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When considering this topic, one must ask the question "why would someone contribute?". There is only one reason: the person wants to do so. The reason for that want are as varied as there are people, but that doesn't change the fundamentals. My guess, based on nothing really, is that two reasons dominate. The first is the pleasure of solving problems. The second is the pleasure in giving help.
The first pleasure, problem solving, requires problems to solve. In such a context, explaining problem X yet again is not solving a problem, it is drudge work. The second pleasure, being helpful, requires positive feedback from those being helped. For some, a thank you is sufficient. For others, knowledge that a person learned something is sufficient. I am sure there are other motivations.
I know people who consider writing good (for some definition of good) documentation to be problem solving. However, most of these people do it for a living. For them to volunteer to write feels to them to be similar to a professional plumber walking around the neighborhood looking for pipes to fix. They would rather do something else with their spare time.
Every professional programmer that I know (and I know very many) excels in solving a variety of problems. They range across a large spectrum: how to do the job at hand, how to make it future-proof, how to accommodate the past, how to make it work efficiently, how to make it easy for the person who comes after, how to fit in with the 'culture' of what exists. Working through what something does and why it does it is a daily occurrence. Because of this, such people tend to have limited patience with people who won't put out the effort to figure out what something does.
Now, I can see the 'we are not all geeks' line coming at me. That is true. However, we are not all accountants, but if we want to avoid jail we must work out how to pay our taxes. We are not all professional chefs, but if we want an interesting cream sauce we must work out how to make a roue. We are not all professional drivers, but if we want to avoid being killed while driving in snow we must learn something about a car's dynamics. What I am getting at is that the vast majority of people are capable of learning something if they want to. My impression of the use of the 'geek' label, and the reason I don't like it, is that it is used to justify not wanting to; to say 'only those weirdos can understand that. We normal folk can't, so we don't need to try.' For me, this is painful on several levels.
OK, what does this have to do with this topic? Somehow, expertise needs to be connected to ignorance, in such a way as both the provider and the recipient are satisfied. Achieving this requires mutual respect, and support for the people donating their expertise. Getting snippy and saying RTFM (and yes, I know I am very guilty of that) is not showing respect to the asker. Saying "Urk, that is too complicated. Just give me a solution" or "why can't you describe it in a useful way" is not showing respect to the provider. I hope that whatever solution is contemplated will take this into consideration.
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