Your pattern also matches 'YEESS', 'yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees', and 'YeEeEeEeSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS'.

Probably not what you want.

There's a much simpler solution. Reverse the subject and the pattern: 

for my $str (qw[YES YE Y yes ye y YS ES S ys es s YEESS YYYEEs]) {
    say "$str: ", "yes" =~ /^\Q$str/i ? "ok" : "not ok";
}
__END__
YES: ok
YE: ok
Y: ok
yes: ok
ye: ok
y: ok
YS: not ok
ES: not ok
S: not ok
ys: not ok
es: not ok
s: not ok
YEESS: not ok
YYYEEs: not ok

[download]
Or, instead of the pattern match: 
say "ok" unless index "yes", lc $str;

[download]

In reply to Re^2: conditional regex by JavaFan
in thread conditional regex 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!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.