Perhaps there is also an intrinsic motivation associated with it. If you make the world better, it's just nicer; perhaps just as cleaning your desk or backyard or sharpening a box of pencils. These examples are certainly also motivated by social status, but there is also certainly an intrinsic element to it, which expresses as OCD in its extreme.
This thread is for asking any questions that might seem obvious, tangential, silly or what-have-you. Don't be shy, everyone has holes in their knowledge, though the fewer and the smaller we can make them, the better.
Please be respectful of other people's admitting ignorance and don't mock them for it, as they're doing a noble thing.
To any future monthly posters of SQ threads, please remember to add the "stupid_questions" tag.