I am (as yet) unaware of what -- and ++ or "consideration rights" are... I'll leave those subjects to others.

I DID do google searches and DID read a lot of stuff, which was either of the commercial "transfer your domain to us and for a fee we will host your domain and give a free web page with a free guest book and pretty pictures and everything variety". Or of the "BIND 4 -v- BIND 8 -v- MS DNS" and "RFC nnnn recommends this and RFC recommends that" variety.

Whilst a professional programmer of many years standing, I am a newbie at Perl, a newbie at server management and a newie here. My reasons for asking (my clearly labelled) OT post here, was because (I thought) that in these hallowed halls, there maybe many who have been throught this learning process and that may be able to short ciruit my climb.

I diliberately lablelled the subject as OFF topic, so those for whom this was a problem could avoid wasting their time by simply skipping over it.

I kept it short (ie. no long explainations of the previous searching I had done in my attempts to find a starting point, nor why I wanted to serve from my own server (cos I want to use it to learn and develop my understanding NOT to most pics of my holidays), so as to avoid wasting any more time of those kind persons that did choose to read my OT question.

And I thanked the kind person that gave me my needle in the (as you stated) "million places on the web" haystack. I would have asked a "more specific question" had I known enough to frame such a question.

The purpose if this post is not to beligerate whomever --'d me - I am guessing as to what that means anyway. I assume it has something to do with the (XP) experience level shown on my "homenode". In another place on a different subject, (actually several) I was the wizard. My purpose here is not to be seen as a wizard, but simply to add a new and interesting string to my bow, and to learn (and maybe help if I get the opportunity).

I will also not defend my choice of this place to ask my question: It seemed like the obvious place.

The real purpose of this post is to simply ask: was my approach to asking an OT question inconsiderate or wrong? Are off topic questions completely disallowed?

Thanks for your time.

i too am a relative newbie here... hence my dismay at the swift and immediately harsh reaction to this thread.

i answered your original post because i had gone through what you were experiencing, and it only took a second. plus, there are surely others with similar concerns.

i think OT 'nodes' (ie, posts, permanent pages) are strictly verboten, but you can ask OT questions in the "Chatterbox" on the left. That interface isn't the greatest, but apparently several people have written other (better?) clients for it..

anyhow, good luck and have fun!

There seems to be a fear among many in the Monastery about OT posts.

The worry is that the whole place will degenerate into a slash like mess of random tangents and flames.

It's one of those things that comes up periodically. Some people will scold you, some might help and many will just downvote it without saying anything. Many think that things that are not Perl related belong strictly in the chatterbox.

Personally, my job involves so many different aspects of programming and Perl being a glue language, I don't mind OT posts. I think it's a problem that should be dealt with when and if it becomes a problem. As long as the signal to noise ratio stays low here, I have no problem just ignoring a post that I don't think is relevant.

I definitely think you took the right tack with the way you worded it "OT - Please don't kick me too hard! ", but while you may have done some research, you couldn't tell from your post. When a generic question is asked here and it doesn't look like the author did any work, it usually falls into the category of homework IMHO.

I think as you spend some more time here, you'll get a better feel for how things work and worst case your node will be reaped or you might lose some XP, I wouldn't sweat it. There are some great Perl hackers here willing to help you on your path to Perl enlightenment. You can learn a lot here , even if you already know a lot.

As you are new here, you will probably find the Perl Monks guide to the Monastery and Perl Monks Site FAQ helpful.

-Lee

"To be civilized is to deny one's nature."

++ for that.

As I said in the chatterbox, there's a line to be drawn between offtopic as in discussing Star Wars or the latest Britney Spears single, and offtopic as in discussing, in this case, server management related tasks. There are many things that while not Perl related themselves, are tangential to a task that involves Perl in some way or other. As such, and this was definitely such a question, they're most likely of interest and relevance to more than a handful of monks in their hacking time. So long as the amount of such posts does not water down the focus of the monastery, I believe they do a lot more good than harm. It's ok. Not tolerating trash doesn't mean we have to hit the other extreme of being totally uptight.

Makeshifts last the longest.