http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=164689

Fellow monks,

It seems that, on a fairly regular basis, someone posts a link to a vaguely geek-related news story. (Most recently, it was dws posting about counter-FUD tactics.) These posts usually end up in Meditations or Perl Monks Discussion, and they're almost always redundant for me (since I tend to read news, including slashdot and the Register, before coming here).

On the one hand, it's nice to see worthwhile stories get broader distribution, and helpful to those of us who don't troll news sites. On the other hand, it's distracting to see a link to "old news" in the middle of a stack of otherwise novel nodes.

I'd be interested to hear other monks' opinions on this subject. Personally, I'd like to see Perl News reactivated as a "normal" section (rather than mirroring off-site news stories) where monks can post links to relevant stories. I don't want to lose these postings, but I don't think that Meditations is necessarily the right place for them, either.

--
:wq

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by tjh (Curate) on May 07, 2002 at 19:06 UTC
    This is an interesting discussion. Many posts here on PM that are not strictly language specific have been very positive and useful for me too.

    I do read a lot of news on a variety of topics, but I'm obviously still narrowly focused since the Puruvian/MS issue in this node never crossed my radar until now.

    Several things happen for me simultaneously while reading PM.

    1. I'm learning Perl in spades. Syntax, idioms, sources of other knowledge, etc;

    2. Additionally, a wide variety of programming best practices creep into posts here - invaluable to me;

    3. Because I'm also a user of PM for it's technical focus, I'm sympathetic to those critical of these posts, and some of this thinking simply exhibits my own personality disorders... :)

    4. Perl culture has become an important component for me because of PM;

    5. For me, PM has become the bellweather Perl site, and, whether it's correct or not, I view it as possibly *the* most significant node/arbiter/source of Perl culture;

    6. and, since Perl is so important in the world, and hopefully, with the advent of Perl 6, will reclaim some PR and value positioning from (ahem) Java and others, it occurs to me that PM may also be one of the places that dominance might arise from (ya think anybody actually thought about things like this in PM's evolution? Probably not, humble gods that they are, but it looks like they're getting it anyway :);

    7. Of course, I'm probably attaching way too much significance to all this, however, PM has become a way-station for me in several ways. Getting additional data about related issues (ala Open Source, Open Standards, various programming practices and Perl idioms and optimizations, habits of highly effective programmers, legal issues that may be relevant to my work, future or company, and much more) - for me, this is a perfect place for me to see these things in context, discussed by people I know of and respect.

    It would be useful to have sections appropriate for these kinds of (field related but maybe not directly language-usage related) discussions. It doesn't seem that PM collectively does a bad job at it now, and I'd hate to see heavy police action kick in. Likewise, I'd hate to see PM lose focus on it's clearly demonstrated Perlish usefulness.

    And since this post is one of those nodes in question - I'm wondering if I'm going to regret posting it... lol.

      Thank you very much for a thoughtful and interesting response. I agree wholeheartedly.

      But i can see the other side too. Establishing a meditation type section intended for posting issues of general relevence to programmers and programming in general (the so called OT posts) would I think make both sides happy. And if that section happened to be (a renamed?) perlnews then so be it...

      Yves / DeMerphq
      ---
      Writing a good benchmark isnt as easy as it might look.

        Perhaps better to call it 'OT' and let the fur fly where it may?

        –hsm

        "Never try to teach a pig to sing…it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."
Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by dws (Chancellor) on May 07, 2002 at 17:08 UTC
    Personally, I'd like to see Perl News reactivated as a "normal" section (rather than mirroring off-site news stories) where monks can post links to relevant stories.

    I agree. If Perl News worked as a spot to post and comment on news, I'd have posted there. Failing that, Meditations seemed the less inappropriate spot for a news item I believed had substantial value for the community.

Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by coreolyn (Parson) on May 07, 2002 at 16:40 UTC

    I thought Meditations was perfect placement for this highly relevant article. I don't have the opportunity to 'troll' other sites. I do have time to keep up to date with the latest here and that's about it. (Usually between compiles/code migrations).

    To highlight the relevancy of articles such as this I can point to my RL expirience of utilizing thoughts and opinion about Open Source that I aquired from Perlmonks and applying them on my job. After two years of relentless advocacy Perl can/is installed on our production servers.

    If it weren't for the posting's that point to relevant external Open Source/Perl links I would miss out on quite a bit of valuable information. More importantly the discussions of such articles by fellow monks has been of more value to me than the articles themselves. I understand other monks motivations and intentions far better as I have access to thier other posts and have been an avid reader of theirs for a couple of years now.

    To say that there is absolutely no room for anything but pure Perl posts is to dismiss one of the greatest qualities of this site. That being access to others that share my view that Perl and the people in its culture are for some silly reason important to myself. Opinions and meditations on things that influence them and their mindset are of unique value and deserve a place to be expressed.

    This is not to say that I think everything you folks think is of value, but Meditations does provide a small diversion from the use strict; requirements of the other available topics, and has always been regarded as such.

    coreolyn lastnode_id=1072 how small is your homenode?
        To say that there is absolutely no room for anything but pure Perl posts is to dismiss one of the greatest qualities of this site.

      Whoa... good thing I didn't say that, then.

      I think you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that news posts are bad and shouldn't be tolerated, nor am I suggesting that Meditations should have stricter content guidelines. I'm suggesting that maybe Meditations isn't the right place for news posts, and that Perl News would be a better place. Calm down.

      --
      :wq

        Seems to me the surest way to rile someone up is to tell them to calm down. I believe you misinterpreted my remarks, you asked for an opinion and you recieved one. It just happens to be one I feel strongly about.

        As for using Perl News I (as a poster) would feel it inappropriate placement as the intro to that section reads

        This section used to collect Perl-related news items from news.perl.org (Copyright 2000, Chris Nandor) which has now been merged into use.perl.org. Please visit use.perl.org for Perl-related news.

        coreolyn No flame intended.
        A reply falls below the community's threshold of quality. You may see it by logging in.
    A reply falls below the community's threshold of quality. You may see it by logging in.
Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by ariels (Curate) on May 07, 2002 at 17:45 UTC

    I should probably respond. I considered that very node, as being unPerlish. Specifically, it appears to me too broad to be Perlish; we could equally well node cool algorithms (could be implemented in Perl) or Mathematics (relevant to some programs I've written, even in Perl). Not to mention something like AlgoVista, which is a resource you could use if you wanted to program something (and you could be programming in Perl).

    It was something of an experiment. I received some /msg's from people who did not approve of my acts, and my consideration appears to have been cancelled. Note that before that happened, `Delete' votes weren't doing particularly well -- evidently few agreed with me. Given that a significant majority would have been required for a case as muddled as this, it is clearly Not The Way (and thanks to the Monk who pointed this out to me).

    So... What do I do? Clearly, I have rather different concepts of on- and off-topicality; some alignment is required.

    And next time, maybe I'll go meditate, instead.

Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by coreolyn (Parson) on May 07, 2002 at 17:12 UTC

    Ok ok yer right I misinterpreted your original post... agree with moving this stuff to Perl News

    Ack... Brain is not engaged to day

    coreolyn -- backing away from the keyboard slowly.
Re: Posting Unrelated News Items
by cjf (Parson) on May 08, 2002 at 13:25 UTC
    they're almost always redundant for me (since I tend to read news, including slashdot and the Register, before coming here).

    As I see it, the true value of posting news here is not to inform people that it happened but to generate discussion on the subject. However, this is a Perl site and I for one wouldn't want to see 20 miscellaneous tech-related stories posted here everyday. I do welcome the occasional well thought out writeup, such as The SSSCA Considered Harmful though.

A reply falls below the community's threshold of quality. You may see it by logging in.