Hi.

Note: Please read this ALL the way through before voting, if you choose to vote even.

Ever since I have found the Monastery, and joined it to learn more about how to get a handle on programming in the great language of Perl, I have had many questions about this establishment, but more specifically, about the members of this community. In many previous posts, it is unfortunate that I wrote them typically in a mad mood, which is not the correct state of mind to be in when writing a discussion piece for the viewing (dis)pleasure of many people in the Monastery.

I know that I am very naive when it comes to how Perl Monks really functions on the inside, and have made too many comments that weren't backed up by any facts whatsoever. Some of those comments should have even gone without saying, and would have been better if I hadn't said them in the first place. I am extremely sad that I have made those posts previously, and wish I hadn't done that to begin with. Although this discussion topic sounds like a huge apology, or something similar, while it is in some ways, it also contains many questions I have about the Monastery and it's community that I am a small part in.

One of the things I have learned from my past awful posting habits is that I shouldn't write posts while in 'flame mode' or even 'possibly flame bait mode'. They should rather be written with a cool and level head, which is similar to road rage I would suppose. Yes, I am a young 17 year old kid who needs to grow up when it comes to electronics, and the internet. It's hard for me sometimes to remember that there are people on the other side of the names like tilly for example. I tend to forget that, and just rail or attempt to make little jabs at different people, with no justifying reason in mind to do it either. It makes me mad when I realize what I have done after I do that, and wish I hadn't. After the last big problem I created, I really learned to practice NOT doing what I did last time for the future, and hopefully if I write more posts later, they will turn out for the good, and not for the worse.

One of my questions about the Monastery is, (so I can actually be knowledgeable at least, and not make uneducated accusations about incorrect topics, such as vroom,) I have found out that Perl Monks is really on it's own with no overhead company anymore (according to what I heard in the last posts,) and my question is: Does vroom have any idea how much longer the Monastery will be around?I have seen many nonprofit companies on the internet struggle, and eventually die, and really don't want this to happen with Perl Monks as well. I would gladly donate to help the Monastery stay up for as long as possible, but I am unwealthy kid coming from a low-middle class family background. How can I help? I really would like to help, but don't know how or where to start helping (if my help can even be used at all.)

I have also wondered what vroom is currently doing since he got laid-off from his last big job (which is another thing I recently learned, which I should have found out about before making other accusations...). Is it something that will keep vroom from being able to work on the upkeep of the Monastery? If so, I was wondering if it would be a good idea to distribute the load of upkeep for the Monastery, (I know that this point was a past topic of discussion, but I still think it's worthy to bring up.) Is there any way I would be able to help out vroom somehow? Or is it just a lost cause for me to try to help like this.

Another question I have is, why is it that many new and even some seasoned users here at the Monastery seem to just follow various leaders when it comes to posting, and voting? I realize that my last couple of discussion topics were seriously under par of what they should have been, however, I have noticed that whenever a higher ranked monk posts something contrary to another post, etc. that the crowd of newer users and intermediate users immediately crowd around this "older" monk, and seem to fight against the other party. I don't see how this can help the Monastery. I know that it is good to correct another monk when they are wrong, but shouldn't this be done just by one or two people, instead of the whole crowd of monks (almost,) yelling at this other party? I have been confused by this predicament.

Yet another question I have is, why do monks start to ++ or -- vote people based on their user name? Since when does someones user name make them worth listening to? I know that in many cases, this would be untrue, but in some cases, I think the content of what they are saying or what their point is more important than if they are a really good monk, or really well known. This has also been discussed, I believe, previously, but many new users seem to have never thought or heard about it, and simply keep on ++ the higher up monks, and -- monks who no one has either heard much of, or they just feel like -- them cause their name sounds dumb.

I have so many other questions to ask as well, but I don't want to go on and on in this discussion piece. I just hope that you all will read this article through BEFORE voting or posting, and not just look at my user name and go, 'well his last couple of posts sucked big time, so I'll just break out the old -- vote.' Please, even if you do -- vote me, that's fine with me if you really want to, but please hear out my views and questions BEFORE voting. Thanks.

Andy Summers

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Reasonable Questions
by virtualsue (Vicar) on Aug 19, 2001 at 13:09 UTC

    bladx - I think you are worrying far too much about the monastery and not enough about Perl.

    Are you writing any programs right now? If you find out something neat while you're doing that, talk about it in the CB, or in a short post. Help other people if you can. Use Super Search to go through the archives - you can learn a lot that way. Including the fact that discussions like the one you're trying to initiate have been run here a number of times, and they didn't advance anybody's Perl knowledge one iota.

    People will vote on your nodes, or not, based on their own personal criteria. They may also take into account the opinions of other people. That's each person's right, and we have to learn to live with that if we want to be a part of this (or any) community.

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Re: Reasonable Questions
by CheeseLord (Deacon) on Aug 19, 2001 at 10:06 UTC

    A few comments about some of your questions:

    ... why do monks start to ++ or -- vote people based on their user name? Since when does someones user name make them worth listening to?</em

    Someone's username doesn't make them worth listening to (although something cool like 'CheeseLord' will certainly make people notice you. :) but the reputation behind it does. And many of the higher-level people around here are at that level because they've posted a lot of good stuff, and have invested a good deal of time in this site. We respect their input and opinions because they've shared their knowledge and insight with us, and we've found it useful. And we're pretty sure that what they've just posted is going to be useful as well. As far as the new monks who don't really care and just ++ the saints, well... what can you do? I guess that's why you don't get as many votes when you start out.

    A lot of the things you point out are present in any society - and as you've noted, there are real people behind each username here. It makes sense that the issues (I don't believe these to be 'problems') that are present in human societies are present here as well. A leader's views are usually respected, unless they are met with good arguments as to their flaws. That does not preclude listening to the views of the non-leaders, however. But, because of their position, they need to be more careful in what they say should they want their opinions heard. Likewise, leaders need to be careful in what they say, lest they offend too many or too much and lose their ability to have their opinions considered.

    At least, that's my view of things. *shrug*

    His Royal Cheeziness

[reply]

      You are right - CheeseLord (cool nick btw). These factors are always present in any society. However, I think you'll agree that they should be discouraged; people's statements should be evaluated on their own merit.

      I think it's funny, after I posted my opinion piece on Women Programmers, Sex, Tai Chi and Reincarnation the other day, I found a whole load of old nodes of mine being downvoted. The chatterbox client I use tells me when my nodes get downvoted, and what I was seeing was a whole bunch of parallel downvotes happening within the space of about 2 minutes, to, say - 7 articles. This happened more than 5 times, occasionally corresponding to a flame to my original post. This leads me to believe the people doing the downvoting were downvoting my nodes en masse, just because they didn't like something I said in my most recent post and perhaps felt the need to dish out more "punishment". Obviously the other slews of downvotes came from people who couldn't formulate their disgust at what I'd said into words.

      All I can say is that the etiquette here is supposed to resemble a monastery, which amongst other things means this:
      Check your Ego at the door, please.
      Do not believe what others tell you on face value.

      Common themes for most religions that call their places of worship "monastaries", no?

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Re: Reasonable Questions
by echo (Pilgrim) on Aug 19, 2001 at 15:51 UTC
    Man you seem to waste a lot of time on meta discussion--using the monastery to discuss the monastery. You're also deeply worried about votes, the first line in your post is about potential votes on it. You seem to worry about other peoples' votes and their motivations. Well, get over it. Talk about Perl. Don't worry about votes so much--what's important is Perl. And don't try to figure out why people vote, it's their business, and the whole point of a voting system. Back to code...
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      Just to be fair to bladx who maybe wasn't that clever to write about votes but if you look here his "Note" on votes is not unreasonable. Wether this remark was smart or not? -- I don't know, but I still understand his motivation.

      Hanamaki
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Re: Reasonable Questions
by little (Curate) on Aug 19, 2001 at 15:03 UTC
    Andy,
    you're not the only one as you might read here.
    Yes, thats an old story, but the replies are more interesting if you want to know how "the others" feel about the monastery. Well, some of it might be out of date, but the most at least for me remains actual.

    Have a nice day
    All decision is left to your taste

    Edited 2001-08-19 by Ovid

[reply]

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