++dws,
Funny, for the first time I was compelled to look up the word community in a dictionary. Why funny? Well, I spent my informative years growing up in a New Age Commune and had never before felt drawn to really study or define what a community is.

Entry "3(b): Sharing, participation, and fellowship" from the community link above I thought rather well defined my idea of not only the place I grew up in but the community I have come to admire and respect here at Perlmonks.

As dws asks "What's special about this place"?;
My thoughts are:

1. ~ Respect & fellowship.
   Too often I have seen other 'sites' degrade into a mosh pit of racial intolerance and hatefest of right-wing fanatics driveling their propaganda to squash any new ideas or opinions. Not so here. I respect that.
2. ~ Stickiness.
   Apart from the obvious chatterbox and XP systems I have found that the quality of posts found around the monastery to be 'the main' reason for me coming back. If I had a quid¹ for every time I've caught myself saying "blimey - I didn't know you could do that..." I'd have amassed enough for a... kebab... or something... ;) Seriously though, there are some truly amazing Perl and non Perl related posts to be found here - congratulations to all who have submitted and contributed.
3. ~ use strict; use warnings;
   Education, alright I admit it, before coming here I *never* used strict (/me ducks) I used that as an example to show that learning from others has been a great boon to me and my coding. I am now, by far, a better coder than I was before finding and joining this place.
4. ~ Moderation and consideration.
   Not only at the technical level of manipulating nodes, but also at the human level of maintaining a congenial atmosphere. PM has almost made me regain my faith in human nature ;)

Thank you all for making Perlmonks the wonderful oasis that it is in the madness otherwise know as the InterWeb.

Update: ¹ $currency =~ s/quid/buck/i if $monks_country ne 'UK';

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