if there is no indentlevel option, it defaults to four.

It should default to 4 according to perlpod. I am not finding a requirement for newlines before and after the POD commands, so apparently I have been cargo culting that in my code. However, I seem to remember some POD formatters working incorrectly if the newlines were omitted.

Update: Perhaps calling the =FOO commands command paragraphs implies that there is a blank line before and after. The documentation for cut explicitly states that The blank line before the "=cut" is not technically necessary, but many older Pod processors require it.. I can not find any other language in my brief scan for other command paragraphs that speaks to whitespace before and after. If this is truly the intent, perhaps a POD change is in order. I will put this on my (long) todo list. If someone else gets to it ahead of me (probably very easy to do), I will not take offense ;-).

Update 2: Per ig's post, paragraphs are defined as having newlines between them. So it is in the docs, it just could possibly be clearer.