in reply to One's place in a Perl community.

This probably doesn't help much, but I'm in exactly the same place as far as being able to help people here. I've lurked around for quite a while and haven't had much to contribute. Most of the easy stuff has already been answered and anything left over is easily picked off by quick re-loading Monks. I don't worry about not contributing much anymore -- I just figure I need to either get more experience, or spend more time reloading.

I've seen this happen before on various mailing lists where most of the folks on the mailing list become silent since most of the topics have already been discussed over the years. Newbies tended to be too intimidated to ask after a while, so they just kept quiet. I think PM is great because of the existing base of information available.

FWIW, I've long thought that asking a deeper question contributes on it's own. I particularly like the ones where half the folks regurgitate the (apparent) canned answer from the docs, and the other half realize it isn't that simple.

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Initiate-Friendly Questions
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jun 10, 2001 at 07:33 UTC
    I've been thinking lately that several questions being asked could be answered well by any of a hundred monks.

    Maybe the solution is that some of us saints (who are saints because we post a lot, not necessarily because we're the Perl elite) could recognize these questions and leave the floor open, so to speak.

    Or, for the technological solution, let the editors mark a question with a special star, signifying the same thing.

    The best answers have a way of showing up over time... it would be nice if monks with less XP had more of a chance to contribute answers.