<blockquote>
  <p>Ultimately, I think we need more people answering questions - many
  times more. While more experts would be great, I think we actually
  need more ... journeyman statisticians, and even in some cases
  <strong>relative novices</strong> -- and ways to encourage them to answer a few of the
  questions within their capabilities. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>I fit this description quite well as I have taken a sabbatical to study statistics and machine learning. I have undergraduate level in statistics and probability, and slowly building <em>some insights</em> into more advanced topics. My feeling is that there are quite a few people around here doing the same as me.  </p>

<p>As a result I would like to share my experience and provide some answers to your question</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>How do we encourage greater participation from a lot more of them to answer questions?</p>
</blockquote>

<h3>Highlight "accessible" answers</h3>

<ul>
<li>My view is that since the site has been around for a while now, a lot of the  "easy" questions have been asked, and a lot of the "easy" answers have been given. When I say "easy" I mean from the perspective of someone with undergraduate level statistics or a self-learner</li>
</ul>

<p>Here is an example, which is 4 years old:
- <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/68080/basic-question-about-fisher-information-matrix-and-relationship-to-hessian-and-s">Basic question about Fisher Information matrix and relationship to Hessian and standard errors</a></p>

<ul>
<li>On the other hand: I struggle to understand most of the new questions that are asked, let alone think of an answer. So I rarely go beyond the first page of the <strong>unanswered</strong> questions feed. There must still be some easier questions out there but they are lost to me. </li>
</ul>

<h3>An idea - create a tag / flag... for "easy" and "good first answers"</h3>

<p>... and leave those to the relative novice. </p>

<p>A good example of this is the Sklearn Github issues page which has two dedicated tags: <a href="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pOGnB.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.stack.imgur.com/pOGnB.png" alt="enter image description here"></a></p>
