"took so many years and thousands of papers... due to the sheer volume of information. That time wasn't wasted sifting through irrelevant stuff - you're now an expert. On the contrary, I think the writers and organizers of all that material did a great job; both of us owe nearly everything we know to them."
I agree there's a lot of material, the learning process was worth it, and there's even more to gain. That said, the learning process taught me that a tiny, tiny fraction of those papers taught people 95+% of what they need to know for their sub-field. We need that information packaged, well-presented, and widely distributed for each sub-field. People wanting to learn more can volunteer time to do so. All I'm pushing for is that baseline packaged and ready for newcomers with few to no obstacles. Right now, it's hard enough to find that most don't. Gotta change that.
"took so many years and thousands of papers... due to the sheer volume of information. That time wasn't wasted sifting through irrelevant stuff - you're now an expert. On the contrary, I think the writers and organizers of all that material did a great job; both of us owe nearly everything we know to them."
I agree there's a lot of material, the learning process was worth it, and there's even more to gain. That said, the learning process taught me that a tiny, tiny fraction of those papers taught people 95+% of what they need to know for their sub-field. We need that information packaged, well-presented, and widely distributed for each sub-field. People wanting to learn more can volunteer time to do so. All I'm pushing for is that baseline packaged and ready for newcomers with few to no obstacles. Right now, it's hard enough to find that most don't. Gotta change that.