MOOC interactions for knowledge construction

One of the problems with MOOC learning, as I see it, is that it is often difficult to reliably 'connect' with 'people like me', or perhaps 'people not like me' if you are looking for a new viewpoint.

Where I think MOOCs have potential, is one of an attraction space, where people who are attracted to some content or field of study can come together and openly share their experiences and help each other overcome issues they may be facing.

So my idealised scenario is what I would call the (massive online) cocktail party: Say I'm a programmer and I've got a problem at work because I can't seem to work out how to achieve a certain outcome. I happen to meet someone at a cocktail party, and get talking about my problem. This person I meet is actually an environmental chemist who has never thought of my exact problem, but has encountered something which he thinks is similar, perhaps an algorithm which describes the movement of neutrons or something. Upon hearing how a chemist would approach my problem I suddenly realise that this is the solution I have been looking for all along.

How can a MOOC start to engender those types of conversations?

The example I give above is one of serendipity. In a very closely related parallel world, I would have been standing next to someone else who cannot unlock my problem. This is life. But can a MOOC ever be designed to increase the possibility of these type of eureka moments? I think it can.

Problems for this idealised scenario in MOOCs as they stand:

1. Interaction is (nearly) always randomised. Some platforms do this better than others, but there is no 'neat' way of just finding someone who I think is like me, or someone who is not like me but using the same words to describe themselves (perhaps a TEFL teacher from Turkey and one from Saudi Arabia).
2. MOOC learners are content focused. I think this may change over time, but right now, MOOCs replicate a certain behaviourist pedagogy and do not provide many tools for creating new knowledge - it is more about consuming what the tutor said, or forums for asking your peers whether they can help you understand what the tutor said/ what the concept at hand is.
3. Tools for assessment of learning are behaviourist focused in the main. We can discuss how far up the Bloom's taxonomy an MCQ can take you (perhaps even as far as evaluation), but it is nearly always for checking understanding of indisputable content. What about disputable content or open questions?