I find the Chatterbox is good for finding resources, rather than getting explicit help. Asking "does anyone know of some good online cookie references?" is more likely to get the desired response than "can anyone help me with cookies?", and can be just as useful. Finding the right FM is half the battle.

(As for asking specific questions, CB can be good for that, too, with the longer texts and bits of code posted to the participants' scratch pads. It's more of a pain for the participants, but it's less invasive to people who aren't interested and doesn't clutter up search results with non-Perl nodes. It also avoids the inevitable "DELETE: no Perl" considerations, and arguments like this one. :-)

I'm of two minds about establishing an off-topic section. On the one hand, there are a lot of brilliant people here, who could probably answer a lot more than just Perl questions. On the other hand, there are other appropriate fora for off-topic questions. Usenet, for instance. You could ask a question about radiosity rendering in this hypothetical new section, and I'd do my best to answer it, and so would a few other monks... but it would really be better off (and probably better answered) in comp.graphics.

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F o x t r o t U n i f o r m

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