The numbers of people that can in any way qualify as experts in the former is in the order of 10 or 20.

These 10 or 20 already use a very smart filter to read Perlmonks: it's called “other people.” At least, I'm pretty sure Larry doesn't always pop up in such a timely fashion simply because of an amazing capability to stay on top of Perlmonks.

Further, the number of people currently interested in Perl6 or Parrot simply doesn't warrant a section. How many SoPWs about Parrot have been you seeing per month? About Perl6?

P6 and Parrot have (almost) none of these.

They have a few central and centralized resources. That is a perfectly purposeful arrangement while the interest is mainly on the hacking (whether language or implementation) rather than using end of things.

And please don't conflate this with the long-standing issue of the cruftiness of the current section structure. That's an entirely different bag of tricks. If it is at all relevant, then only to show that we shouldn't be quick to create sections.

I've argued before on many an occasion that we shouldn't have a Perl6 section and I remain firmly in that camp. I've administrated a board, moderated at several others, and been a regular at countless more. The trend is always plainly visible: the readers of a board always ask for more forums for various things they think would make a cool topic. But the mere wish for there to be lots of discussion about a topic one considers cool doesn't mean there will be any, and where the administrators are inexperienced enough to create such forums before there is a pressing need to divide up topics to keep things orderly, these new areas usually remain barren and empty. At some boards, the administrators did such a thorough job of pre-categorizing discussion that they effectively balkanized all contribution, ending up with a board consisting of 40 dead and almost empty forums — where starting with a single forum or maybe two instead might have allowed them to flourish. Those very 40 forums might have been created during the course of the board's life to keep keep things managable, even — but doing so up front just stunts growth before it has a chance to happen.

Perlmonks isn't quite in the same boat since there's already a large established user base, but I certainly don't see that we are getting flooded with Perl6 and Parrot topics which are making it hard to navigate the site, as things stand.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Makeshifts last the longest.

In reply to Re^4: Parrot Monks? by Aristotle
in thread Parrot Monks? by Thilosophy

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