<p>Maybe the following analogy/viewpoint may help. Comparing with StackOverflow you could see questions as 'bug-reports'. </p>

<p>On SO those bugs are specific and concrete. If some bug or other type of problem exists in a program or computer language then many other people have encountered the problem before and when they come across somebody else with the same problem then they can easily recognize the problem and also easily explain how to hack/solve it, and this effort (which is not so much) is very rewarding because many people will encounter the same problem and be helped.</p>

<ul>
<li><p><strong>In statistics problems (bugs) are often much more vague</strong> and, unlike
mathematics, definitions are not always precise (e.g imagine a
question of the type: what is the best optimization/estimate/technique/etc.). </p></li>
<li><p><strong>There are many very specific questions</strong> a computer bug can often be pinpointed to a clear cause. Problems in statistics are much more varied and solution strategies change depending the circumstances. This creates a lot of load, many different questions, that are basically the same. It is difficult to order the questions, and often questions (with little generality) are not so inspiring to answer. </p></li>
<li><p><strong>There are many badly described/defined problems</strong> (with little information or by people that lack the ability to express themselves properly). </p></li>
<li><p><strong>There are many problems that are very broad.</strong> Many questions are not like simple bugs. There are often questions that ask for a full consultation on an entire broad case/problem. </p></li>
</ul>

<p>I imagine that this is might be more expressed in questions on 'time series'. </p>

<p>Or at least, from my perspective, I find time series often cumbersome, vague, and also very specific. To solve a problem you can pick out one of many solutions and variations thereof and it seems more like an art than science. Still I like these kind of problems, but often the solution strategy requires a more in-depth look into the problem case, and it is not often inviting to answer them via this medium. </p>

<p>(If I have time I will search for a statistic on the length of the questions. My hypothesis is that 'time-series' questions have much larger length in terms of words/letters, because they are so specific. also anything related to 'forecasting' may do worse. E.g. people dump a lot of data and images, which still doe not provide a good/sufficient picture of the problem, and ask for a solution)</p>
