It’s conceivable that people being nervous about posts on elementary subjects means that they’re more careful with elementary posts, thus explaining some fraction of the higher quality.
It is possible. However I am not sure that the elementary posts have higher average quality than other posts, if the comparison is even possible. Rather, what strikes me is that you never read “this is specialised and complicated, but nevertheless I decided to post it here, because...”
There still apparently is a perception that it’s a shame to write down some relatively simple truth, and if one wants to, one must have a damned good reason. I can understand the same mechanism in peer reviewed journals, where the main aim is to impress the referee and demonstrate the author’s status, which increases chances to get the article published. (If the article is trivial, it at least doesn’t do harm to point out that the autor knows it.) Although this practice was criticised here for many times, it seems that it is really difficult to overcome it. But at least we don’t shun posts because they are elementary.
A piece of advice I heard a long time ago, and which has sometimes greatly alleviated the boredom of being stuck in a conference session, is this: If you’re not interested in what the lecturer is talking about, study the lecture as a demonstration of how to give a lecture.
By this method even an expert can learn from a skilful exposition of fundamentals.
It’s conceivable that people being nervous about posts on elementary subjects means that they’re more careful with elementary posts, thus explaining some fraction of the higher quality.
It is possible. However I am not sure that the elementary posts have higher average quality than other posts, if the comparison is even possible. Rather, what strikes me is that you never read “this is specialised and complicated, but nevertheless I decided to post it here, because...”
There still apparently is a perception that it’s a shame to write down some relatively simple truth, and if one wants to, one must have a damned good reason. I can understand the same mechanism in peer reviewed journals, where the main aim is to impress the referee and demonstrate the author’s status, which increases chances to get the article published. (If the article is trivial, it at least doesn’t do harm to point out that the autor knows it.) Although this practice was criticised here for many times, it seems that it is really difficult to overcome it. But at least we don’t shun posts because they are elementary.
A piece of advice I heard a long time ago, and which has sometimes greatly alleviated the boredom of being stuck in a conference session, is this: If you’re not interested in what the lecturer is talking about, study the lecture as a demonstration of how to give a lecture.
By this method even an expert can learn from a skilful exposition of fundamentals.