Re^3: (Toward a better PerlMonks) Who do we serve, and why, and how can we do it better?

[Argel]

Perhaps it's not the lack of leadership, but when the leaders actively work against the site. Are we really to believe that several months of trolling had no impact on The Monastery? Or the hall monitoring for questions that do not meet some clique's requirements had no impact? And what if the gods collectively came out against the hall monitoring?

How about this exchange in Re^4: Do Not Feed the Trolls!!! (ban) between tye and chromatic way back in 2007:

Tye: But when, for example, one of the gods appears to make a personal project of carrying on an extended discussion with "the troll"...

chromatic: It was an experiment, and it was well worth my time, as I learned a few things.

Is it any surprise then that a few years later we see Corion, chromatic, ikegami, and others encouraging arguably the worst troll we have ever had for months on end?

Your own previous post, Politeness (to one another) is a virtue, provided for some interesting (and depressing) reading. This thread stands out: 939315, 939349 - 940494. Here's a heavily edited for brevity version (without any "..."):

chromatic If you care to read those threads, you'll see me advising him to tread lightly as well as telling people to stop abusing him.

Anonymous Monk I've read them far more than I cared to and I find your recollection of the events a little disingenuous. You're painting the whole episode, which lasted months, with a fairly one sided brush.

The person showed a long pattern of bait and abuse on this site as well as an established history on others. You chose to ignore that, for your own reasons, and continued engaging with him until he had an epic meltdown a few weeks ago.

A meltdown you seemed to be quietly absent from while everyone else suffered from his actions. Where were you to [sic] "Advise him to tread lightly" when all this was happening?

chromatic Trading private email with him.

Also, sometimes the business of running a business and managing employees and contractors means that I can't donate as much of my time to helping adults make wise choices as you might prefer that I donate.

Argel [not the Anonymous Monk above] And my answer to that is if you do not have enough time to fully commit to something then do not get involved with it in the first place! In the end you were an enabler for poor behavior. And The Monastery in general suffered for it.

Of course, if you research back to the events (2011 time frame), you will find that others such as Corion and ikegami were heavily engaged as well.

Anyway, the point is that the gods collectively abdicated their responsibility to this site in favor of personal goals (presumably trying to bring a technically gifted but antagonistic person into the Perl community).

So here we are, a few years later, and you really have to ask if leadership matters; has had an impact on this site? How many potential new members did we lose over that several month period? How many regulars did we lose, either completely or partially via reduced participation?