in reply to Terminal decline?

Nice research and writeup!

Please bear with me as i ask, why do we need to do anything? What exactly is the problem? If the site fills a need, awesome. If it just isn't popular, who cares? To put it another way, do you want PM to have a large userbase and nodes just because? Or, are you afraid that the potential userbase is satisfying all their perl related needs elsewhere?

Maybe PM is just reflecting the state of Perl in general. It used to be more popular, for whatever reason. If that's the case, the answer would be to make Perl more popular, not PM, per se.

The community here is knowledgeable and the website provides a particular type of forum. I don't think the forum is particularly perlish; it can be used for other language too. Much like (iiuc) Javaranch became Coderanch (at least in name), PerlMonks could become CodeMonks with multiple monasteries, representing different languages. Assuming the forum and its presentation is nice, it should be popular with other languages too. Then again, this assumes the site is to be grown for the purpose of growth.

It really boils down to, what exactly is the core problem? You have only (but nicely!) delineated its ill effects.

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Re^2: Terminal decline?
by BrowserUk (Patriarch) on Jun 11, 2015 at 22:26 UTC
    It really boils down to, what exactly is the core problem? You have only (but nicely!) delineated its ill effects.

    The point is, something has to change.

    Would (say) an off-topic section save the day? Probably not.

    But it is:

    • Simple to implement.
    • Gives everyone, bar the belligerently myopic, what they want.

      Those still here that want to talk freely about non-Perl stuff have somewhere to do so without imposing their interests upon those that don't want to see it.

      Those that don't want to see it; just stay out.

    • It can't make things any worse.

      It could make things better. The worst that could happen is that nobody posts there. The best, lots of people do.

      There is no rational reason not to try it. If the worst came to the worst, and too many people posted there; it could always be deleted.

    I'm open to other ideas; but on past history, all those nay-sayers -- the cowardly little shits that yap anonymously from the side lines like enraged toy poodles whenever anything new or different is suggested -- haven't got an original thought between them; so waiting for them to come up with something is a fool's errand.

    With the rise and rise of 'Social' network sites: 'Computers are making people easier to use everyday'
    Examine what is said, not who speaks -- Silence betokens consent -- Love the truth but pardon error.
    "Science is about questioning the status quo. Questioning authority". I'm with torvalds on this
    In the absence of evidence, opinion is indistinguishable from prejudice. Agile (and TDD) debunked
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      It seems that whenever anyone suggests any changes to PM, there are a lot of responses saying that nothing is wrong with the way things are. If someone wants to make the site more user-friendly in terms of markup in posts, CSS, or whatever, they are often told that if people want that, there are ways they can implement those things on their own. I've noticed examples of both in this thread.

      When I have time, I enjoy trying to help answer people's problems here. I like PerlMonks. Nevertheless, it can be a less than welcoming place both in terms of user-friendliness and (sometimes) user's friendliness.

[reply]

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