Just a quick thought: the help I got on EE was different from SO, so maybe there's a niche for EE. Let me describe the help: I'd been stuck, and pretty much gi

Just a quick thought: the help I got on EE was different from SO, so maybe there's a niche for EE. Let me describe the help: I'd been stuck, and pretty much given up. A friend wondered if there was someone I could ask - but it was virgin territory, no one had done it before, and so no one would know. I only tried EE because what the hell. I didn't get a specific answer, but "X does that - why don't you see how X does it?" This was a clever, insightful, lateral point of view. I didn't think I'd be able to use X's technique - but amazingly, it turned out I could! The suggestion might seem obvious in hindsight, but it wasn't to me. It was just what I needed to hear - a great answer. I'd describe this as "micro-consultation" or "micro-mentoring", which differs from SO's aim of specific concrete answers to specific concrete questions. I think the money-motivation of EE helped encourage someone to spend a few moments creative thought on my question. It's the kind of insight you get from having many contributors to an open-source project - but who's going to bother, for the case where only one person benefits? So... I do think this kind of service, sort of halfway between SO and full-on consultancy, is valuable and has a role - but micro, like Amazon's mechanical turk. I think Google Answers tried this (now defunct). A little bit like that logo design site SO used (http://99designs.com.au/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverflow-6774 http://99designs.com.au/logo-design/contests/logo-stackoverf...) - a sort of eBay for consultancy, but a micro version. Because consultancy is very question-specific, they'd be almost no question reuse (unlike SO), which also fits with a money motive (i.e. people love karma/fame; but if not available, fortune is OK). So I'm suggesting a micro-consultancy facilitation site, where the asker pays the answerer and EE takes a wee percentage (a similar amount to crowd-sourcing sites). A different niche from SO. Maybe I should try EE again next time I'm stuck!