OK, so I'm new to this site, but the randomness of 'Reputation' on nodes has been bothering me, especially as it relates to a monk's experience. Let me describe why:

It is my understanding that a monk's experience level has a high correlation to his/her Perl proficiency (normalized by the amount of time s/he's been on the site, of course). This is a great idea, as it makes it easier for a Perl neophyte to learn which experts are, in fact, experts. The number of experience points a monk has is primarily affected by the reputation of the nodes which s/he has written. A more experienced monk is thus one who has highly reputable contributions to the Perl monks' community. So far, so good.

My problem is the randomness with which nodes seem to be rated. I only have access to my own data, but I believe my results are similar to those other monks have (please let me know otherwise). Let me give two concrete examples:

1. This node gives a method for computing modular exponentiation on Bit::Vectors. It uses a non-brute force approach that reduces the computation time from O(n) to O(lg n). As of this writing, it has a reputation of 1.
2. This node is a response to a question on why "if(int(rand))" always returns false. As of this writing, it has a reputation of 9.

IMHO, the former demonstrates a much greater grasp of Perl, mathematics, and overall programming ability, yet I am much more likely to (eventually) gain experience for the latter.

I understand that reputation is meant to be an indication of how useful a node is, not how technically difficult. But reputation is translated into experience, which is meant to be an indication of techincal ability. Or at least that's how I use it, and I think other new users do the same.

I also understand that the reputations I've listed above are subject to change, especially given that the latter node was posted this week. But I see no reason why the trend depicted here would reverse itself over time.

Does anybody else have a problem with reputation of nodes translating into experience, and thereby an indication of Perl expertise? Or am I just being anal?

-Ton

btw: I haven't thought of a better way of measuring Perl expertise. And this is the best site I've seen at so doing. I just want to make a good thing even better.