Perl is the language and perl is the program, so in short.. PERL is not used (..and I have edited my title ;).

> Also, do you have a designated person to welcome newcomers?

Many of us welcome newcomers answering to their first post, and being true what haj said, there are some Monks Orders to keep the monastery clean and enjoyable.

> I see that a balance between quantity and quality is important for survival.

I have a little list you can be intersted in: Perl is dead.. and in the last 20 years I always seen people saying that Perl is diying or already dead.. it seems to me well alive and somehow rebirthing. This does not means it is a fashion language for managers.

Perl is very stable, super supported, runs almost everywhere and it has probably the best repository in respect to other language: CPAN. You can glance a (non comprensive) list of selected best modules at Task::Kensho

From a Larry interview (ok is bit old, but booking, duck-duck go, opensrs.. many big companies still use Perl heavily or mainly):

    Marjorie: Who is using Perl and how are they using it?

    Larry: A couple of years ago, I ran into someone at a trade show w
+ho was representing the NSA (National Security Agency). 
    He mentioned to someone else in passing that he'd written a filter
+ program in Perl, so without telling him who I was, I asked him
    if I could tell people that the NSA uses Perl. His response was, “
+Doesn't everyone?” 
    So now I don't tell people the NSA uses Perl. I merely tell people
+ the NSA thinks everyone uses Perl. They should know, after all.
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L*