Linking it to XP I thought might introduce a fun element and might even replace the adage 'XP does not mean anything.' with something like 'XP is in the eye of the beholder. Get it out with Optrex.'

Linking it to XP

Linking what to XP? XP doesn't mean anything, and the amount XP acquired will grow over time, as long as you are active. Witness the various XP related threads where lots of people write they regulary spend all their votes, even giving people votes for no other reason than making the effort to post - regardless of the content.

Abigail

Linking what to XP?

just because XP doesn't mean anything doesn't mean that you cannot use those inbuilt levels for another purpose. It is totally immaterial that a current level of XP has no meaning. All you have to say is "what if it did?" If you decide that 'sainthood' actually depicts a state of knowledge where a monk can come across most types of perl problem and have a good bash at solving them, and a perl initiate vaguely knows that Larry Wall isn't some kind of building then you've ascribed values where once there were none. But so what - where is the big deal?

For a very insignificant leap of faith youve arrived at a scenario where monks (particularly at a lower to intermediate level) can enter designated areas where wherever they turn they find elements of perl which are at or close to the level they are at - almost like a perl womb! I think that would be a pretty neat thing to achieve.

Of course a side effect would be that XP would start to be associated with knowledge levels rather than just showing up to the site, and I have suggested a purely voluntary means of allowing for that. I don't say the idea is complete or even achievable with the site in its current form jeffa has already lectured me on that :). I just felt the idea was worthy of discussion

I'm sorry if you disagree

Hey, I believe I have a script for that:

perl -e 'print "XP does not mean anything.\n" while 1'
[download]

Later