It can be sometimes be notoriously hard to find correct references. For example, I was going to mention a certain theory of extra dimensions in a paper (this is experimental particle physics). A colleague pointed out to me that the paper I was quoting was pretty derivative, and that there has been done equivalent, but more comprehensive work a couple of years earlier, although the theory had a different name back then. The newer paper wasn't quoting the older one (directly), and without expertise in this sub-field, I would have had a hard time finding the other papers. Now not everyone has a helpful colleague who seemingly knows all the literature, so I think this site can be a pretty good place to find references.

I'd even go further and say, this site is pretty good to find ideas. I know such-and-such, but who said that and why is this so? This site helped me twice: here where I was pointed to a standard reference which I knew superficially, but didn't know that it answered my question, and here I had a silly idea, wondered if someone smarter had already thought about it, but I didn't know what to search for, and I got a tip that got me started.

We just have to make sure that

1. This doesn't invite lazy people to let us do there homework for them ;-) and
2. The references stay recent as the field develops and new papers come out. This can be done by posting new answers, or using the edit function (which seems rarely used).

It can be sometimes be notoriously hard to find correct references. For example, I was going to mention a certain theory of extra dimensions in a paper (this is experimental particle physics). A colleague pointed out to me that the paper I was quoting was pretty derivative, and that there has been done equivalent, but more comprehensive work a couple of years earlier, although the theory had a different name back then. The newer paper wasn't quoting the older one (directly), and without expertise in this sub-field, I would have had a hard time finding the other papers. Now not everyone has a helpful colleague who seemingly knows all the literature, so I think this site can be a pretty good place to find references.

I'd even go further and say, this site is pretty good to find ideas. I know such-and-such, but who said that and why is this so? This site helped me twice: here where I was pointed to a standard reference which I knew superficially, but didn't know that it answered my question, and here I had a silly idea, wondered if someone smarter had already thought about it, but I didn't know what to search for, and I got a tip that got me started.

We just have to make sure that

1. This doesn't invite lazy people to let us do there homework for them ;-) and
2. The references stay recent as the field develops and new papers come out. This can be done by posting new answers, or using the edit function (which seems rarely used).