monkdiscuss Tuna Maybe it's me, but it seems like alot of posts to [Seekers of Perl Wisdom|SoPW] have been vague and/or ambiguous. After doing a search of this site, the only information regarding and writeup do's dont's is [Writeup Formatting Tips] , [I want to ask a question of the Perl Monks; where do I start?]. Now, possibly, if I did a more exhaustive search, I may come up with more reference to this topic, but I feel that this type of information should be contained directly in [Perl Monks Site FAQ] or [Site How To]. So, I decided to write a little something: <H2>Seekers of Perl Wisdom Writeup Guidelines</H2> Here are some basic guidelines for submitting a question to [Seekers of Perl Wisdom]: <UL> <LI>First, and foremost, be able to articulate your question. Chances are, that if you can't, monks will not understand your problem and you won't get the answer(s) that you need.</LI> <LI>Written "descriptions" of what you're trying to do, and what problems you are running into will rarely suffice, without accompanying code. Don't be bashful! Post what you have - as "ugly" or "wrong" as it might be. No one will persecute you for trying to figure out a problem on your own!</LI> <LI>Which brings me to the next point: PLEASE, don't post a question, like, "I want a program that will do XYZ, then mail the output to ABC, and write it to a file. How can I write it?....". Chances are if you post a question like that, you will be downvoted, or altogether ignored.</LI> <LI>Read [Writing Formatting Tips] before actually posting code. As you write your post, you will always have the option to preview your post. Exersise that option =).</LI> <LI>Use [Super Search] to search for possible answers to your question. As this is a large, and active community here, there is a good chance that your question has been answered before.</LI> <LI>Read previous [Seekers of Perl Wisdom] posts for ideas on how to pose your question.</LI> <LI>There is rarely (if ever) a need to post hundreds of lines of code to get an answer to your problem. If you feel the need to do that, step back for a minute, attempt to debug your program yourself (I assume that you are already using <CODE>-w</CODE> and <CODE>use strict;</CODE>. Post only the code which is pertinent to the specific problem you are having. If you're post is going to be lengthy, be considerate and use <READMORE> tags.</LI> <LI>There are alot of online resources here; take the time to read through them.</LI> <LI>Read through: [Voting Guidelines (or 'How should I spend my votes?')]. There are some helpful hints contained in this document.</LI> </UL> My final suggestion is that you are not already, [id://101|become a member] of PerlMonks.org. This is an extremely knowledgeable and helpful community we have. Edit 2001-05-12 by [tye] to add a missing > that was preventing the subsequent <code></ul></code> from being parsed