Re: RFC: How Tightly Coupled To Perl Must We Be?

We are, if anything, more forgiving than many forums such as Usenet, or even StackOverflow for questions that aren't well related to Perl. I find there are several categories of non-Perl-related questions:

The asker doesn't care who answers his question, or what the forum's "on-topic" is; he just wants some free code written for him and may find a sucker here, or at one of the many other places he's crossposted to. Occasionally he gets lucky, and sometimes the luck comes from PerlMonks members. Often he gets a rebuke.
The asker has no clue about programming, or at least about the fact that Perl and PerlMonks is dedicated to Perl, not to JavaScript or HTML. Occasionally he gets lucky too. Often he gets shown the door, or at least invited to come back with a Perl question.
The asker thinks that because his JavaScript problem comes from a Perl script that outputs JavaScript, it must be on topic. This meets with more success nowadays than in the early days of the site. It's still misguided, and is still off-topic.
The asker thinks that he's asking a Perl question, when in fact, there's no Perl anywhere to be found. This individual is often asked how it relates to Perl, and usually he will discover as he investigates that there is no relationship to Perl.
The asker knows he's not asking a Perl question, but has cultivated relationships here that will forgive his intrusion as long as he's clear up front that he's coming here with this question because he just can't find anyone who knows how to answer it anywhere else. This is usually a successful off-topic post; when someone comes forward saying, "I'm working on a C project and just don't know where to turn. This is off-topic, but a nudge in the right direction would really help me."... people here generally respond favorably so long as it doesn't become too frequent of an occurrence.

Dave

Comment on Re: RFC: How Tightly Coupled To Perl Must We Be?

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Re^2: RFC: How Tightly Coupled To Perl Must We Be? by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Sep 04, 2013 at 22:46 UTC
(Shrug...) David, in making these statements, I think you pretty much sum-up the status quo of every programming-related forum out there. `:-)` Homework is very easy to spot, as are questions from the hapless of far-far-away companies who “got the lowest bid.” It has always seemed to me that the responses given to such things are ... ahh... very appropriate. Nevertheless, I do think that this site remains heads-above sites like StackOverflow for Perl because it is “quite unabashedly focused on Perl.” SO is loosely-focused, by design, whereas we by design are not. I have often referred wanderers on SO over here to get better answers faster about Perl, and they almost-invariably do. So, I think that we always should strive to keep that “tight subject-matter focus.” We can’t prevent the non-Perl answers from showing up. (There is noise on every communication channel.) But we can continue to be the “~~go-to site~~ save time come here first site” for truly Perl-related questions. Filter out the irrelevant, yes. But, beyond that, be wide. If they’re using Perl and they’re stuck in the mud (whatever sort of mud it is ...), [try to] pull them out. (Be “patient, gracious, blunt, and curt” with all the rest.) We have all been in this quicksand, and most of us stop by frequently.

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Re^2: RFC: How Tightly Coupled To Perl Must We Be?
by locked_user sundialsvc4 (Abbot) on Sep 04, 2013 at 22:46 UTC

(Shrug...) David, in making these statements, I think you pretty much sum-up the status quo of every programming-related forum out there. :-) Homework is very easy to spot, as are questions from the hapless of far-far-away companies who “got the lowest bid.” It has always seemed to me that the responses given to such things are ... ahh... very appropriate.

Nevertheless, I do think that this site remains heads-above sites like StackOverflow for Perl because it is “quite unabashedly focused on Perl.” SO is loosely-focused, by design, whereas we by design are not. I have often referred wanderers on SO over here to get better answers faster about Perl, and they almost-invariably do. So, I think that we always should strive to keep that “tight subject-matter focus.” We can’t prevent the non-Perl answers from showing up. (There is noise on every communication channel.) But we can continue to be the “~~go-to site~~ save time come here first site” for truly Perl-related questions. Filter out the irrelevant, yes. But, beyond that, be wide. If they’re using Perl and they’re stuck in the mud (whatever sort of mud it is ...), [try to] pull them out. (Be “patient, gracious, blunt, and curt” with all the rest.) We have all been in this quicksand, and most of us stop by frequently.