Stack Overflow's Help Center will be used for links because it's the flagship. To find the corresponding help article of another site, replace https://stackoverflow.com from the link URL with the site's address.
The elemental user activity, referred to as participation, on a Stack Exchange site is done by posting questionsquestions and answersanswers. Other actions like editsedits will "bump" posts to the Homepage, but there are some rules.
IMO, the most critical participation is moderationmoderation, not by people with "super powers" but by the site's users based on the Reputation SystemReputation System.
The activity that builds a sense of community goes far away the Homepage
Many things will not be shown on a site's Homepage. Many of them are more important than questionsquestions and answersanswers, those things thatwhich foster a sense of community and engage usersa sense of community, engage, and make users commitpeople commit and have a feeling of "ownership"ownership, to make things happen. Those things motivate them to moderate and curate their sitemoderate their site.
Moderation might be referred to in many forms and seen in many places. Not all the moderation outcomes will cause an output visible on the site's Homepage as question, answer or edit.
Besides activity on the main site, there are other places to look at: the site's Tour, Help Center, the per-site / child Meta, the site chat, aka, "The Third Place™," and the off-site places where the users do other things than posting questions and answers and editing posts according to the Stack Overflow Q&A model and rules.
TheIn the above text, IMO, the term "community""Q&A communities" refers to "online community" as a synonym of "virtual community". AsIt includes a claim, which is done from a marketing/promotion of a product writing style, so take the communication intention, promoting a product; it's a free digital service, but it still is promoting a product from a for-profit business.
It's perfectly fine to have as an aspirational goal, and use it intendedon publicity and public relations: the intention to achieve the sense community, as the Malcolm Baldrige Excellence Award has defined on their category for Communities and, as well other organizations in favorinstitutions have done as something causing satisfaction because the top outcome is the human well-being.
Site and Community
The site creation process has evolved dramatically over the years. Nowadays, to propose a new site, it's required that a community already exists before creating the new site proposal. Also, due to the limitations of what could be done on Stack Exchange and digital services, it's not strange that people look to create meaningful relationships, grow as human well-being promotesbeings, and spare their time in other places.
From https://area51.stackexchange.com/faq (emphasis mine):
How do I start a new site?
If your area of expertise doesn't already have a Stack Exchange site, propose it! Stack Exchange sites are free to create and free to use. All we ask is that you have an enthusiastic, committed group of expert users who check in regularly, asking and answering questions.
The creation of Stack Exchange sites is a community-driven process. That does not mean the majority of Area 51 users have to love your site idea. It simply means you have to recruit a community of users large enough so that questions get good answers quickly. Reach out to other experts to build support for your site; bloggers, enthusiasts, and support groups can all benefit from a world-class, canonical collection of expert answers to the hardest questions.
Looking at the outputoutput of the Stack Exchange platform, we find sites. SiteThe Stack Exchange sites are listed at https://stackexchange.com/sites. This page has two views. The list view shows some site statistics:
- questions
- answers
- answered
- users
- questions/day
- site/age
The sites could be sorted by the above metrics. On top of the list, it's easy to see the most active or the least active. Just choose one of the metrics.
As mentioned at the top of this answer, site participation depends on each site's circumstances.
Besides Site and Meta there is Chat. Stack Exchage has three chat realms,
Community
Nowadays,The Reputation System controls access to propose a new site, it's required that a community already exists before creating the site proposalchat but works differently from others. Also, due toThe privilege threshold uses the limitationsaggregation of what could be done on Stack Exchange and Digital Services, it's not strange that people look to create meaningful relationshipsall per-site user's reputations. Also, grow as human beingschat moderation works differently, so activity and spare their time in other placesa sense of community might need more study to be understood. Start by reading https://stackoverflow.com/help/privileges/chat.
