There are many levels of useful participation, not always posting a lot (sharing, liking, inviting others outside to read/participate).
One of the most valuable things is to mention someone with the @username convention when you post, that creates a notification, like a twitter mention, that hopefully nudges someone into a conversation – @Lena already did that in this thread (let’s see, can I nudge maybe my colleagues @IslaHF @marcela @Mario @paulstacey @igorlesko @LizYata @unatdaly to join here and offer input onto what might work to increase spontaneous community actions? or here I just might be spamming them, but you have to risk that).
And yes, the Discourse platform does many subtle things to encourage, there are a number of settings and things to try out.
Something good kicked in over the last few weeks. Seeing many congratulations messages on the Awards and naming our our new Executive Director is positive- but as I have been whispering on the side, we also like to see replies that spark new conversations, ask for feedback, etc (and saw a good bit of that).
The other part I would like to see more is people starting a topic, unprompted, as you did with the Stack Overflow post (so relevant because of its rich amount of asking and community answering of questions).
I sense some reluctance (no data), and it could be the messy structure here I hope to address soon, but I think more if you do not see other asking questions, will you be the first? (well I know you will).
Ah it took me a while. Most of the participants are in the tech area that look to do Stack Overflow Q&A in community spaces. Discourse has a plugin where we could create a place for open educators to ask specific questions, and replies can be upvoted (I think), and then assigned a status of being a community answer. It works well in Stack Overflow for specific programming examples, I am less sure it works here, but am open to consider.