Some time ago I was (and still am) part of the SO/SE not fun place to learn discussion and attention to the be nice policy discussion. I've found it interesting how those two questions intercept in interesting points.
To avoid you the pain of reading novels of questions (if that isn't you grind):
- The first question was a response to an advanced question asked in a particular manner that was discarded by the community. Torus is a hot and kind person and to give credit to his name, his reaction (albeit eruptive) was justified. But his point was lost due to people often reacting to the "plainly and direct placed flaws" than to the overall point of the post.
- The second question was added by an veteran, Jyrki, which showed that moderators are people too. And he/she has an interesting observation: advanced questions are buried among trolls, spoiled brats, and sometimes beginner questions that are fueled by innocence and frustration - which naturally results in moderators response in kind.
Judging by both experiences, advanced/intermediate questions don't get the attention they deserve. But those two questions have one major difference, Toruses shows that advanced questions are misinterpreted by the community, and Jyrkies mentions that noobs have no regard of advanced topics and that they often end up with high votes, but no answers ... disregarded and forgotten by time.
I can't say that I haven't encountered both of these examples in my day-to-day search. And from a noob point of view, I can't answer questions that are outside of my knowledge base (for now), and I do try to understand and answer questions that ask for me to expand my knowledge based on the amount I am comfortable with. But in my daily searches I've encountered perhaps 2-3 intermediate/advanced questions in a week's span.
Now if this was a normal conversation between people in a street/pub this would be enough to spark an conversation and discussion. But for SE I need to rise thee following topics in order to be able to ask a question.
What I can't figure out by myself is:
- Do intermediate/advanced questions require such knowledge that is up to 10% of the community knowledge base, or are they lost by lack of attention to details?
- Has the community become oversaturated with beginner users and the only way advanced/experienced users can be happy is to migrate themselves to for example "Stack Exchange (whatever community) expert level" sub SE community?
- Is there so much new and repetitive content that by default users assume that the question is at beginner level?
- Or has the community grown so far that it overreached the what it is called expert level is obsolete?
But the main question still stands, regardless of cause, why aren't there more intermediate/advanced level questions?
Disclaimer: Don't downvote Touruses or Jyrki-es question based on an opinion on the one/multiple brass language statements. Look for the overall point.
To find what I am referencing:
1) Torus-es issue is mentioned in the introduction part of his blog. If you plan to read it, read it carefully.
2) Jyrki-es issue is mentioned in an allegory of museum/curators at the end of his question. So keep in mind every time he mentions museum he means SO/SE and by curator he means moderator.
