Grab bag category

[robartes]

having just approved When to use Java? into SoPW because I could see no alternative (it's not quite a Meditation, nor is it Discussion on PM, and it's hardly code, obfuscated or not), I wondered. Is there a need for a general grab bag category?

Currently, SoPW seems to serve as a general fall back posting category, and the HowTo seems to suggest that it is indeed the correct place for this kind of question. However, one might also think of SoPW as a place for quick questions/answers for actual Perl problems, as in with code, or asking for code.

Is there a need to create a grab bag category to place the occasional slightly OT, not really Perl, general or Just Plain Weird question? My personal opinion is that the advantages of this would not outweigh the disadvantages. Sure, SoPW gets swamped and cluttered at times, but I think that adding yet another category, especially one with an intended goal that is subtly and possibly even too subtly different from it, would confuse things too much. One more category, especially when it is not clearly delineated,will not help here, and the occasional outrageously misposted node can be dealt with through the accepted normal means.

To end this, a quick step back to When to use Java?: it is not exactly a Perl question, but is generates some interesting discussions on efficiency and performance (or at least links thereto). Whether creating a new category for questions such as this would generate the same level of discussion, is anybody's guess.

So, even though I suggested the category, my personal opinion is agaist it, but I'm willing to be proven wrong. What's the monks' feeling?

CU
Robartes-

[tye]

It is good that you feel a little uncomfortable approving that node to Seekers of Perl Wisdom. There is a point to this tension. I think the question was appropriate for that section. But I'm glad people have to "think twice" about whether it belongs. I wish more people would think at least twice before posting. But at least if they post something that is clearly a Perl question, it will be something we are used to. (:

Even better would be if people would also super search before posting. Then they'd see that this idea has been proposed and shot down many times already. q-:

        - tye (thinking twice, daily)

[Popcorn Dave]

I think you're right to not have a grab bag area. personally I think you're going to generate a troll feeding ground with something like that, and if it did degenerate in to that, nobody would bother looking there, so what would be the point of having it.

Isn't that what Usenet is for anyway? Trolls can be flamed, regrow and be flamed again over and over. Here at least we do have some control with the reaper and the community.

There is no emoticon for what I'm feeling now.

[jdporter]

I think you were absolutely right to approve it into SoPW. It clearly fits the category, IMHO.
OTOH, if it had been more of an answer than a question, I think it clearly would have fit in Meditations.

It may turn out that a new category is needed, but I don't think this present case provides the motivation.

jdporter
...porque es dificil estar guapo y blanco.