As is obvious with just a quick glance, I am on the novice end of using and developing in perl. It is not my full-time job, I just use perl to automate certain tasks here and there and generally make things easier in my day-to-day duties.

One thing I have noticed is the ever-changing posts on the front page. I visit perlmonks here nearly every day to find new things and see what I can pick up. I glance through most sections and read the articles that catch my eye. Even though I check this site approximately once a day, I find that I have missed good nodes that have been quickly pushed off of the front page.

To give some insight on how someone in my position goes through the site I will give you a rough timeline of how I got to where I am today:

1. Friend introduced me to perl because I asked how to automate something.
2. He wrote up a bit and I looked at the code when I needed to make changes.
3. I asked him, then searched for answers on how to script something. The search brought me here.
4. I used the search box to no avail, but the articles on the front page interested me.
5. I came back later (probably weeks later) to find an answer about another question.
6. Learned about super search and found my answer.
7. I read, read, read like mad to pick up everything I could.
8. I posted a question or response here and there.
9. I use perl constantly for simple tasks, still learning as I go.
10. I visit here daily now to pick up as much as I can. This is not part of my job, I honestly *want* to for various reasons.

At my state today I just want to see as much *good* information as I can. Yes, the front page is usually good, but I miss out on quite a bit that someone in the first few steps of my timeline would miss - thus losing viewership.

Suggestions that I have been thinking about for a while have probably been thought of long ago by others and more thna likely have been discussed into the ground. In any case here goes:

Why not have the front page be able to retain all front paged articles for at least 'X' period of time? Maybe a minimum 15 articles always displayed without regard to time, and everything front paged over the prior 36 hours?

How about voting by those gifted with the powers to front page articles? I believe already that one must approve an article for submission, then another must front page it, but why not require 3 front page votes for it to be posted to the front page? This may reduce some of the articles that make it to the front page that probably don't really need to be there.

What else is being discussed between the elders?

I know that I am not missing much because I check most sections but I do know that if the site was moving along at this rate six months ago I would not have joined up. Instead of perlmonks appearing as a knowledge repository it would have appeared as little more than a message board hosted at bravenet (or something similar). Those types of places usually are not the most receptive to new users and many times their leadership is temporary at best.

You may not agree with me or you may think that I am yet another guy trying to stir up troubles. Don't disregard me due to those types of things. Just understand that I am still one of the new people to perl and I am just relaying information that may help with gearing the site to someone else at my stage of development.

Thank you for the time you have spent reading this.