Reading through the responses in this thread and through the other threads mentioned here I wondered if it wouldn't be appropriate to add a new indicator for XP. Perhaps somthing in the spririt of Perl Adept or Brainbench where we could post some perl based challenges. Passing those challenges could give you XP, but what level of challenge you've been able to meet could also be recorded on a users homenode.

the tests could be in the spirit of Challenges and JCWren Programming Challenge - Win a Perlmonks T-Shirt! - but obviously with a different end in mind.

most of the posts here have had the common thread that some monks basically feel that they may misrepresent their perl skill through their high level. I think this is something which could sit beside the XP system but be a true indicator of actual perl skill.

A second thought which I had was that we could have a 'skills matrix' on our home node indicating what we are good at (CGI, DBI, XML, etc.). That too could act as a guide to others as to when we're making good guesses or speaking from hard-earned eXPerience. ( I may put this on my home node quite soon )

"A man's maturity -- consists in having found again the
seriousness one had as a child, at play."   --Nietzsche
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