in reply to Goodbye!
I have never asked you to leave. I have asked you to moderate
your behavior. I have always been respectful of your abilities
and your intelligence. I have said many times that you can be
very sharp when you try.
I have never called you a name, nor have I ever insulted you.
I have given you my opinion many times and I have REPEATEDLY
asked you to moderate your behavior towards other monks, towards
the customs on this site, and towards the features of this site.
I believe you to be capable and intelligent, but I also
believe you to be abusive to the way this site is setup. You
have posted all of 44 messages since you have been here, and
a fair majority of them have a negative Rep. And yet you still have
over 500 XP. I do not KNOW how that could happen, other than
you logging everyday and voting. I don't believe that to be
beneficial to this site or its worth as a perl resource.
All that aside, I don't believe you need to leave this site.
I believe you need to calm down, think before you post, and try
to contribute. If, after this, you still feel that you should
leave, then I apologize for not making my personal wishes known
well enough. I never wanted you to leave. I wanted you to behave.
J. J. Horner
Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/
(Corion) Goals of Perlmonks
by Corion (Patriarch) on Aug 09, 2000 at 12:18 UTC
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I think one of the challenges Perlmonks faces is, what we
expect from us. From your past posts (discussion about
"contributions of monks"; discussion about "voting scale")
I get the impression that you think there are good (= contributing)
members
of our community and bad members, who are detrimental to
the goal of our community.
I have two problems with this. First, your posts
seem to me somewhat critic of people of low(er) XP. Of course, newcomers
won't fit in and be a "useful" part of the community from
the start, but I don't think that "us" old-skoolers
(or old scholars) should put as much effort into the XP
system as you display. Of course it's sad if people see
their only chance for attaining monk by voting out, but
if that's their only ability, so be it I say.
Second, you seem to distinguish Perlmonks
into two categories, those who are Perl monks and those
who benefit from it without contributing back - a separation
which is not necessarily wrong, but I feel that you think
that there should be only one class of Perlmonks. This
brings me down to what Perlmonks is to me - a helpfull
community where everybody is helped and where everybody
can benefit, as long as they obey some basic rules
of style (<CODE> tags) and form (polite language).
And while it makes sense to distinguish between people
who contribute and people who don't, I think that the
current system of rank and XP serves this purpose quite well
and is already enough motivation to participate and contribute
to those who want to.
The people who only vote out and do not actively and
repeatedly contribute to Perlmonks are a part of us, just
as Anonymous Coward and Trolls are a part of Slashdot. And
honestly, I'm much more content with having people who
vote out.
I know that you had your gripes with mt2k boasting about
how he attained monk rank without ever writing anything
useful, and I must admit that this also dented my relaxedness
regarding his posts. But I always reminded myself that
mt2k is very young (about my age when I started visiting
BBSes) and you do need a relaxed approach when dealing with
(I know you won't like it, mt2k, but...) kids. Personally
I viewed mt2k as some form of jester of the monastery, always
exploring stuff within the mechanics of the monastery while
trying to learn stuff about Perl.
If I've misinterpreted or misunderstood you in any
way, please tell me so.
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You hit the nail on the head, for the most part. ++ to you.
I do believe that all should do their best and contribute.
It is a sad fact of life that not all people are going to fit
in everywhere. It is a sad fact of life that not everyone is
going to succeed. I am all for success. If I behave negatively
toward the success of others, then I do not deserve my own success.
However, some of the monks here, including myself, are not
really willing to let someone skate by abusing the system. I
have heard mt2k repeatedly claim that he did nothing wrong
by making the system work for him. He admitted that he abused
the system to gain rank, and therefore privileges.
I also believe that everyone should contribute. In some
small way, everyone should do their part, pull their own weight.
If some of us are able to answer coding questions, we answer them.
If some of us are able to put effort into making the site more
enjoyable, we do it. Everyone works and everyone gains. We
should have no members who won't contribute. mt2k contributed
a lot to the site, and that is why I don't think he should leave.
Unfortunately, he also took a lot from the site. He was
disrespectful of others, he aggravated many people, even so
much so that he joked on his home node about how annoying he
was. I asked him to moderate his behavior for the good of the
community.
Now, I have never knowingly been disrespectful to lower XP
monks. I had a low XP at one point and I worked at it. I
welcome all who wish to study at our monastery. Lower XP is a
fact of life. That is the only part of your response that
isn't quite on target.
You may be content with people who gain rank without showing
Perl aptitude or general aptitude. For the most part, it doesn't
bother me. It apparently bothers some, otherwise the new experience
system would have never been devised.
There will always be people who contribute and people who
don't. In projects, at work, on teams, in sports, etc, there
will be people who rely on the work of others to get by. mt2k
was not really one of these people. He did make this
site more unique and more interesting, when he was behaving.
He did ask questions and get information into the public
record, and I think that is the best way someone can contribute when
just starting here.
I do feel, however, that higher levels of monks need to contribute
more than just questions to the site. After "monk" a member
of the community needs to contribute more evolved content.
You wouldn't give a doctorate to someone who kept asking easily
answerable questions, would you?
The thing that bothered me the most about mt2k is that
his average Rep per node was very low, probably negative. Think
about that for just a second. . . By all accounts, he should
have been losing XP, not gaining. You said it yourself: he
was viewed as the jester of the monastery. Should a friar be a
jester?
Thank you for your thoughtful response.
J. J. Horner
Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/
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