I am sure that most people logging onto perlmonks.org for the first time are under the impression that the main box is where you put your
. So what I am looking for is some way of increasing the cost of posting a silly question. I can see the XP loss ultimately does offer that, but this is analogous to the way bridges that suffer from a lot suicides often require a one penny fee to cross the bridge. It makes the potential suicide stop and think before they cross. Saying XP loss ought to be enough to deter them is a bit like saying that "life experience loss" ought to be enough to dissuade suicides. And the analogy is closer if the XP loss drives the potential user away permanently. I think it would be much better to force the user somehow to ask himself, have I done everything I can to answer this question myself. It could be for example a drop-down box listing say my documentation, man pages, book, google etc. Then if the user fails to select one of these rather than fully submitting he gets a message suggest he try those first. Such a drop down box forces a higher transactional cost to asking a silly question, but is less flexible than a text box.