Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP

So I'm bitching about content again. This time, though, I bring with me statistics.

I wanted to see, after two weeks (since my Code vs. Prose discussion), if I could confirm what I suspected. So here are the rep totals of posts in both categories. To add some credence to this, I also took the posts from another monk during the same period (this monk will remain nameless). deprecated

discussion

26
7
46
90
5
12
3
3
8
66
10 total
Average: 26.6
code

17
17
18
46
18
16
31
16
16
31
16
14
12 total
Average: 21.3

Nameless Monk

discussion

13
25
17
87
40

5 total
Average: 36.4

code

27
33
14
0

total: 4
Average: 18.5

During this period, I made a concerted effort to post code, and to make sure it was good code. I doubt that normally I would have posted as much code, and we would see a much higher weight placed upon "discussion posts." Posts of mine which I had tagged (code, discussion) i counted for both. I'm not so surprised by what I saw (although I admit I had expected a greater disparity in my posts). However, I am pretty surprised to see what I saw in the other monk. Literally a 2:1 rep difference between discussion posts and code posts. The code posts in question were well thought out (I looked hard before I found a monk I felt was posting good code and good discussion), and the discussion posts were clearly good as well.

But if I may be so bold, and draw some conclusions here, I'll second what converter said. To paraphrase, maybe some of us come here and dont want to read code. Maybe we come here to read a bulletin board rather than a perl forum. Maybe we have grown to like this community and we're not as interested in code as the name of our community might lead some to believe (I certainly count myself among that 'some').

Many people have asked where they can find a similar community for Java or for C or for SQL. My answer to that is THIS is that community. While we're all here because we know perl, we're not all here to discuss perl.

I'll hazard a guess and say that I could use the stats pages and a proxy to simply view code posts by ignoring everything except posts rated 20-50 -- and read a lot more code and no rhetoric doing it.

I'm finding myself a lot less productive at work when I read the monastery. When I come here and start using the Super Search to find a post on, say, "Too late for -T at foo.pl line 1", I find a lot of posts that dont actually contain the solution. Not only are we not producing code at the rate we are producing discussion, we're dumbing down and diluting our database of answers and code. While the NodeReaper gobbles up trolls and the Code Catacombs eat our code, what are we left with? Gripes about the lack of content? Questions about how much we sleep? How to impress women?

We've convinced several people whom should be here that we're simply not worth their time. I like it here. I enjoy the company. But I cant keep up the presence here that I have had here because it is cutting into my productivity. Like I said previously, I've gotten almost everything I can realistically see getting out of the monastery. If I want more, I'm gonna have to chase Tilly down and have him teach me more things. I'm going to have to ask Ovid about CGI stuff. I'm gonna have to continue to ask japhy RE questions. And I'm going to have to spend less time here.

There are no solutions. I've been making my opinion known, and I've been much more free with --'s. I've gotten over my fear of not only downvoting nodes I dont think are worth reading (or posting), and also telling the authors. In fact, I think a lot of the people reading this post have heard from me in the last two weeks if I --'d a node of theirs. That having been said, if you agree with me, maybe you should -- this node. I have been abstaining from votes on nodes I consider discussion because I realize they are valuable to some monks (if not really to me). I havent been actively --'ing them, and I wont. But I've been, like I said, much more willing to -- "frivolous" nodes.

So some small requests:

PLEASE use the super search before posting. it saves you time and me time, and it doesnt pollute the nodebase.

make your feelings known with your votes. but also make your feelings known with /msg's. a -- only has a 1/3 chance of costing somebody XP. However, it has a much higher chance of influencing somebody's future posts. If we are so guarded about --'s, the voting system is useless.

post your code, even if you think it sucks. because I want to read it and learn. Or maybe I want to correct you and have tilly correct me on my correction. but code eq growth. and growth is good for everyone.

<!- okay, maybe im a hypocrite. maybe im on the verge of gaining a level and maybe i'm even in a contest with another monk to get there. but youre reading this, which means you paid enough attention to my post to consider it valid. so maybe you should post a reply to this node that says "dep, youre an asshole. quit trying to police the content" -- and confirm that you want discussion. and that you come here for fun and not growth. or... maybe go and post some code of yours that youve got around and teach me something. -> <!- shamelessly stolen from jcwren ->

ah, nuts. no forms in posts?? that sucks.

foiled again,
das dep

--
Laziness, Impatience, Hubris, and Generosity.

Comment on Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by neshura (Chaplain) on May 13, 2001 at 00:14 UTC
I'd like to offer a few counterpoints: Conclusion: The community places less value on code than it does on discussion. Counterpoint: Some people (myself included) don't vote on a post unless they understand it. If I am not qualified to judge the worthiness of a slice of code (or if I don't have the time to dissect it), I won't vote. There are many newbies here who are considerably better at understanding simple English essays than they are at understanding code. If this is the case on a wide scale, then the disparity is at least partially accounted for. Conclusion: A lot of people don't love code as much as the title of the site would lead one to believe. Counterpoint: Dmn skippy. I'd rather read Gerard Manley Hopkins or Anna Ahkmatova than any perl cleverness written by Abigail (no offense to the gurus, absent or otherwise). There's no requirement here that you have to love Perl. Plenty of people just work with it, and might have left long ago if it weren't for the camaraderie that is also available here. Conclusion: Non-perl posts dumb down and dilute the database.* Counterpoint: A good search engine will allow you to ignore any meditation or thoughtful commentary on art, history, science, mentoring, the municipal bond market, and Buddhism -- in addition to incredibly lame humor, heartfelt thanks, and oft-repeated idiocy. If all you want to read is code, it's there in the database, waiting to be read. If that is all you want. To put it another way, the New York Times isn't just about New York, MIT professors teach more than just technology, and monks in a real monastery learn about gardening and baking as well as studying the word of God or Buddha. e-mail neshura	[reply]
Re: Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by royalanjr (Chaplain) on May 14, 2001 at 19:09 UTC
Hit it right on the nose with the first point! I also will not vote on a code post unless I am sure that I understand what is going on. I did that once to a piece that looked good, only to have it revealed that the code was actually horrible. Lesson learned. Yes, code is important. But there is also a lot of other things that go on during discussion posts that can be very important also. Sometimes the damnedest things will prove to be great gems. You just have to keep your eyes open. Roy Alan	[reply]
Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by jepri (Parson) on May 12, 2001 at 20:22 UTC
You make so many good points I don't know where to begin answering. I have received your -- for a discussion vote and don't mind in the slightest - you made a good point in our conversation about it. I know the site is called perlmonks, it's about perl, we have perl code and questions about perl, but what we are really here for is to become good coders. And I claim that any coder who only knows one computer programming language isn't much good. The best coders seem to have a broad range of skills including maths, philosophy, meditation, ... look through the past discussions for the full list. Nobody here is just perl, even our best of the best has been seen recommending that people learn smalltalk and defending java(although not too hard :) I confess to 'hanging out' for the next discussion node - or even better - a meditation node and I've upvoted almost every one of those. But I don't see this as a bad thing(tm). The nodes have involved things like the best environment for coding, the best music to get you in the mood (for coding!), how to manage your boss and a bunch of stuff distantly related to perl. But they certainly are about subjects that improve Perl coding. It's a sign of maturity that we are talking about things that are not completely perl. There are only so many things to say about something created by human beings. The alternative is horrible - endless battles about irrelevant details: 'goto sucks man', 'no it doesn't, you beeyatch', 'yes it does, and i'll get you and your little dog too, you goto pervert!'. If you are really worried about the fact that code isn't getting voted up as much as some less tasteful nodes or even some excellent but non-perl nodes we can always fix the voting system so that people receive a higher chance for receiving XP for votes on code posted. And if you still don't like it, just don't read it Your statistics are a bit dodgy and if you had picked a different monk at a different time, you may have discovered that the ratio for discussions was -2(code_value). As a final note, keep in mind that I recently posted a node involving (mild) criticism of vi and nobody started a flame war*. That's a mature community. ____________________ Jeremy I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.	[reply]
Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by mirod (Canon) on May 12, 2001 at 23:39 UTC
The fact that discussions and "feel-good posts are a much easier way to gain XP's that code is a well-known fact of "Life at the Monastery". It does not prevent the people who post the most code, who are also the most helpful ones, to be on top of the Saints list. Maybe it's because of personality voting when they post in discussions, maybe it's because of the sheer number of posts they emit (when was the last time you saw a thread without tilly or tie getting involved? Unless merlyn has already given The definitive answer to the problem of course ;--). In any case this is good. In the end the Good Guys win. As for the Monastery growing and being filled with discussions... well, nobody's forced to read everything. The system allows you to discriminate posts by subject (the title) and by type (the section). That's already a lot of information just from the Newest Nodes list. Then if you don't like the first lines of the first post of a thread you can always hit the back button and look for something more interesting... I agree though that a threaded interface would improve the ease of reading the site. Too bad I lost the one I wrote a couple of month ago in my last system downturn :--( I am a little more concerned about problems with searches. I agree that search is usually used to find either code or at least technical informations. Not too concerned though because a Super Search on "Too late for -T" returns 9 hits (well, I guess it will return 10 hits as soon as I post this...), 8 of which include only technical information. Guess which one is the useless one? Or the 2 useless ones now? ;--) But in any case, how about using Super Search and searching only in SOPW, Categorized Questions and Categorized Answers? On "Too late for -T" this returns exactly 2 hits, with the reason for the message, how to use `perldoc perldiag` to find it yourself, even a pure-Abigail message pointing to `man perlop`... who needs a FAQ when you can get this... It might be a good idea if His Highness could just add a littlle checkbox by the search field so we can even more easily limit our searches to SOPW, Categorized Questions and Categorized Answers. But in any case you are always 5 clicks and a sentence away from getting the result from Super Search As for the requests , as the author of Increasing the Signal/Noise ration of PM (pure discussion post, lots of rep ;--) I would have to agree with you I guess...	[reply]
Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by Albannach (Monsignor) on May 13, 2001 at 00:48 UTC
Sorry dep, I ++'d you even though I wanted to -- you because in my view you have contributed to the Monastery. That's my only real criterion for upvoting. Now if you want to yammer on about your cat or kids or S.O. and none of them have a cool use for Perl, then I'll be happy to neg. you. In your case and in the case of most non-code posts here, the content is still highly useful to this group of people that have to function in the real (frequently non-code) world. Here are some personal theories about code posts vs. non-code posts: I don't like to ++ code posts if I can't verify them to be correct or at least very clever, so I'll often leave them unvoted. Since I personally use Perl for data crunching and not CGI, this means that I will rarely vote a CGI post at all. On the flip side, I will vote one way or another for non-code posts if I think they offer some insight or other benefit to the readers here at the Monastery. Basically the audience for a given code post is likely much smaller than the audience for a non-code post, and hence the vote potential varies similarly. Unless someone wants to go to a great deal of trouble to implement two different vote categories, I'm content to accept XP as a measure of contribution in general. As for Super Search, it sure would be nice to be able to optionally exclude all posts that didn't include <code> tags. (Actually I think you're just trying to push the envelope on XP whoring here, but on the evidence of your past contributions I'll give you the benefit of the doubt ;-). -- I'd like to be able to assign to an luser	[reply]
Re: Manipulating the Monastery for Fun and XP by DrZaius (Monk) on May 13, 2001 at 01:32 UTC
I can't seem to think of any, but there are thousands of one liners that express 'computer science is about ideas and methods, not code.' In perl, there is more than one way to do it. That means there is more than one way to write it down. Therefore, you should probably explain your ideas/algorythms in words and not code. Now I remember one quote (can't think of the source though): A computer scientist never writes in anything less portable than a #2 pencil. It is important to talk about ideas higher than the code. For example, is sexeger a code post or a discussion post? I would rather look at many nodes that specifically go over techniques than search through code for a particular gem.	[reply]


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