Heh. Some years ago, Dilbert and Wally were apparently engaged in an e-mail argument, and Wally remarked to Dilbert: "You're might brave in cyber-space, Flame-boy!" (I wish I could find a linkable copy of the comic.) I think a lot of news group participants post remarks that they would never say in person.

One of the beauties of PerlMonks is that people are 'accountable' via XP for what they say, here. In spite of the fact that XP is "an imaginary number given to you by a stranger", I find it serves as a powerful motivator to word my posts more carefully. The preview feature helps a lot, too.

In most news groups, you post a message and you never really know what most people thought of it. You may get a few responses from those who strongly agree or disagree with you, but you miss out on the non-verbal cues (like the people who would roll their eyes or look away if you said the same thing in person). Many people can't be bothered to reply unless they feel strongly. At PerlMonks, you can know within a few minutes if your posting was perceived positively or negatively -- after a few downvotes, you learn to be careful.

Personally, I really like the higher standard, which is why I stick around (apart from the fact that being a PerlMonk is a powerful chick-magnet). I've been practicing my pick-up lines:

My wife just laughs at me whenever I talk about PerlMonks. Happily, she married me in the first place because I made her laugh, although she managed to keep a straight face when I actually proposed. :)


No good deed goes unpunished. -- (attributed to) Oscar Wilde

In reply to Re^4: Formatting paragraph by ptum
in thread Formatting paragraph by Anonymous Monk

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
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