Some may think I went overboard by removing all of my XP, some of these some may think I did it for attention or as an outcry. Some may think I really haven't changed over the years. Some may actually understand my side of things (I know of one person right now). For those who don't have a clue, I give a quick description:

I've seen far too many monks put too much thought and importance into the voting and experience system here. Some see it as so important that they put this system ahead of what the site's main purpose is: a place to share knowledge about perl. You can tell this is true by all this discussion over what I did. "Oh my god, why'd he do it?! He's not a Pontiff anymore!". What's your point? What is the difference between a Pontiff and an Initiate? As far as my mind's eye can see, there is none whatsoever. There is some change in functionality (home node image, ability to vote on nodes, as well as approving/frontpaging/considering them) and that is about it. User level says nothing about experience as a perl programmer. Much of it is a popularity contest, simple as that.

I read over my chatterbox logs this morning and was astonished by the amount of talk that spread from my little incident. Suddenly, just because I am sick and tired of running around perlmonks playing a mix between an RPG and a MUD, I am "breaking the rules", "taking away power from the gods", "becoming the bum of the Monastery". Give me a break guys. I just want perlmonks to be closer to what it was when I showed up here back in 2000: a place for sharing knowledge. Back then, we did have user levels and experience, but it wasn't pushed as far as it is now. Nobody really put much into the XP. Nowadays, most users who have been around long enough say that XP isn't worth anything, but they still continue to run around with votes, going "omg, I just made 10000 XP!", etc etc.

Games are fun, but I'd enjoy having somewhere I can go during the day that doesn't have to be a game. theorbtwo has already set my XP to 0 and removed my ability to vote (all as per my request). He couldn't find the option that he believes exists to stop XP accumulation from upvotes on nodes and for logging in, so my XP will apparently still climb. For the time being, I'll suffer with that much. And to spare everyone the hassle of an additional topic revolving around me, I've removed my home node image, since that goes against the 'rules' here. It's only an image, I can live without that.

And for what it's worth, should anyone really care, I would have made Saint aeons ago had I chosen to.

In reply to Re: Can a Pontiff become an initiate in one night? by Coruscate
in thread Can a Pontiff become an initiate in one night? by Anonymous Monk

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