I don't think I saw the original post, so I don't know who posted it, and I hope I'm not jumping blind into a discussion that seems to have gotten heated...

From what I read solely in this post, the comment seems pretty on-target. I'm relatively new here and haven't posted too much, preferring to lurk for a while to see how things generally work. If I feel I have something to contribute (including code), I am open to fair criticism and correction but I'm also a bit hesitant to post if I think my post might be seen as foolish or ignorant.

In general, I haven't seen too much of the criticism described in your post, but occasionally I have seen it, so it makes me think a little more if I were inclined to shoot from the hip with code, questions, or advice. That's good because we could all stand to think a little more before speaking, but it's also bad because it scares new people off and gives them a bad feeling about Perl Monks and about Perl in general.

So anyway, I think criticism is fair, but put-downs are not.