People can learn a ton by answering questions. Trying to create a complete answer will make you realize the gaps in your own understanding. As an early SO user, I benefited from this greatly.
Sadly, I find this impossible these days. I've given up on SO as anything other than a mostly passive user. I'll vote, and make the rare comment, but that's it. The last time (a few years ago) I made a concerted effort to answer some questions, my experience was that many questions would be closed as dupe/low-quality while I was partway through answering. Flagging that it isn't low-quality (proven by the fact I can answer it) goes nowhere -- people are seemingly all too happy to yield their close hammer power, but not to re-open.
People can learn a ton by answering questions. Trying to create a complete answer will make you realize the gaps in your own understanding. As an early SO user, I benefited from this greatly.
Sadly, I find this impossible these days. I've given up on SO as anything other than a mostly passive user. I'll vote, and make the rare comment, but that's it. The last time (a few years ago) I made a concerted effort to answer some questions, my experience was that many questions would be closed as dupe/low-quality while I was partway through answering. Flagging that it isn't low-quality (proven by the fact I can answer it) goes nowhere -- people are seemingly all too happy to yield their close hammer power, but not to re-open.