<p>I strongly agree with @Erik and @Macro, but I wanted to point out something else that is intended to answer your question in the title of this question: <strong>"is Stackexchange a good idea?"</strong></p>

<p>I think I have a privileged view of what you are intending to say because of my background. I'm not a statistician myself and my background is astrophysics (I only have a Bs. Cs. and if everything goes ok, I'll be in grad school next month). However, here in Chile the college curriculum is in some ways way behind those of the top universities: in my case, <strong>we don't even have basic statistic courses</strong>, so I've pretty much learned all by myself (reading books, papers, etc.). Think of my status: here in my area, only the professors with who I work have a working understanding of statistics. Everyone else thinks that statistics is some magic "trick-bag".</p>

<p>Because of all of the above, I think I'm pretty much on the middle. In one hand, it is true that I'm not a professional statistician, but I think I can help with some topics that I've studied for the work I do. On the other hand, I also have used this site to get some advice or simply when I get stuck on something. However, there is something nicer that I found here: since I discovered this site two months ago, my knowledge on probability and statistics have improved enormously. I think that's the beauty of this site: it provides not just question and answers, but train of thoughts. I think that's a little different from consultancy, where you just give out a report citing sources and trying to put in simple words to your clients something that you did that in fact requieres a profound understanding on probability and statistics. If you hire a consultant is simply because of (a) you don't have the neccesary background to work a problem by yourself (or not have the time to learn it) or (b) you just need results.</p>

<p>However, in this site that knowledge of the background is somewhat implicit (ok, very explicit in some cases), because you wouldn't get a lot of what is said here if you haven't studied or worked on the area. With this in mind you have two options when an answer to your problem pops out: (1) you try to understand an answer and, therefore, if you don't have the neccesary background you'll have to study it (which is not needed with a consultant around), (2) if you happen to understand what to do you can just take the reply and use it without knowing what you are doing (which is a common mistake in every area but this time, unlike with a consultant, you don't have a safe source to rely on).</p>

<p>As for your point with students, well, I think you can never really avoid lazyness. You could say the same with problems solved in textbooks. I've seen a lot of people that when they see a problem set, they inmediately search on the web for the solution to the problem and when they find it, they just copy the solution don't even understanding what they are doing. However, as I said, here you are unlikely to find solutions. You are more likely to find train of thoughts and from there get to the solutions by yourself.</p>

<p>So my answer is yes: it is a <strong>very</strong> good idea.</p>
