I have been a casual PerlMonks user for years and occasionally use Anonymous Monk because, as silly as i feel about it as an adult, i would still like to keep my XP when asking a contentious question.

How do i know what a contentious question is? Well, it is usually a matter for Discussion. I noticed a long time ago after voting for what I thought was a coherent suggestion about the site structure that people seem to use downvotes when they disagree with an opinion, rather than posting and disagreeing.

I still vote for them anyway and would note that this form of downvoting is clearly so normative that anybody who uses PerlMonks for any period of time will be aware of it, which is perhaps why Discussion tends toward the perhaps limpid but certainly very safe.

Nobody in their right mind could believe this a good way to encourage Discussion. I will downvote people who answer perl questions badly because that can be a productive pressure, and the computer can tell me the code you claim works doesn't work. If you post code without testing it and it's a junk waste of time, you deserve to get burned somehow. But, as great as PerlMonks is (couldn't it be even better?), surely we are only hurting ourselves by frightening people away from subjective constructive critisism of the site itself. And occasionally, after seeing the results from some unlucky poster, it occurs to me that there is a weakness in the structure here: the votes given out to help dynamize the system are being used to stifle it (LOGICALLY THINKING there is no other way to interpret such behavior).

So here's my constructive criticism: PerlMonks Discussion should be an open forum without the possibility of a negative vote. Discourage wrong answers to real questions. Don't discourage Discussion. Encourage Discussion. That's not just some opinion: it's like saying that people shouldn't be allowed to throw things at the speaker in a press conference (altho now suddenly i am wondering if...)

But who will take Anonymous Monk seriously?

This area is for discussing issues pertaining to the PerlMonks site. You can ask about how things work, or offer ideas on how the site could be improved, for example.

Or you could just throw in some of your extra minus signs.

In reply to let's discuss your abuse of inappropriate powers by Anonymous Monk

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