Yes, I see the main problem with the consideration system is that it doesn't deal with "off topic" at all well. I've been requesting that people not consider nodes for "deletion" (really "reaping") as it doesn't really work very well.

• It makes a lot of work for people to review the nodes and vote whether to keep them or not and then editors to clean up the considerations that don't "pass".
• It usually doesn't happen fast enough to prevent people from replying to the nodes.
• It doesn't really give very informative feed back to the person posting the node of what they did wrong
• I personally don't think it does much at all to discourage an increase in "off topic" nodes. Some could even deem it unfortunate that it prevents the offending noder from continuing to lose XP from downvotes for being off topic (sometimes I consider that a good thing, sometimes a bad thing)
• It leaves a bit of a mess (visually)

Plus, the general feedback I get from a wide variety of monks that I most respect shows a consensus for a dramatic reduction in reaping of nodes. This feedback has gone into the site documentation regarding consideration, What is consideration? (which you can get to indirectly via the "help" link if you have access to the approval nodelet).

Today I see people considering nodes for reaping because they are replies to reaped nodes. I really don't see that as being even close to worth the collective effort involved. But I certainly understand the desire to do "something" rather than what I consider to be the best approach we have right now which is, well, mostly "nothing". That is, don't approve the node and don't reply to it (perhaps /msg the author, complain in the CB, or even downvote it).

I'll think I'll ease up complaining about too many (IMHO) requests for reaping nodes.

What I hope to do is add an option to the consideration system for "off topic" which would, instead of reaping the node, clearly mark it as being "off topic", actively discourage (but not disallow) replying to the node, and disallow (if enough monks with "consideration access" vote for the action) approval of the node for inclusion in any section or the front page. Also, a user setting would control whether or not you even "see" nodes that are deemed to be off topic (probably with a couple of levels between "see everything" and "no trace of off topic nodes" and perhaps even a threshhold for how much consensus is need for you to not see it).

Back to the question you asked. Many, perhaps most, of the nodes that I've seen considered for reasons like "no perl content" or "no effort, no value" have been nodes that I have seen as being at least "Perl related" and as having some value. And, in fact, most of them did not get a strong majority of "delete" votes vs. "keep" votes (though that is hard to draw much of a conclusion from) and so didn't get reaped.

It is easy to ask a question in such a way that a few people will not see any "Perl content" or any "effort"/"value". But I encourage those who don't see these things in a node to take a moment and realize that there are probably quite a few other members here who do see how the question relates to Perl and do see the hidden effort and value.

        - tye (but my friends call me "Tye")