Re: Restrictions of the Anonymous Monk

[Old_Gray_Bear]

The Monastery needs some way to set up the diamond-inheritance pattern for commentary -- this is a comment responding to several nodes that have appeared in the past few days....

First of all -- Thanks toolic, for posting this reminder of what the Anonymous Monk can/can't do.

Secondly -- Thanks to jim and The Nameless One for bringing up various "oddities" about the behavior of the Anonymous Monk. (RFC: Purpose of Robes in Monasteries and Anonymous Monk?)

Thirdly -- Thanks to ww who started the most recent discussion about the Voting System. (Thoughtless voting?)

Sometimes in the discussions about XP and Anonymity and such, an important point about how the Monastery uses the roles and 'scoring' gets over-looked. The actual purpose of the various Classes of Monks and the Rating System is to hook in to one of the most deeply rooted of Human emotional drives -- The Urge For Competition.

This is not competition between myself and my Brethren and Sistren, it is a competition me and the Monastery, to improve the quality of life for all Monks.

I want to read good posts. I use my daily votes to encourage well written nodes. A well written, cogent, argument will get my approval every time, even if I disagree with the point being made. I also up-vote nodes that may in themselves be not that good, but generated an informative discussion thread. I try encourage the overall general information level in the Monastery. I want Perl Monks to continue to be the place people go to talk/learn/practice Perl in all of its various manifestations. (I am just waiting up up-vote a good discussion about the benefits of Perl 3.0 vis-a-vis Perl 2.x, by the way....)

I do not post often. When I do post, it is because I care about the topic. I review my postings from time to time to see which ones 'struck a nerve' with other Monks. Which postings generated the most interest (as measured by the XP rating). Often I find that there are other people who are passionate about the same things I am (or at least, they are willing to (anonymously) click a check-box). Just as often I find out that I an full of soup -- I am the only person in this milieu who is really bugged by the use of 'data' in the singular ('this data shows ...'), for example.

This is how I compete with myself inside the Monastery. I ask myself: am I writing more and better nodes as I grow older? Does it seem that there are more Monks that think what I write is useful? Have I been generating the kinds of discussion threads that I would like to read?

There is a saying popular in one of my other interest groups --

"We are all Students here".

As a Student Monk, I continually strive to improve myself and the House I live in.

[mr_mischief]

As are most higher mammals, it seems Perl monks are social creatures by nature. It is, then, suitable to say that the social group competes for resources, including members, against other social groups in similar niches. I see node reputation as one of the traits evolved that has survival benefits for this group. I think the Anonymous Monk helps in some ways, too. Thankfully, social evolutions don't necessarily happen purely by random.