Hmm. Interesting OP.
It's helped coalesce some thoughts/feelings.
PD.com, perhaps, should not be treated as a passive social board... it should be treated as an active Interesting™ board.
It might be that we have fallen into "F5" mode because of this. If the majority of posts are status updates, that is information from your personal world that we can passively observe. Essentially, there is no communication. We live our IRL, and then tell you about it. Hit Refresh.
If we look at the threads that we have more or less agreed are the most interesting, it's when we start doing something together, something that can't be found IRL. BIP, Spiders (the essays and the games), Nessies, Muppets {The Real Story}, Chao te Ching, trolling/safaris... Even the better politics threads have an element of collaboration rather than soliloquy.
I know, it's hard. I've been a empty well, as far as words or ideas go (I've been a bit better with music, but that's a fairly one-sided passive trip, as well). And one of the hardest things is the realization that for every five ideas thrown onto the board, maybe one will stick. So you have to get ready for an 80% failure rate. But perhaps, one thing we should keep in mind is that even negative feedback can be interesting, as long as you explain yourself. Simply posting "this sucks" doesn't work. Break it down, self-analyze, explain why it sucks. Conversely, I don't have a problem with the mittens, I have a problem with only mittens. Mittens should be a "Yes, and..." thought. Add a thought. And don't be afraid to embarass yourself. It's only pixels on a screen.
So yeah. Active, and Interesting.