I'm another one who has, as far as I can remember, never asked anything on clpm. I've been a professional coder for over fifteen years, most of it in perl for the last six or seven.

The signal/noise ratio of usenet turned me off news many years ago now, and I'm sure I'm not alone in this. One of the reasons I've fallen for perlmonks in the last few months. Nice to come across a vaguely sane community ;-)

I'm sure I am not the only one with that viewpoint so you might be cutting of some useful people.

The same applies to looking for membership in perlmonks or similar communities. I've known and worked with some truly excellent developers who do not have the time or inclination to spend time with online communities - they tell me that they have these things called "real lives" and "families" when they're not at work :-)

You can use the net as extra evidence that would encourage you to interview a particular person - but, personally, I would never use the lack of an online presence as a reason not to interview (absense of evidence is not evidence of absense and all that...)

As for advice...

Publish some good modules

Being able to point to some useful CPAN modules that you've written is always impressive (again, not conclusive, I've only ever thrown a couple up since my past employers have been rather harsh on the IP front - one of the advantages of running your own business is that you can afford to be more generous).

Think twice before you flame

I always do a search on peoples e-mail address when I get a CV - but this is only to remove people who prove themselves idiots from their own posts (and I'm generous and ignore posts over two years old - some people do mature :-)

Don't lie on your CV (or resume for the americans :-)

Really. I mean it. Nothing pisses of an interviewer more. Don't write anything down that you can't backup with solid knowledge. We'll find out in the interview and laugh at you afterwards (or possibly during).