Questions about the style of "Papers"
This page: https://electrical.codidact.com/help/papers says:
A paper is more than just a few paragraphs, and more in depth than most answers. The starting level for a paper is about a detailed answer over in the Q&A category, and goes up from there. This is not something you bang out in a spare hour.
I'm not sure this is the best style for learning materials. Andy Matuschak and Stephen Downes, two people who think originally about learning, say that materials should be small and focused: see "Evergreen notes should be atomic" and a presentation about Connectivism learning theory, slide 36, which says that "Units of content should be as small as possible".
Also, the page says:
Report of original research or an investigation you personally performed. Again, the result should not be obvious to a reasonably competent EE.
I'm not sure about this because the criterion is vague, and this assumes that learning on this site could only start after someone has a university degree or practice in electrical engineering.
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say that materials should be small and focused
There are many many theories of how to best present information. Any one or two particular opinions aren't really relevant, especially since there is a such a broad range available.
The point of what you quote was mostly to set the expectation that we're looking for something more in-depth than a paragraph or two.
the criterion is vague, and this assumes that learning on this site could only start after someone has a university degree or practice in electrical engineering.
That's a somewhat valid point. Yes, it's vague, somewhat deliberately. We also aren't trying to exclude those that haven't earned a degree. What that quote is trying to avoid is a "paper" by someone who finally got an LED to blink after a week of failed parts and transistors getting fried. How to use a transistor to control an LED is too low a technical level for what we want a Paper to be here. We want ideas or results of experiments that would be new information for a typical EE.
Note that the bar for the main questions section is much lower. It is fine to ask about how to control an LED using a transistor, as long as you've done a little research appropriate for your current level of subject knowledge.
As an example, a paper that says "Hey, you can make analog levels by filtering a digital signal. Adjust the ratio of the high and low time in the digital signal to get the desired analog level." is too low a level. Most people here would think "Well, duh. Learn to spell PWM already!". However, we had a paper here that used two PWM outputs to create a triangle wave. That was a new idea at the level appropriate for a Paper here.
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