would-be trash.

Considering this, I'd say that EJ is almost like a ready-made guild, or at least one where the majority already have common interests; mostly in the region of humor: continual and unrelenting sardonic humor.

Most of the crazies in EJ have helped themselves out of it, its like the inevitability of some people's nature, they just aren't happy unless they're rocking the boat.

Everyone has covered our guild specifics well to this point, so I'll address your other initial question. Part of what determines an effective guild's size lies within the content of the game, itself. You don't need 80+ people for a solid FPS team in CS or many other shooters. A crew that size would generally limit your overall skill level, since you wouldn't be used to playing with everyone or (at best) you might as well be multiple smaller groups. As I've said before, you can generally have two types of guild in an MMO. You can have a hardcore crew who is intent on getting things done and games rabidly, or you can have a more casual crew of friends who enjoys themselves, but isn't up top of the heap in most cases. It becomes very difficult to walk the line, since there are so very many differences in the two playstyles that are somewhat exclusive to their nature.

Look at WoW. Blizzard has tried to gear this game toward what they term "the casual player", but the game does not effectively reward such players. It's accessable to the more casual person, but only the more devoted with a good deal of time to put in will see the higher end content and the gear that goes with it. A casual guild isn't going to be tossing through AQ40 for several months. Chances are that most of those sort of guilds will never see the far endgame future content before the game shuts down. If you truly want to be casual, you'll have to miss out on some things. If you approach it hardcore, it becomes a job. You'll see everything first, but you'll never really get to "stop and smell the roses" in the gaming sense, because everything you do ingame will be predetermined toward guild benefit and goals.

EJ managed to somehow prove one of the exceptions to that general gaming rule. In all my gaming, I've never been around a group of people who managed both sides of the coin so very well. I chalk it up to the good leadership and generally low asshattery level due to our common background and attitude that others mentioned. All of my previous guilds in games have fallen into the "cut-throat serious" category where we'd boot people for relatively piddly things if they hurt our efficiency even a tiny bit. EJ comes as close to a level of raiding quality as those guilds as I suspect you can get among a group of more casually oriented gamers.

The type of guild you intend to build determines its size as much as the game content, itself. If you want to have a guild that's "just right", you have to base that numerical total on the ingame content. How many do you absolutely have to have if you want to be hardcore about it? That's the number you want, and no more. A hardcore guild doesn't have to recruit, so you never have to worry too much about being undermanned. If they suddenly lose some people, all they have to do is mention they're looking for new talent and people storm out of the woodwork in hopes of getting a chance with them. Those folks are usually so tickled to have gotten the chance to join you that they'll do anything and work exceptionally hard for their right to stay. They know you could boot and replace them any instant, so they tend to bust it for you to prove themselves.

If you're building a casual guild, the question instead is "how many people can we realistically maintain in a somewhat ordered fashion?". That obviously allows for larger groups and different play dynamics, but causes a number of complex social issues to spring up on the content that people want to do the most. You're running more of a social club for gamers in that case than you are a raiding guild. It's the difference between PGA tour golf and country club golf. Sure, you can play at Pebble Beach if you're a casual golfer with the proper cash, but only the most devoted and seasoned pros will make the big bucks in a tourney there.

Games in the past have tended toward more "world-boss" oriented builds where you never once had to leave out a single person that was interested in raiding something due to instance limitations. In games of those sorts, the finite limit for guild size falls in more like EJ, where your main concern is that everyone gets along well and it's big enough to do the things you want without being too huge to manage well. You could go with a bit larger crew in a game like that and not worry too much, so long as you had a loot system in place assuring your main core of raiders would get their gear before anyone else, to keep you strong and mobile.

In a game like this, the content to this point has been geared almost entirely toward core groups of ~40-60. You only tend to hurt on raidboss notification and mobilization with a group that size, so it's a pretty good number to shoot for in terms of efficiency, should you have people that are always available at the same hours. It gives you a tight network of people who are used to each other and generally limits the guild-busting drama, since you all need each other and everyone gears up fast. Anything larger gives you a better network at the cost of either spreading loot out across a larger number of people, or limiting loot access to certain individuals for a while. It goes without saying that the more people you have, the larger the potential for personality clashes and loot oriented disasters.

I think the "perfect" guildsize for WoW is a bit smaller than us, really. We manage, because we are all similar in nature. Most of us don't just play the game together, we play other games or hang out IRL. I have my doubts that a guild this size would be as stable as ours is in a game with size-limited content if we weren't mostly pretty good friends outside of the game, already.

In order to make you feel welcome, we felt it necessary to talk of something you were interested in.