I'm amused about the amount of traffic I've seen on this thread. In fact, I'm amusing myself by actually commenting on it. But you happened to catch me after midnight on an evening when I've drunk a few too many black Russians, and it's well past my bedtime.... 8^)

• I don't see newbie questions as clutter. I get frustrated sometimes about the fact that they don't search first, and that they don't review the archives, and they don't hang around for a week before their first post. (By the way, I lurked on the site for about a year before I finally created an account and created my first post.) But then again, PerlMonks isn't the same-old same-old website. There are quite a few websites where all the action is on the first few pages and there's no incentive to search through the older threads. But it's simple enough skip over the questions you've answered a dozen times already, so that's not a problem. And if you're bored, it's also simple to try to refine one of your earlier replies to a question to make things even better. If you look over anyone's history here, you'll see periods where the members are *incredibly* helpful, and periods when they're apparently bored because they skip questions. Some are very prolific (iki & Gramps), some are more reticent, but we're all here for the same thing: This place just works!
• As a group, I think we're pretty understanding and welcoming ... though sometimes we're a bit terse/brusque when people expect us to read their minds. Penitent: "Oh prithee hallowed Monks. Prithee wouldst thou but render unto me assistance in banishment of the travails of my most recent incantation ... blah blah blah" Respondent: "Oh, what problem? What code? I'm not a freakin' psychic, ya know. You might try using "use strict; use warnings;", posting some code and/or an actual error message, or even using Super Search to find similar questions, and reading How (Not) To Ask A Question, I know what I mean. Why don't you? and/or (I'd stick in a reference to the "X-Y problem node" but I forgot it...) etc.
• Higher level stuff.... no comment...
• Less strain on the PerlMonks server ... Yeah, it can be a bit slow at times. But I view that as an opportunity to run "perldoc xyzzy". I'm a bit too frenetic anyway. The slowness is great training for my patience(?sp?).
• Easier to use interface? I'm sorry, but I don't get you here. I'm an old VT-52 user, and I find it quite usable. I know it's not as "pretty" or "modern" as other websites. But I actually like that. I don't discount things just because they don't fold in every bell and whistle imaginable. I haven't found any shortcomings in the site, so it's not bothering me. Is it pretty? Well, no probably not. But then again, if I wanted pretty I'd be watching "purty grafix" on some other site. For me, content is king. I'd actually be a bit annoyed if they spent bandwidth shooting fancy GIF images and mouseover crap at me. In fact, I think the interface is quite fancy enough.

Now, if that didn't make me sound somewhat like a curmudgeon, then this will.... I don't particularly care if someone is going to avoid the site because it "doesn't have enough bling". People who are impressed by shinys aren't the sort of people I want to spend my time on. </bastard-mode;>

Like mr mischief, I upvoted you because it's a good thing to want to improve the site in some way. I just disagree that the site needs improvements in those particular directions.

Oh, well, I was expecting to make Parson soon, but I expect this node will put a damper on that. C'est la vie!

(The funny thing is, though XP is meaningless, the only reason I signed up here is because I wanted to post a reply, and then I found that the XP is an amusing thing to keep you coming back. "Gee, I wonder how my last post fared?" ... "What? Negative XP? Whose Cheerios did I piss in?"

--rusty robot

(This node is proof positive that one shouldn't post when one is ... tipsy.) I hope I haven't offended anyone. If so, just downvote me....