1. What problems have afflicted PerlMonks historically by the lack of an OT section and(or) the presence of OT posts in other sections?

   1. The instant reaction to this: Perl Restfull call by Angular JS not working

      The Perl-relatedness is clearly defined in the OP; but still the instant reaction to the question is dismissively negative: "That's off-topic; take your silly question elsewhere."

   2. All the post's that I (and many others, but I have a feel for the occurrence with my own posts) that have been prevented from reaching a wider audience, by their languishing unresolved in the consideration process -- for being off-topic; even when they weren't.

      An example of this "languishing" is your consideration of the OP of this thread. There it sits; unable to be front-paged (not that it necessarily should be; but that's not the point) despite that an 8 to 2 majority have given their verdict. (The wrong verdict in my opinion; but that's by-the-by also :)

      I don't have any easy way to cite or reference them; but no doubt a god could if they so desired.

   3. The fact that I felt the need to avoid posting -- and the need to resort to the totally unsatisfactory CB+SP process -- the Javascript question I mentioned in Re^4: [OT] How about an Off Topic Section? (CB+SP).

2. How will the existence of an OT section mitigate these problems?

   1. It removes the doubt about what we can ask.
   2. It removes the incentive for using the consideration process on the basis of "it's off-topic".
   3. Those people for whom anything not directly Perl-related is an insult to their sensibilities; or a drain on their time to read; or whatever other reason why we have to: a) show perl-relatedness; b) label stuff [OT] would know not to look.

3. What are the potential negative consequences of having an OT section?

   1. I'll steal salva's answer to that: I don't know if adding a new OT section to the repository is going to result in any overall improvement. What I know is that doing it is not going to harm it or anybody. What's the worst that could happen? an overwhelming number of off-topic questions?
   2. None.

4. By what metrics do the gains (#2) outweigh the negatives (#3)?

   Any gain - zero loss == gain!

5. Please take care adequately to address the distinction between experiences of the site from the poster's perspective and from the readers' perspective.

   I think the distinction is mostly artificial, and implicitly biased.

   Who is this place designed for? Is it the assistance of the posters? Or the entertainment of the readers?

   The reality is that you cannot have one without the other.

   But, you have to bias the balance in favour of the active versus the passive; the newbie versus the incumbent; the new-school versus the old-school; the "I've a problem I need help with" versus the "It's not a problem that I want to read about".

   To do otherwise is to ensure the steady and inexorable decline of this place into a 1960s or even 1860s Gentleman's club of ol'foggies discussing their glorious pasts.

   For every question one Monk considers [sic] off-topic; there are likely half a dozen other Monks for whom it is their daily bread & butter and would relish sharing their knowledge.

Are there limits to the subjects that should be discussed? Sure. But I think that the best solution to most of them is to simply let them go unanswered.

Or if they are so unrelated that we don't want there to be any answers, then simply freeze them in-place. That is, prevent any further interaction with them.