> I'm afraid that people will find this post ambiguous or superfluous because it doesn't directly stake out a position on, attempt to resolve, or even address some epic conflict that they personally care about.

I found your post to be a thoughtful read, full of much good advice for everyone here to follow, and not superfluous at all. One doesn't have to take a stand or choose sides to resolve a problem, on the contrary: the best mediators are often those who remain the most neutral.

> ...I don't know if the amount backstabbing, bitterness, and open hostility on Perl Monks is typical...

Actually, the only place I really have an issue with what you're saying here is this. The events that tilly has relayed may or may not be true. The site admin, St. vroom checked the voting records and apparently this did not happen. Our happy medium, neshura (read her stance on this particular issue) has been investigating with tilly and vroom. I have not heard any further news from her at this point, but hopefully (hint, hint) she'll post an update soon. Ozymandias has made some very good arguments against (I hate to say 'against', but he truly is playing the role of Devil's Advocate) tilly's case here and here.

To summarize most of the above linked posts, tilly feels singled out and purposefully voted down because of a post he made in response to mt2k's Goodbye! post. Mathematically speaking, however, it is very difficult for one person to make much of an impact because of how the voting system is set up. However, if such a thing truly happened, it is indicative of the growing clique atomosphere (btrott has an excellent read about this) and 'ill-health' you have described for us. This is no doubt a Bad Thing. However, due to the growing user base, and The Way People Are, I do not believe there is much we can do about it. Or even, for that matter, that "we" SHOULD do something about it.

While it's true there was an issue with merlyn (read "Running with scissors") last week, that has long since been resolved and we are very happy to have him back and hackin'. There is also currently an issue with mt2k, and who knows where that stands.

> Here's hoping that this post will generate comment from all the Perl Monks, and that we will be civil while discussing civility.

Constructive, yes. Civil remains to be seen. :-) My only regret so far is that you posted this as Anonymous Monk, so I have no idea who you are!

Alakaboo

You have incorrectly stated my position.

I responded in the goodbye thread after I felt singled out and purposefully voted down. I responded because several people were privately telling me that I was far from the first person this had happened to. In that post I made that as clear as I knew how to. I knew when I posted that that it would be controversial. In fact my first action after submitting was to go to the chatterbox and type:

/me just made a sad situation worse, hopefully for some long-term bene
+fit...
[download]

As for neshura, I indeed had a conversation with her. One thing she thought would be good would be for me to show up on IRC. I mentioned firewall issues. I wound up that conversation with saying that I needed some time to reply to her post since my reply would answer a number of things she was asking. My reply is at RE (4): Goodbye! (regarding the shadow conspiracy). I have not heard back from her since posting that, but I expect to and I look forward to continuing that discussion either in public or in private and getting her feedback.

Incidentally one question has to be whether I am lying about what happened. Well I have said that I will not name names, so it comes down to a question of how much personal integrity I have. Of course I do not have enough history here to answer that. OTOH anyone who wants can follow the link to IWETHEY where I have a substantial accumulated history and spend as long as you want looking at things that BTilly has said there. Heck, you could even post there to get opinions on my honesty!

I am confident that the reports you will get should lay in a deep, dark grave any doubt that I would make something like this up. Now the people who gave me their take on the situation may have been mistaken either on their details or the correct interpretations of past events. I am in a worse position than most to decide that. But I am not making stuff up. Really.

I am only a perl monks initiate, but I've been lurking around for over 2-3 weeks now. And I've yet to see any sign of personal vendetta or conflicts. The closest thing to a conflict that I've seen, was some critism on Merlyn, because he wasn't polite in his explanations to newbies posts. The argument ended with Merlyn stepping back a few levels from saint. But nowhere in the discussion did anybody react in an uncivilised manner.

On your point on internet communities, I can assure that there are communities with more hostilities. And yes this community has its more influential users. Those peoples opinions have more impact than others. But as demonstrated by the Merlyn example they are alsow more monitored by others, who are not afraid to make remarks if they see anything that they think is not correct.

The points you made about:

1. Vote on nodes, not on people.
2. A terse reply to a post is better than no reply at all
3. Constructive adjectives that are sometimes unjustly criticized
4. Gratuitous adjectives that are sometimes praised as "critical": stupid, careless
5. Remember that the Perl Monks community is about sharing Perl knowledging
6. All members of Perl Monks should be made to feel welcome, with the proviso that no one should be exempt from fair criticism

1. Judge someone's work by the work not the person
2. Does some one have responsibilities when she/he is helping someone else.
3. Political Correctness
4. Political Correctness
5. On topic versus Offtopic discussions (e.g. in NewsGroups)
6. Freedom of opinion versus hospitality

IMO anyone will have the same opinion about an issue in PM as about their real life equivalent. So the problems in PM are the same as in any real life community.

I wouldn't say that personal battles and backstabbing are not present in PM. As any community, it can't be immume. But I would say that they are not frequent in this community that grew out of the intention to help other people.

The argument ended with Merlyn stepping back a few levels from saint.

I have to point out that while that result did happen, the reason that Merlyn stepped down, was his own decision to have his initial 1,000,000 experience points removed.

Take a look at Should Perl Gurus (Wall,Schwartz,Christiansen et al) receive mega XP based on who they are

Anyhoo, nice post, Old_Belge - I just wanted to point out that Merlyn choose not to keep his mega XP.

I haven't been on Perlmonks the last two days, but do we actually have open hostility and backstabbing here ?

I have seen people here who could have worded their responses to newbie (and not-so newbie) posts more helpfull and maybe less offensive, but I've always attributed that to carelessness and not outright hostility - not that I welcome either, but ... Looking back, I only know of one flame / hostility against merlyn, and that one was made by an Anonymous Monk.

For backstabbing, I understand backstabbing as a corporate tactic to advance your own position by setting up somebody else in a bad light without his/her knowing - I wonder how this could take place here, but maybe my translation of the word is plain wrong...

I don't think that the conflict and search of direction Perlmonks is currently in can be resolved quickly. Our community grows at a rapid rate so there will be different expectations on what the community is to be, but I hope that Perlmonks will hold together as a whole and find the right direction.

Re: My misrepresentation of tilly's position

<cite> I'm sure that some people have decided after reading this far which side I'm on. Frankly, I don't understand the politics here well enough to know whether I'm on a side or not. </cite>

I suppose this remark was seen as disingenuous. I assure you it was not.

Re: Personal voting attacks

I read a few remarks in different threads about sudden voting activity on long-inactive nodes and rashly concluded that it was an acknowledged phenomenon: mea culpa. I meant to comment on this phenomenon, rather than on the contexts in which I heard about it. (Incidentally, I know a little about math and a little about people, and I don't think it's either mathematically or psychologically far-fetched. It only requires a few small-minded people, not a shadow conspiracy. Thanks to the senior monks for taking the time to investigate these reports. I'm interested in knowing whether or not the phenomenon is real, but I'm not keen on any of the proposed remedies.)

Re: Mutated versions of real-life issues

<cite> The points you made about: .... Seem to be mutated versions of real life issues: .... </cite> I would prefer to say that my points commented on some of the issues you listed. As for being "mutated..." I kinda like that :-) Let's hope these mutated, recombinated, crossed-over ideas achieve memetic success in rough proportion to their value to the Perl Monks community.

Re: My anonymity

This may have been a mistake. Frankly, I'm doing it again only out of sheer embarrassment. Although I hinted at some paranoid fear as the reason, this was just me being cynical about myself, accusing myself of cowardice because I didn't trust what I'm pretty sure now was a pure and noble reason. My Perl skills are progressing slowly, mainly because I don't use Perl at work, and therefore I can't contribute much to Perl Monks. Nice posts on etiquette always get high rep because they're mostly uncontroversial and touch on issues that affect everyone. As a parasitic Novice, I wanted to reassure myself that I was motivated by genuine affection for the community rather than just milking the Perl Monks esprit de corps for XP.

Re: Action and enforcement

I didn't mean to imply that reforms were needed to the voting system, and I agree that none of the suggestions I made are enforceable. In fact, I'm very conservative about the voting system, and I doubt that any measure taken to improve voter behavior would be worth the trouble and loss of voting freedom.

Re: My apparently dark view of the Perl Monks community

My concern was sincere, but I must have been feeling particularly pessimistic at the time of my post. Given the size and vitality of the community, my reference to <cite> the amount backstabbing, bitterness, and open hostility on Perl Monks </cite> blew the problem out of proportion. If I wasn't having a ball on PM, I wouldn't care enough to do this. vroom says, <cite> I think it is safe to say that no one I have talked to has been happy to see anyone leave this site. </cite> That eases my worries considerably.

Thanks for your input, everybody, and God bless!

<AOL> <AOL> <AOL>

(Apologies to those who don't get the joke.)

To answer your question, I have been a member of a large variety of online communities for the better part of a decade. (Long enough to remember the Endless September that started that joke.) It is a commonly noted phenomena that some people, as soon as they are no longer directly faced with a real live person, feel free to become far nastier than they would ever be face to face. The more anonymous the forum, the stronger this effect is.

Your observations about the effects of this are spot on, and I am impressed that you said it so well. I doubt that there is anyone with extensive online experience here who does not both know this and who cannot point to communities which have suffered damage as a result.

Needless to say, I vote by node, and I voted for this one. :-)

wasn't one of the points that was made by the node that you praise that you should vote on nodes, not on people? if you appreciated the node, then ++ it! I am sure the person who wrote it will appreciate it none the less...

I make it a habit not to vote for AM posts, especially from established members. I personally feel that we have freedom of speech, but we also have responsiblity of speech.

If someone feels the need to say something, they should stand up and accept the rewards or backlash.

Had this node been attached to a real person, willing to stand up and take the resulting votes (++ or --) from this post, I would have voted ++ for its content and its courage.

As it is, I have lost a little respect in the writer, as they feel unwilling to take the consequences of their actions.

UPDATE:

I don't believe in the anonymous nature of the internet. I truly believe that the 1st Ammendment comes with a price, and that price is the responsibility of standing behind one's actions or words. I do not post anonymously, nor do I believe people should be able to hide behind a cloak of anonymity.

If anyone has anything they wish to say to me, say it. We Americans have every right to say what we want, but we need to have the guts to stand up for it and defend it. Our freedoms were bought with the blood of many, so don't dishonor those men and women by abusing your freedoms.

J. J. Horner
Linux, Perl, Apache, Stronghold, Unix
jhorner@knoxlug.org http://www.knoxlug.org/

You do have a very good point. Since my votes have been
used up for the day, I can do it tomorrow.

TStanley

I've been of the opinion that perlmonks has a lot LESS
personal-agenda/flamewar than the rest of the internet
but maybe MORE than there is in the real world.

i think it's just an aspect of the medium that we're
dealing in. when ALL the layers of nonverbal communication
are stripped away from human interaction (i'm refering
specifically to those supplicating gestures which are used
to diffuse a situation: smiling, looking down and away,
assuming a non hostile position). We (Many people) immediately
conjure a mental image of body language to fit the words
the linguistic nature of english is (probably) such that
in normal conversation words that come across (with body language)
as fine, comes across (without BL) as aggressive *****

***** note: while i have a B.A (Hns) in Psychology and have
taken many courses on the subject of nonverbal communication
i haven't actually researched this specific topic (although now
think that a doctoral dissertation could be written on the effects
of removing NVC from human interaction)

strictly an educated geuss ... the shorter (and safer) answer would
be: 'conflict is more likely on the net because of the lack of NVC'

PS: thanks ... it feels good to get to talk psychology every once in a
while. with all computer programming i tend to miss it from time to time

    :) - alex

Ivory