What kind of inappreciative, insensitive jerk does it take to come up with a post like this and call it "discussion"? Why didn't people read with a little more consideration of the overall situation and either not vote or vote -- instead of voting for it? Now the fact that one person (bladx in this case) would write something like that doesn't bother me. In a large group of people you expect to have someone around like that. The fact that the post got to +50 (which will encourage him to write more insensitive garbage) does bother me.

Now the thesis of his post is that there should be a public todo list of items that are being worked on for PerlMonks. This should be there as a visible audit of vroom et al. It isn't that the proposal is so bad. It is a little thoughtless when you consider that the site is losing money, vroom has been laid off from the company which developed it, and our beloved site is now a charity case with volunteer time from vroom, and very uncertain funding. But it is the details of his 3 arguments for, and 3 against which really bothered me. Please follow both the original and my summary of them.

Arguments For

1. We need to make it easier for people to know what is already suggested so they can think up more work! Ummm..no. We don't. There is no shortage of necessary work that needs to be done to run this place. We don't need to add a stream of creative demands on non-existent resources.
2. We need to audit vroom to see that he is doing what he is supposed to! Remember, the site is great because we are here, and so they owe us! WTF? Tim Vroom, the primary developer of PerlMonks, has been laid off. Do you understand? The world does not owe you. Is this a mystery? The fact that we have a site is because the company that got burned developing it has turned it over as a charity case to a foundation with lots of ideas but a distinct lack of funds. The fact that it is still being run is due to vroom volunteering to do so even though he has a life and a job that have nothing to do with PerlMonks. He is not commissioned by you to do anything here. That is a gift. And when you give people who are giving you a gift with lectures on how much they owe you and not vice versa, they tend to get upset and stop giving you gifts. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy the site. I think it is great. I get value. That makes me a customer, not an owner. I am not owed for that. Why can't you understand that?
3. We need to be able to vote on a priority list to set vroom's marching orders. Excuse me? Have we hired vroom? Are we paying his bills? Not the last that I looked!

Arguments Against

1. People could use Super Search to see if people have suggested what they are going to suggest. Again you presume that people should be generating a constant stream of suggestions for ways to add to the value of this site. Funny, I happen to think that the site works fairly well. There also aren't a lot of resources to satisfy these demands. If you really have a feature that you want to add to the site, then do as jcwren did. Build it somewhere else and let everyone know that it exists. In fact jcwren has another gift to offer - he has hosting services and hardware available. If you want something, go build it! Don't bitch and complain.
2. Would there be enough things to put on the list? Again note the presumption that our priority is getting a lot of marching order to vroom. This is completely ass backwards. As was pointed out, the true value in this site is in its content. My top concern is whether the site will be here by this time next year. Don't be complacent, the site could fold quite easily. Of course minor details like paying your way are easily forgotten by 17 year old kids who may never have had a real job. But the people who are running this site don't have that luxury. If they don't have money, they may have to shut down. (Have you donated?)
3. Perhaps the people running the site just want to be lazy. Were I vroom my response to this would basically be, f*ck you. Take a bloody look at this site. Building something like this takes a lot of work. It wasn't laziness that got this built and going. And then after putting in all of this work, vroom got laid off. But he cares about the project so he puts in even more time, on a voluntary basis, just to keep it going. And you have the gall to accuse him of not working hard enough? For this little gem and this little gem alone, my -- vote was guaranteed.

Now it is no secret, last night I had an enjoyable dinner with several PerlMonks, vroom included. We barely raised the subject of this post. He apparently saw it, got annoyed at the tone and didn't finish reading it.

That makes him a better man than me. Had I been in vroom's shoes, I would have read it and flamed immediately. As things stand I still read it, let it stew for a day, then ranted anyways. And why am I ranting? Because this lazy and arrogant, "The world owes me the treats I want!" attitude is something I have disliked for as long as I can remember. And I don't want to see the Discussions section of the Monastery filled up with that attitude.

My final question is this. Why did people vote it up? If you voted for it, please explain. Are you unaware that the Monastery is in trouble? Did you read the accusations of laziness etc and agree? Did you just see that it was long and fairly coherent, then vote ++ for the typing effort? Did it not occur to you that, given that the suggestion is unlikely to go anywhere, the only real value of the post might be XP Whoring? WTF were you thinking???

Because bladx is not the problem. The problem is that the feedback that he has apparently gotten for this is mainly positive, which won't exactly toilet train him into not dumping more crap like this. In fact if he has the instincts of your basic XP whore, he will be encouraged to continue in this vein! And likewise other people who read it, and see the response, will be encouraged to try their hands at it. And that we don't need.