Your feature makes sense for perhaps the first few days one is on PerlMonks -- after that it becomes second nature (as has been pointed out) to Open a New Window from the authour's link and look at their XP (and maybe other stuff like their timezone, suggesting when they might be visible on CB). Certainly I did this a lot to begin with, see what kind of person I was dealing with .. someone with twenty years in the biz, or an extremely keen bass player who also happens to write Perl. Gives me additional perspective on where they're coming from, and I also get to meet them -- in a limited way, anyway.

After almost a month on PerlMonks (what fun!) I think I recognize many of the posters and I have to say that the quality of responses remains very high, due most likely to the carrot/stick that is XP. I know that as I rise in XP I have more votes to cast, and it's getting harder to use them all up, because I want to reward good answers. If I could change anything, I might add a ++ ++ selection for when an answer is not only complete but goes above and beyond the call of duty by also explaining the background of why Perl does things that way.

Think of it another way: Would you have discounted merlyn's posts during his first week on PerlMonks when his XP was in the double digits? I sure hope not. :)

--t. alex

"Excellent. Release the hounds." -- Monty Burns.

p.s. Hey, no offense to the bass players out there -- I play an Ibanez bass through my Roland 60, that's when it's not running my Fender 54.