This is an excellent point. Is the Stack Exchange model perfect? No. Does it reward what the article's author calls "obsessive twerps" more strongly than it d

This is an excellent point. Is the Stack Exchange model perfect? No. Does it reward what the article's author calls "obsessive twerps" more strongly than it does anyone else? Arguably yes. Can it be substantially improved upon? Almost certainly. Is it nonetheless an enormous qualitative improvement on its predecessors? Good God, yes! The article's author brings up the old saw about giving a man a fish versus teaching him to fish, and that's well and good. But sometimes you just need a fish.