The line is pretty easy I think: if you don't feel like answering patiently and politely... then don't answer. At least that's what I do!

I think that's the policy of most people here: for most "easy" questions people with a good (but not great) knowledge of Perl are more than happy to answer (and grap the xp's ;--). If they post an incorrect answer, then it is time for people with a better grasp of the problem to step in and give a more authoritative advice (or to refer them to a WT column {grin}).

It makes everybody happy, and both the beginner asking the first question and the not-so-beginner who answered incorrectly will gain knowledge from the thread.

The beauty of the Monastery is that it breeds legions of monks who want to help people. And when they are tired of chanting the same mantra over and over again another monk just takes it place (OK, maybe I am getting a little carried away with the legions and all here, but you get the idea ;--)

I personally think we are doing a fine job of answering questions - even wrong answers have a good place in the context of the thread.

merlyn explained to me the difference between sytax and semantics, in that the syntax is readily available to all those who wish to dig through the manuals and figure it out themselves. What we do here at the monastery is provide semantics - a link to where to the find the knowledge, or the knowledge itself.

On a personal note, when i first joined the monastery, i was a bit scared to post - but by hanging around long enough, i got a feel for how to post GOOD questions. My first post to Seekers of Perl Wisdom was answered very briefly by you, chromatic. Very briefly because you were busy at the time. I replied "and chromatic does not give good answers", only to watch that reply sink into -- land.

Shortly after that, you finished your reply with an exlanation of why you didn't have the time to go into detail the first time around. I learned from this to be patient.

To those seeking answers: 'Patience is your friend. The answer will come.'

Jeff

R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--R-R-R--
L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--L-L--

How can you draw a line without knowing who you are talking to in person? Is the person just someone who wants a quick answer, or do they deep inside wish to know how the answer works?

Ahh, there's the rub. The answer is: you can't know.

Unless the poster prefaces a question with some biographical information ("I've been C programming for 15 years, and just can't get the hang of ____ in Perl") or you've met the poster in person -- you really can't know.

For this, fall back on your customer service training: give them what they asked for, and then lead them down the path to further knowledge<super>*</super>. If they ask a (suspected) X-Y question, answer X and make the suggestion that Y might be more appropriate and conventional. If they ask a direct question give them a direct answer, be brief, and then politely leave them with a pointer for more information. If the direct answer is too long and involved to really go into tell them that and leave the pointer.

And for chromatic, there's an easy solution to the frustration of having to answer Yet Another HTML-parsing-with-regexps or CGI-module-should-have-been-used question: don't answer. Tackle the harder questions. There's plenty of monks here who'll jump in and take these questions because they've seen you answer them a dozen times or more. They're waiting to say something but the questions that they can answer have been jumped on already. They get to post and be helpful, you get to spend more time on interesting questions. Everyone's happy.

Sometimes, if you really want to be helpful, contact the poster out-of-band (e-mail) and ask more questions. THEN go back and answer to the level they require. (Of course, putting a note in the post with the additional information gathered.)

None of this is hard, none of this requires more effort than is going on now. You won't offend, no-one will be driven off, and everyone gets what they want. Changing the perception of the Perl Community will take time, and a lot of attitude adjusting.

<super>*</super>The same training that tells you not worry about the customer that complained about the service, but to worry about the dozens that said nothing...

You can't just wander in and talk to the manager of a supermarket though. Good luck finding a linesman to ask them if you can have a different colour phone. And we know what normally happens if you ask a network engineer how to change the colours on your desktop.

Usually the price of service is built into the cost of the product. People just think that the advice they get is free because they aren't reaching in to their wallet while asking their question. Then they wander onto the internet and chew out a saint at Perlmonks for not being as nice as the shelf-packer at the local grocery store.

So let the monks and scribes answer the easy ones with long explanations about why everyone should "use CGI;". Perhaps you could just browse the lower half of SOPW, looking for those tricky questions that other people haven't handled as well as you could? That way you don't get bored typing banal answers, but the people who need it can still get the benefit of your high-level wisdom.

This is analagous to many other situations (even in real monasteries) where the expert is kept away from distractions by those who are learning from him.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

"A man's maturity -- consists in having found again the
seriousness one had as a child, at play."   --Nietzsche
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