Why have XP/karma/whathaveyou? Because every community I am aware of has a way of showing worth and praise/disagreement, and PM is no exception. Here, that praise or disagreement is shown by awarding XP of positive or negative values, respectively, by individuals, and worth to the community by awarding XP for participation and working in the community.

The only reasonable way to look at XP for a posting is do more people seem to think it was useful/interesting/whatever than that it was drivvle/trash/waste of bits/whatever. As to an individual, it is not an inditement of their person but an indication of the regard the community seems to hold for them with respect to the community only!

Most of the computer people I have met don't do this stuff so much for the money, but because they enjoy it, and they love being a part of something bigger than themselves.

As to "control" on the site, I would venture that the people who have some additional responsibility to the site are those who have contributed, and worked for the good of the site, and shown themselves to be worthy of the responsibilities they have been entrusted with.

Point is, if someone wants to become someone "in control" for control's sake, then they want it for the wrong reasons. If they want to undertake the responsibility for helping improve the site, then they should work to show thyself approved, for "whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted."

if xp doesn't matter, then why have it?

In general, the more XP someone has, the more they've contributed to the site (by adding features, answering questions, posting interesting meditations, considering nodes, etc). So, XP looks like recognition for frequent and valued contributors.

And more to the point, why base who controls this site on it?

Sorta the other way around, IMHO. The people who make frequent, valued contributions (and get noticed) end up as gods or pmdevelopers or editors, and -- oh my! -- they also have high XP. (Or did you mean consideration in general?)

--
The hell with paco, vote for Erudil!
/msg me if you downvote this node, please.
:wq

In general, the more XP someone has, the more they've contributed to the site (by adding features, answering questions, posting interesting meditations, considering nodes, etc). So, XP looks like recognition for frequent and valued contributors.

Well, that's not the impression I get. If I look at how much XP a post gets, the fastest way of getting XP is by asking popular questions. Especially questions which aren't really Perl related, but more web related. And of course posts with short wrong answers are often valued more than longer, correct answers - because they appear to be more 'unfriendly'.

If you would put any worth to XP measurement, it's only a popularity measurement. It doesn't appear to have to do anything with "useful contributions" (if you would consider "correct answers" to be useful).

And that's all I do with XP. See how popular certain posts are.

Abigail

while many people tend to say that XP does not matter, they actually do not think so. They're lying to themselves! I know this feeling!
Yes, when you have as much XP as 400+ you do not really bother about a few XP--.

People tend to say that they do not bother about money if they have them enough. Also they tend to say that they do not bother about money when they do not have money at all.

This is not a overall analogy, but when you'll add some other functionality, as allocating several resource for XP, and exchange XP for some help from other person, you'll see something dfifferent.

After thinking about this, I can say that currently XP system is like a communism:
 1. Everyone gives what it wants, no pay (he gets answers to his questions)
 2. XP number does not matter, as money do not matter in communism society
 3. Despite of said before, while XP does not matter, persons with many XP points, among equal ones inside society, are "more" ones than anothers: they have power to analyse and "repress" them.

I lived in USSR and can confirm many similarities to it.

Do I need to explain why I'm here as "Anonymous monk"?

mass "--" thus leading of decreasing of XP is of no concern here, I'm not bothering about XP :)