When the group at Perlmonks.com first decided to let their secret web hangout be known to the public last December, they initially thought it would only interest advanced programmers.

Hmm .. so this is a review from, say, 2000? I would say any review older than about two years is out of date, and some people might say anything older than six months is out of date.

It's nice to read about it all, but it's out of date, and it doesn't cover much of the site at all. More meaningful content would be a couple of success stories, connections made, brief quotes from various monks (both long time and new members) and so forth.