Amen. It's what I try to impress on my son all the time: it's not how well you do it, it's how hard you try.

In a learning situation such as this, which tries to imitate the round-table discussion group style of brainstorming, it's the throwing around of ideas (hopefully, without penalty even if you do something very basic or stupid) that makes Perlmonks a place where you can actually learn. It adds to my productivity instead of sapping it, as most 'net based stuff seems to do these days.

I know that I am capable of making a complete ass out of myself, to a certain degree it can't be helped :) But I also know that as long as I interact, write responses, get corrected and LEARN, I've done myself and probably others some good.

Now the bad news is that Size Kills All; the universe doesn't scale. This type of interaction works great with small groups of people (like, strangely enough, in kindergarden and 1st grade classes), but becomes much less effective as the size of the group grows. Eventually, the signal to noise ration shifts into the noise area and, it breaks. Take the way IRC used to be, Usenet and Everything for example.

So, Share and Enjoy while you can. Maybe, if we are lucky, Perlmonks won't fall pray to that, but if it doesn't, it will be the first one I've seen.