I share your concerns, tye, on the recent proliferation of non-perl root posts.   It seems that PM's very perl-specific focus is one significant part of what helps keep the Monastery a friendly corner in an otherwise cold and hostile web. At some point, I'd expect OT proliferation to adversely impact the longstanding PM culture of civility and courtesy.

Your description of a "non-section OT section" sounds better than anything else I've heard of.   Of course no solution will be perfect.   I don't think it's become a problem *yet*, but have no feel for how long it might take for OT proliferation side-effects to become a issue.   About the time I start to wonder if OT root posts would really become an issue, I remember the godless-heathen-slashdot-hordes.   Heh.

Regarding the potential problems of "no-value post reapings", it looks like the reaping mechanism may not be scaling well.   On second thought, s/reaping/level-powers/;.   KnowwhatImeanVerne?   I've no suggestions whatsoever on addressing that, if it is indeed a conceivable source of a possible problem.   (So did I couch that last statement in enough qualifiers?   {grin})
  cheers,
  ybiC
  striving toward Perl Adept
    (it's pronounced "why-bick")

P.S.   Hrm... might a "not-a-section OT section" end up encouraging even greater volume of OT posts??   /me gets a headache pondering triple double sideways reverse psychology.

Update   Here are a couple articles by Clay Shirkey that appear quite relevant to the topic of Monastery community and scalability.   I'm still absorbing+digesting the info for to develop an opinion.

• http://shirky.com/writings/community_scale.html
• http://shirky.com/writings/broadcast_and_community.html

---

---

• Are you posting in the right place? Check out Where do I post X? to know for sure.
• Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags. Currently these include the following:

  <code> <a> <b> <big> <blockquote> <br /> <dd> <dl> <dt> <em> <font> <h1> <h2> <h3> <h4> <h5> <h6> <hr /> <i> <li> <nbsp> <ol> <p> <small> <strike> <strong> <sub> <sup> <table> <td> <th> <tr> <tt> <u> <ul>

• Snippets of code should be wrapped in <code> tags not <pre> tags. In fact, <pre> tags should generally be avoided. If they must be used, extreme care should be taken to ensure that their contents do not have long lines (<70 chars), in order to prevent horizontal scrolling (and possible janitor intervention).
• Want more info? How to link or How to display code and escape characters are good places to start.