The problem is that many people are interested in the subject matters discussed here, but don't have time for "filler" content. TMO is 95% full of redundant conversation because people are using it like a chatroom; the whole service was more valuable if idle chatter occured in offtopic forums, or there was a moderation system that made people a bit more "afraid" of disrupting threads with offtopic matters (-1, hijacking_the_thread).