There have been several posts on the site recently regarding the merits, or lack thereof, of adding a "code for hire" area to the site.

• Special paid section for 'write me a program' posts
• Idea for 'Code wanted section'

From what I have seen, the concept has recieved mixed reviews with some very solid discussions around the issues of responsibility, liability, etc. You seem to fall clearly in the camp against providing that type of assistance. I concur, but not primarily for the reasons you may think.

I think the key to helping people understand what PerlMonks is all about is to explain to them that we are a community that provides developer-to-developer help. This is a place for Perl coders to come learn and get assistance with coding issues. While there may be some generous souls here willing to help out, developer-to-business support ( hereafter "d2b") is not our goal. Developer education is. For that reason, I think d2b solutions would be more appropriate on another site.

So what about the people that do come here seeking d2b help?

"...I wonder that maybe it would be an improvement if it was declared on the frontpage or another place often seen, that perlmonks is a community, not a place where people can come and demand that we supply free code."

What worries me about your proposal is that:

• The Monastery Gates would start looking like a legal document. Once we start adding one disclaimer, more are sure to follow.
• Confronting new users with such verbiage could be rather off-putting. It could give the impression that the site is not assistance friendly, and discourage individuals seeking dev-to-dev help from joining.
• Some people are going to ignore it, or try to phrase their request in such a way as to appear that they are asking for dev-to-dev help.

Does anyone else find it annoying that people who want free code use a search engine with a couple of keywords and find this site and assume that we write complete programs for free?

Search engines are there for a reason: finding things. They are only as good as the search data entered by the seeker. Since PerlMonks is a key site within the Perl community, chances are that someone with d2b interests is going to run across it, and may make some assumptions as to the purpose of the site. Rather than burying the site under fine print to try to discourage d2b inquiries, why not do what we do for everyone else that comes into the site: welcome them, refer them to our introductory nodes (i.e. Guide to the Monastery and Perl Monks Site FAQ) and then direct them to the appropriate resources such as http://jobs.perl.org/.

And as for posting a reply to his post or /msg'ing him, I'd rather not. If he's here to be a part of the site, then he'll come across this post himself :)

Noticing that a new user's node has been blown away, and then not providing an explanation when the opportunity arises is just bad community relations, even/especially if it is a business. Why give them the cold shoulder? They may eventually decide that a solution is worth paying for, but after the chilly reception they may dismiss Perl and turn to something like (shudder) Visual Basic. Think of your fellow Perl developers. :)

++Acolyte Here, here! Kerry


"Yet what are all such gaieties to me

Whose thoughts are full of indices and surds?"

quotes the Lama

The first time I read your post I saw db2 instead of d2b and wondered why you were worried about people asking database questions :)

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Yeah, that probably would have looked better as dev-to-busn, huh? I was trying to save keystrokes in a post that was starting to get a bit long. :-)

Acolyte
Studying at the feet of the masters

If this becomes a common occurence here, then I suppose we could do something like that. I am not sure there are other examples of posts as blatantly ignorant as this one, are there?

BTW, re-reading that again, it seems quite harsh. As a community, we ARE here to help out anyone who might come along with needs, it's just the extent to which some people expect us to work for no pay is depressing. If you want a complete program, offer me some money and I'll consider the offer. Give me a huge list of things you want done for free, with no effort of your own towards the project (ie: no outline or plan, no example code, etc) and I'm much more likely to refuse on the spot.

Give me a huge list of things you want done for free, with no effort of your own ... and I'm much more likely to refuse on the spot.

Where's the problem? If you don't want to write code for others who ask for it in this manner, don't. If others do, they can. If not, they won't.

The line defining what is asking too much is never clearly defined. Let each user decide how much they want to help. If you want money to help, fine, but what's the purpose of this thread? To discuss yet another topic to death that is entirely subjective and can be easily decided on an individual basis?

Maybe if you had a suggestion like a notice on the preview page stating effective ways to ask questions there would be some point to this thread. As I see it now, there isn't one. Correct me if you feel different.

The first time I visited the Monastery, more than two years ago, it seemed to me that I had to pay to get answers... Well, English is not my primary language and may be I was tired, but are you sure that clueless visitors hasn't the same first impression?

Ciao, Valerio

Hmmm. It may have just been a poor choice of wording that led to a misunderstanding.

The poster doesn't actually say that he/she wants the script for free, or even that someone here should provide it.

Perhaps they were asking for advice on where to look for programs or programmers, assuming people here would know.

I agree they should really have looked around the site a little more first before posting though.