If I'm able to get quality answers what advantage does racial/sex "diversity" in and of itself bring to the table.
I think this is a wrong assumption. Qualitatively, it should be obvious that a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds would yield more answers. (Also a larger group of contributors can post more content to the site.) Empirically, multiple studies have shown that diverse groups are better at creative problem solving. Example: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=685821...
It's not obvious at all unless you're talking about a diversity of programming backgrounds in which case I agree. C++ doesn't work differently when it's used by a black or female programmer. Same goes for programming perspectives in general. I don't design my classes differently because I grew up in the inner-city (nor would I need to tailor an answer for someone who did). I think your taking an argument usually reserved for social environments that are more dependent on interaction and group dynamics (e.g. a classroom) and trying to apply it to a more static engineering one. And while that study did find that increased diversity improved performance on "business measures", it did not find a causal link that specifically pointed to diversity as the reason, although I'm not sure it would have much bearing here anyway. Being creative in a broader business/social context is not the same as solving the type of specific engineering/programming questions generally found on SO. Programming skill is completely divorced from race/gender/class and that's something we should all be happy about.
I think this is a wrong assumption. Qualitatively, it should be obvious that a diversity of perspectives and backgrounds would yield more answers. (Also a larger group of contributors can post more content to the site.) Empirically, multiple studies have shown that diverse groups are better at creative problem solving. Example: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=685821...