in reply to One's place in a Perl community.

You know, you made two points that suggest to me that you've got quite a bit to contribute. On the one hand you state that you solve nearly all of your problems utilizing the resources at your disposal. I don't have to say that that is a highly desirable trait, and very likely means you have good answers to many questions. On the other hand, you feel your answers to other's questions are usually not as good or are less complete than other people's answers. I guess this begs the question --- are you sure you are satisfied with your own answers to your own questions? Might others have 'better, more complete' answers to your questions as well?

Having gone and dug around and finally solved a problem you were faced with (assuming you didn't find the answer here), might we not benefit from hearing your problem and solution? And perhaps others will point out problems with your solution, or alternate approaches to the problem, and you and I, and many others, can benefit from the resulting discussion. I mean, I probably get as much (if not more) value from seeing alternate approaches to problems I do have answers for ('cool, I never thought of doing it that way'), than from seeing solutions to problems I haven't encountered before.

Also realize, that what you consider to be a "lesser" answer may have just the right wording that makes something "click" for the questioner. I mean, we've all probably had the experience of being shown something new that made us go "huh?", and then had someone else provide an alternate explanation or analogy and suddenly everything is clear. And it isn't always the difference between good and bad teachers (and, just as an aside, I am constantly astounded by the number of monks here who are not only good and experienced coders, but good communicators and teachers as well!!). Sometimes it is simply a lucky turn of phrase that does it, other times it is because you are talking at the right level for the questioner (as arhuman points out above).