Recently, I posted a question because I couldn't figure out the answer for myself. I figured that I couldn't be the only one who'd faced this particular issue, and came to the monastary for advice. I was pleasantly surprised when I got some immediate responses. Apparantly, I had run into a common problem, as there were a lot of responses and some good advice. The next day, I logged into perlmonks again and got an unexpected message: "You gained 64 experience points!" I checked my profile and found that a lot of people had found my question worthwhile. As a matter of fact, I made the Best Nodes for the first time.

The point is that while I didn't have any answers, I raised a problem that many other monks had also experienced. By asking the question, I provided a place for people to weigh in with their answers. Can you honestly say that my question added nothing to the Monastary?

What we've got here is a different way of teaching. Instead of a lecturer holding forth on a topic for 45 minutes and taking questions for a few minutes, a large group of people make themselves available for questions and publish their answers. If you have a question, you can search to see if it's already been asked. With any luck, it has been, and there will be several answers waiting for you.

If you still feel that questions are voted too high, I recommend that you check out Worst Nodes. You'll see some real losers there. For example, here's Saturday's worst node of the day. Ouch.

-Logan
"What do I want? I'm an American. I want more."