<p>Here's my take as a relatively new question-answerer, and as someone with far, far less knowledge than our superstar members.</p>

<p>I think you guys are spot-on so far. For instance, my question <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/103849/computing-inverse-probability-weights-conditional-multivariate-density-esti">Computing inverse probability weights -- conditional (multivariate) density estimation?</a> has an open bounty and, frankly, shouldn't be that complicated. And yet there are currently 17 (?) questions with open bounties, some three times as big, and mine is at the bottom of the list. I'm master's student -- I may be overzealous but I doubt I'm on the fringes of multivariate nonparametric statistics methodology. Someone out there knows the answer, and that someone would do me an enormous service in helping move my research along. Either there are many fewer competent statisticians out there than I think there are, or there's a talent mismatch. I'm guessing the latter.</p>

<p>But there's another issue. The superstar question answer-ers are <em>too good</em> at answering questions. It's not that they answer too <em>many</em> questions. It's that their answers are just <em>too good</em>. Every time I think about something I could contribute, I think "I'm just gonna sound like a dope if I try to post something, and I sure as hell don't want to steer anyone wrong." I've tried to pick out a niche of questions I can competently answer, and I'm grateful that the more experienced members are around to clean up my posts. But writing your first answer is intimidating, even moreso if it's an area at the limits of your own expertise, and when there are others out there who know way, way more than you do.</p>

<p>I also have to say: I've learned an enormous amount already from answering questions here, in large part because of the high standards set by others before me. That was the goal all along, but it's working out way better than I could have hoped. I agree that probably the best way to help get more, better answers is to recruit. I'm going to start recommending CV to classmates, but most of them really aren't the type to spend hours helping strangers on the Internet.</p>

<p>Also I suspect that a number of questions get answered, but don't get marked as answered, either because the answers don't actually answer the question, or the asker is a first-time poster and doesn't know how it works. If I wasn't already procrastinating as badly as I am by posting here, I'd try and figure out how to pull down that info and run some numbers on it.</p>

<p>Update: there are also lots of questions like <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/98986/naive-bayes-non-dictionary-term-in-test-document">Naive Bayes non-Dictionary Term in Test Document</a> that get answered, get discussed in the comments, and then are never resolved enough to be <em>marked</em> as answered even though the asker almost surely got something like an answer out of it.</p>
