Why is this a self-building community? Because people are motivated to contribute to it. Why are people motivated to contribute? becasue they like to belong to a community, because they like the feeling of contributing, because they like to be recognized by their peers as good at something, becuase they like the feeling that their work and thoughts can be useful to others. Do people also like to show off, be first, prove themselves smarter than others? Sure, but I doubt that nodes illustrating those goals get upvoted as often as nodes illustrating the other goals. To reduce all of these various motivations to the word "competition" is one-dimensional and does nothing to explain why the atmosphere at PerlMonks is different from the typical slashdot / usenet / IRC venue where putting people down and showing off is the accepted norm. | [reply] |
Opinions are bound to be different. I do see the competition here. Not because of the XPs or anything else you are going to get if you "win", but simply competition for competition. Striving to be if not best then at least good. It's like amateur sport, you don't win any medals or prize money, you just have fun and feel good that you participated, are getting better, that you can.
I know people are different, but for most (IMHO) its more fun to run in a bunch of other kids, trying to outrun everyone else, than to run all alone, having just your watches as a companion. Provided that the kids don't take the competition too seriously.
In the long run it doesn't matter whether you answer questions because you want to be the first who gives a good answer or because you feel good helping people or because you're a scout and have to make your daily number of good deeds ;-) The community works and thats great.
Jenda
We'd like to help you learn to help yourself
Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes
Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home
-- P. Simon in Mrs. Robinson |
| [reply] |
I think part of what diotalevi is saying is true... but not the part about there being no competition. I know that some people (myself included) do sometimes play the game of Who can be the first to give a good answer to a new question. It's true that the First Responder (:-) tends to get an XP advantage, at least when there are significant numbers of voters out there; but there's also something intangible that accrues to the First Responder. I think it is akin to how status is gained in the hacker world.
(See also The Hacker Milieu as Gift Culture.)
| [reply] |
It seems to me that the community works because people want to communicate about perl. Whether you have a question, answer, or just news. When you are new to perl you need answers, as you gain some knowledge you still need answers but in your quest for answers you will post solutions to problems and so on until you are basically a repository of wisdom. But that is just my $.02
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Anarchy? There are laws, even if we call them "guidelines". So how can it be an anarchy?
| [reply]
[d/l] |
if ($yourdefinitionofanarchy == "lawlessness") {
print "Look it up in a dictionary\n";
} elsif ( $yourdefinitionofanarchy =~ m/absence of government/) {
print "You're on the right track\n";
} else {
wtf();
}
From my understanding of the perlmonk community, anarchy is as good a description as any. And I agree with diotalevi about altruism being a bigger motivator than competition. | [reply]
[d/l] |