in reply to Re: •Re: What is PerlMonks anyway?
in thread What is PerlMonks anyway?

I have to agree with Randal wrt OT posts. IMHO I think the reason PM is successful is because of some of the very things you wish to change. For example, the OT stuff is generally weeded out and the folks who are not serious about Perl in general tend to leave since they don't get fame by posting trash. (See Slashdot for examples of this kind of thing :-)

If something dubious is posted to the front page for example, it can be quickly removed (e.g. voted out of existance). Notice that OT stuff is still allowed -- just discouraged in general unless the "community" thinks it's worthy. If you peruse Slashdot, you have to take the good articles with the bad and you have to surf at a high enough level to avoid all of the trash since a large number of bottom feeders there are quite vocal -- even ones with monikers.

As for Anonymous Monk, I agree that folks should pick a moniker, but not so they are somehow showing backbone, but so that their messages can be attributed to a common source (i.e. If I'm short on time, I focus reading messages from folks with a low SNL ratio.) If they don't want a message to be attributed to them, what do I care -- they could just pick another random moniker and login and post with that.

bluto

  • Comment on Re: Re: •Re: What is PerlMonks anyway?

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Re: What is PerlMonks anyway?
by Abigail-II (Bishop) on Oct 01, 2003 at 20:04 UTC
    If something dubious is posted to the front page for example, it can be quickly removed (e.g. voted out of existance). Notice that OT stuff is still allowed -- just discouraged in general unless the "community" thinks it's worthy.

    I don't agree with this, it's too much "let the market decide" in economic terms. Your suggestion would mean that if I rally enough people interested in collecting miniature kobolds to come here, we could discuss collecting miniature kobolds on perlmonks, and even vote off any Perl related articles from the front page.

    Abigail

[reply]
      Hi again Abigail-II

      I agree, even if my suggestion of an OT section were supported, I think the rules should be that an OT post could not be front-paged and should not gain the poster or the responder experience points. I would only envision it as an OT adjunct to the main focus which is obviously Perl. This is a Perl forum, not a 'market volume decides' forum like an IRC channel!

      jdtoronto

[reply]

      Funny that your argument could just as easily be used against capitalism and democracy.

      Judging from vroom's past behaviour, if the site was obviously getting far too off topic he'd guide it back on. Have a little faith, the system hasn't failed yet.

[reply]
        Funny that your argument could just as easily be used against capitalism and democracy.
        Of course, since both of these systems have giant flaws. They're no panacea, just better than most other systems which have even larger flaws.

        Makeshifts last the longest.

[reply]

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