Re^5: Breaking Out of the Perl Echo Chamber: A Call to Action

… why? What possible advantage does knowledge hoarding offer?

I agree with all your general points but I also understand from where AZed is coming. It's not hoarding that's on point here, it's signal to noise.

Imagine someone posts the most mundane Perl question on SOPW and I answer with something awful, dangerous, etc. How long will my post go uncorrected by another monk? 10 minutes? An hour? Maybe a half-day if it's a weekend and the original question was overly verbose. What if I respond in a seemingly reasonable and forceful rebuttal making my answer seem more correct? How long till I'm dogpiled by better answers and further corrections from a few other monks? It's not a hoard here as much as it is a pure vein.

I visited StackOverflow a couple of days ago and started to reply to a Perl related question. Then I reread the 10 wishy-washy, naļve, 100%-opinion answers that were already there and I said to myself, Ah, f*** this. No one is going to be able to see the pearls in the mud. It's the same reason I think I've been to /. 3 or 4 times in 11 years of being online all day.

Seeing your OP here, however, makes me strongly reconsider spending time over there. Knowing other monks might be there definitely changes the lay of things.

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Re^6: Breaking Out of the Perl Echo Chamber: A Call to Action by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Sep 19, 2008 at 03:45 UTC
Then I reread the 10 wishy-washy, naïve, 100%-opinion answers that were already there and I said to myself, Ah, f** this. Which is precisely the point! There’s a bunch of us over there now, though, and I’ve found most questions are already quite decently answered by the time I see them. Then I just cast votes where I think the answers should be rearranged. I don’t know if my call to action (which I first posted to use.perl) was at all responsible for this, but that turn of events is what I was hoping for – that it not turn into yet another* place where no one is going to be able to see the pearls in the mud, like practically everywhere. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]

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Re^6: Breaking Out of the Perl Echo Chamber: A Call to Action
by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Sep 19, 2008 at 03:45 UTC

Then I reread the 10 wishy-washy, naïve, 100%-opinion answers that were already there and I said to myself, Ah, f*** this.

Which is precisely the point!

There’s a bunch of us over there now, though, and I’ve found most questions are already quite decently answered by the time I see them. Then I just cast votes where I think the answers should be rearranged. I don’t know if my call to action (which I first posted to use.perl) was at all responsible for this, but that turn of events is what I was hoping for – that it not turn into yet another place where no one is going to be able to see the pearls in the mud, like practically everywhere.

Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]