Re: Not Perl questions

I think it's a bad idea. Sorry :-)

In my experience nothing ruins a focused online community quicker than encouraging off-topic posts.

There are many other places people can discuss non-Perl topics. The people who are interested in those things here will also be in those other communities. If you're interested in Java go to javajunkies; If you're interested in CSS go to css-discuss; etc.

If we encouraged off-topic posts we would be adding noise to perlmonks that many people would not be interested in, and reducing the utility of other communities by "stealing" useful content.

Comment on Re: Not Perl questions

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Re: Re: Not Perl questions by nite_man (Deacon) on Jun 19, 2003 at 15:43 UTC
Maybe you are right. I've never had experience like your. Maybe I've really got used to our monastery and others resources seem for me a little uninviting ... -------------------------------- SV* sv_bless(SV* sv, HV* stash);	[reply]
Re^3: Not Perl questions by adrianh (Chancellor) on Jun 20, 2003 at 12:48 UTC
Maybe I've really got used to our monastery and others resources seem for me a little uninviting ... Most places are a little uninviting until you get used to them. I was put off perlmonks for the longest time because of the ghastly user-interface (sorry - my usability hat is showing :-). I'm now glad I took the effort. To argue it from the opposite end - you'll get far better answers to non-Perl questions in more appropriate groups. While I'm sure there are many people here who know a fair bit of Java/CSS/whatever I can guarantee that there are more people with more expertise in an online community that is explicitly focused on a particular topic. Ask a CSS related question here and you're not going to get Eric Meyer pitching in an answer, you will on css-discuss. Just like you're unlikely to get a (probably fairly pithy :-) response from merlyn or Abigail-II if you asked a Perl question on, for the sake of a random example, the apache users list. Even worse, you might get an incorrect or non-optimal answer. Just because somebody knows a lot about managing apache, doesn't mean they know a lot about perl (or vice versa).	[reply]