Is Stack Exchange supposed to be just for experts?

Question

It seems that the word "expert" is used a lot in the descriptions Stack Exchange sites.

But in searching I can't really find anything canonical about this.

Is Stack Exchange supposed to be just for experts, or mainly for experts, or is that up to the individual sites and not something really set by the overall Stack Exchange?

Or is it intended that the majority of answerers are experts but that askers will be a mix of experts and non experts?

The page that seems to mention "experts" the most is the Stack Exchange about page.

I'm looking for an official Stack Exchange view on this point. In particular I'm thinking how much / how far a new site in beta should be going to pander to the needs of non experts. Obviously we don't want to be hostile to non experts but which group should we focus on more to the degree that it shapes the sites?

Answer 1

Is Stack Exchange supposed to be just for experts, or mainly for experts, or is that up to the individual sites and not something really set by the overall StackExchange?

Well, here's a quote from Jeff from the launch of Stack Overflow back in 2008:

The idea that you have all these experts waiting in the wings to do stuff is an illusion in my experience. There's really just a bunch of amateurs muddling along trying to do things together. The people that are truly experts are too busy to even help, right? And if the experts are too busy to help, what difference does it really make if there are experts at all. Because the whole point of this endeavor is helping other developers, and whether you're an expert or not, if you have no time to help, you're not really contributing to the solution.

I think the frequent use of the word expert might imply "genius" but that's not what SE is about. SE is about contributing your expertise and helping out in things you know. It's a well known and understood concept that you cannot be an expert in everything and therefore sometimes need to ask - for example, I know my way around C, but give me a Ruby project and I'm lost at sea. Hence:

There's really just a bunch of amateurs

I think that's slightly tongue-in-cheek. It's less "we're all rubbish" and more "we all have a time in our life where we need to ask a question".

Taking that analogy out to all the SE sites, many sites look like they're getting a lot of expert advice left right and centre. That doesn't mean that only "experts" can participate - it means people with the experience and knowledge in domain of the question have answered. These same people may well be asking their own questions tomorrow, or the day after.

tl;dr Stack Exchange is for getting answers to questions about actual problems you face. Your expert-level "status" is, with a few notable exceptions, irrelevant if you can explain your problem or help somebody else solve theirs.

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Edit, as I had to dig this up. One of my favourite blog entries anywhere on the internet is this: Does one have to be a genius to do Mathematics? - this is from Terry Tao, one of the few people in the world who could without a doubt be given the title of a genius. I'm going to quote his closing paragraph verbatim:

The objective in mathematics is not to obtain the highest ranking, the highest “score”, or the highest number of prizes and awards; instead, it is to increase understanding of mathematics (both for yourself, and for your colleagues and students), and to contribute to its development and applications. For these tasks, mathematics needs all the good people it can get.

Answer 2

As a counterpoint to Ninefingers's answer, I quote a much more recent post from Jeff, "The Trouble With Popularity":

Every minute spent participating in an entertaining ‘fun’ post is time that someone could have spent asking or answering a substantive question, something practical that solves an actual problem for hundreds or thousands of people. Entertainment, within reason, is by no means a bad thing — but I experience almost physical pain when I think about a brilliant topic expert spending 10 minutes on one of our sites deciding which hilarious cartoon is their favorite.

And a less recent, but oft-quoted piece by Robert Cartaino, "Good Subjective, Bad Subjective":

Most forums and chat rooms have a scale problem. As in, they don’t. The more people that join the discussion, the more noise each of those connections bring. So the forums get progressively noisier and noisier, and suddenly one day … you stop learning.

… eventually the experts (i.e. people who are teaching you stuff) get drowned out and you are left with an experience that looks more like the magazine rack at a grocery store than a book shelf at Harvard. — Robert Scoble

Because we believe so deeply in learning, we are willing to go to great lengths to suppress the discussion, debate, and opinions that — while plenty entertaining — cause most forums to inevitably break down.

And finally, to another piece by Robert Cartaino, "No Artificial Intelligence in Area 51":

Top blogs, best books, buying recommendations: those are not the hallmarks of expertise. They’re the seeds of the merely curious. A site filled with these sorts of idle, pedestrian questions will never attract the core of experts it needs to survive.

The reason I quote these things isn't to cherry-pick the places where the word "expert" is used over some other word, but to show that the usage of the word "expert" has been refined over the years. Ninefingers points out that your expert-level status is irrelevant, but that's a bit too simplistic: your expert-level status does matter. A whole lot. It's just that your expert-level status is determined not by your past experiences and certifications and degrees, but by the quality of the content you provide here.

Stack Exchange, I think, unapologetically favors experts: while newbies can get their questions answered, Stack Exchange is not a site for newbies and their facile questions. When there's a choice between doing something to cater to the newbies (and subsequently, a much larger audience) and doing something to cater to the topic/domain experts, the wind almost always breaks towards the experts.

Answer 3

I think Jeff Atwood's answer to a related question fits this one so perfectly that I feel it's justified to also paste it here verbatim in its entirety. I think it needs more attention than it is already getting by being linked twice in comments. And provides even better counterpoint to the other answers we now have. *

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We recently had a highly emotional discussion on Programmers Meta, and although the consensus seems to be that the system works as intended, it's hard to ignore the fact that several new users feel alienated.

Bear in mind that the two sites in question are specifically not for beginners.

Let's read the site descriptions:

• English: Q&A for linguists, etymologists, and serious English language enthusiasts

• Programmers: Q&A for professional programmers interested in conceptual questions about software development

If you want to walk into a college Calculus class, you need knowledge of Algebra, Pre-Algebra, Geometry, and Pre-Calculus. If you don't, you should be gently directed to other places where you can learn the necessary prerequisites first.

The problem is not that we need to figure out some way to stop the Calculus class to teach these users Algebra -- the problem is that these users are in the wrong place! It is totally correct to gently, civilly direct them somewhere else, somewhere more at their level.

Even on Stack Overflow, which never really had "professional" in its mandate, there is generally an expectation that someone posting a question will understand the rudimentary mechanics of, y'know, being a programmer. Otherwise they're committing the greatest sin of all -- they are wasting everyone's time.

Nobody expects every student to have what it takes to attend Harvard or Yale, right? Heck, we're more akin to the local community college, and even we have standards. You can't expect to show up on the campus of your local community college and go to class completely unprepared. Nobody is going to educate you K-12 just to teach you a college level topic; asking that of your peers is completely unreasonable.

Thus, if you want to come on our "campus" and learn with your fellow students, we expect users to be armed with the basics and fundamentals of the field. Users who fail to meet the absolute minimum standards of a practicing professional, whatever field that happens to be (think FizzBuzz for programmers), should be helpfully directed to other resources where they can learn these things before coming back.

If you don't enforce some basic standards for participants, you soon won't have the benefit of any experts at all. And God help everyone on your Q&A site then.

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* ^{If this is against the rules feel free to delete this or if you are Jeff feel free to replace it yourself since they are your words and not mine.}