Hail fellow monks,

There are two facts of life about PerlMonks that together create a negative effect:

• XP given to front page nodes is high. Most of my highest-rated nodes gained the reputation from the front page. Some w/o justification, IMO. Take a look at some front-paged nodes, their reputation is high, even if they're not close to be interesting. Why does this happen ? Easy - monks wasting Votes to get some late-night XPs, and where is the easiest place to waste them ? Well, front-page of course, the first page a monk reaches on PerlMonks.
• Nodes reaching the front page aren't necessarily good. I think that there is no argument about this...

As a classic example see this node. At the time of writing, its reputation is over 20. Why ? One of my past nodes got a reputation of 49, and I simply asked for some help to optimize a sub. So why is the reputation so high ? Well, it was front-paged !

In the guidelines for moderation (I'm a fresh "Friar, so I've read them) it's advised to front-page nodes if they're impressive and well-written... a lot of front-page nodes don't stand to this criterion (just take a look around), yet they get high ratings because of just-thrown votes.

Think about it... IMHO, it hurts the credibility of our XP system.