That is relevant, how?

First, to address what you said: I still remember, many years later, how confusing I found Perl Monks when I first signed up here. Sure it is much easier for you to use than Stack Overflow – after all, you already have an account and you know how this site works. Stack Overflow is new to you. And if you have never encountered OpenID before, and you need it for just a single site, then it’s a huge hassle compared to a simple login form – but I have 150 passwords already so I am glad that Stack Overflow does not make me keep track of yet another one. (OpenID adoption is growing – more slowly than I would like, but it’s getting traction. Can’t happen a day too soon if you ask me. This might have been the first time you saw OpenID, but it won’t be the last.) Perl Monks is great because of the community and because of the “social design” of the site; the technical implementation is sub par.

But be that as it may, it doesn’t even matter. See, I’m not trying to talk you into going to Stack Overflow. I’m just pointing out some facts: Perl has an undeservedly terrible reputation among non-Perl programmers. Stack Overflow has attracted a generic crowd of programmers. Some of them will ask Perl questions, and some of them will answer Perl questions – mostly badly, if the rest of the non-core Perl community fora on the web are any indication. We can either accept this as the state of affairs, or we can go there and spread awareness of what we consider good practice. Of course, that means we do not get to choose where to do it – either we do it there, or we don’t, whether we like the site or not.

You don’t have any obligation, of course. It’s your decision whether you want to do anything about this. And if you decide that you want to, it’s still another decision how you want to do it – posting good Perl answers on Stack Overflow isn’t exactly the only way.

But Perl Monks vs Stack Overflow comparisons are pointless.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Stack Overflow is a great idea, though I have yet to actually try and use it to find answers. However, OpenID has several serious problems; pointers at http://idcorner.org/2007/08/22/the-problems-with-openid/. Any technology that has had that level of phishing possibilities is not for me.

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say "Just Another Perl Hacker";

But Perl Monks vs Stack Overflow comparisons are pointless.

Well the real test will be "will StackOverflow start showing ads for google?" , as zby alludes to.

If they do, then all we are doing by answering questions there, is helping a startup. SlackOverflow may just need to reach that magical hit number where Google ads can be offered. There already are a bunch of "get answers" sites, that are blatantly mercenary...... I hate the ruse they use where they break up a simple answer into multiple pages, so you are forced to look at more ads.

And w-ber's observations about OpenID, at Re^3: Breaking Out of the Perl Echo Chamber: A Call to Action are enough to dissuade me from it.

On second thought, maybe I'll get me a fake OpenID, and will post some answers there, with links to Perlmonks as answers. ha ha :-)

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I'm not really a human, but I play one on earth Remember How Lucky You Are

There already are a bunch of “get answers” sites, that are blatantly mercenary…… I hate the ruse they use where they break up a simple answer into multiple pages, so you are forced to look at more ads.

Err. Yes. Hence Stack Overflow. The fact that these sites suck was the motivation behind it. (I linked the post from my original post; did you read it?) I’m not sure who you are trying to convince of what.

Maybe I’ll get me a fake OpenID, and will post some answers there, with links to Perlmonks as answers. ha ha :-)

If your intent is to annoy Stack Overflow users rather than help them, please do the Perl community a favour and stay away.

Makeshifts last the longest.

Also, I was tempted to answer questions from other languages, with a Perl script...... that would probably start language wars over there.

Actually I would think that it might be a good thing to answer questions that are NOT tagged as Perl with Perl answers. Not when someone asks a question directly about an other language, but questions that are somewhat language neutral. Perl questions are asked by people who already know, and use, the language. Non-Perl questions on the other hand gives us a chance to show-off in front of an unsuspecting audience ;--)

If the goal is Perl evangelism, this is probably not a bad technique — ignore all the threads tagged with Perl, but use Perl to provide code examples for all non-language-specific implementation questions for which Perl is a good fit. The trouble is finding those questions quickly.