Fellow Monks,
we appear to have an unrecognised genius in our midst!

The contributions this fellow makes would surely elevate him to the highest levels of the Perl priest(monk?)hood yet he wanders round the monastery, as he has done for years, in the guise of a humble Initiate.

It is often said that those who are best suited for the job are those who don't try to get it, so I propose that we immediately elevate our humble Anonymous Monk to the level of Pope!

This post is by sundialsvc4, not Anonymous Monk, just in case somehow I get logged-out prematurely.  (I didn’t.)   Yes, I have said some of these things before.   Place your down-votes here to be sure that I get proper credit.

PerlMonks is kind of like Perl itself ... quirky, hasn’t changed much despite various attempts to change it in a dozen years, and we sort-of like it that way.   And, it does serve two fundamental user communities remarkably well:

1. N00B1ES:   Perl is a hard language to get to know, and newbies don’t get barbequed here.   Much.   (They’re often so amazed at being treated courteously, that they write nice letters.)
2. Esoterica:   Perl is a high-performance, yet compact language, with one of the most well-developed contributed software libraries to be found anywhere.   So, it winds up being pressed into service in a lot of amazing ways.   You can ask a question here, and get an informed answer (and a few not-so informed ones), and some complete blocks of source-code, in a matter of minutes or hours.

I suggest that all of us should always be asking ourselves, how can we serve these two groups better.   (And then, if changes to our venerable perlmonks.pl are called for, actually get changes done.)   Why do people come here?   What do they want to get from it, and what do they not?

They do want to get:

• Answers.   Above all.   I am (whoever I am ...) “show-stopped” and the clock is ticking.   We have all been there.
• Peer Review.   The best solution is not-obvious.   We want to hear the opinions of our peers.   We know that the Perl space is actually vast, with all kinds of nooks and crannies, and that someone .. here has already been there.

They do not want to get:

• Participant personalities.   The moment a thread “gets personal,” it not only becomes off-topic, but it also gets irrelevant and even annoying to people who have to scroll through back-and-forth exchanges.   The rules of debate are formalized, but they’re formalized for a reason.   The greatest scene in The Fugitive ends with Tommy Lee Jones’ character shouting back, “I don’t care!”   His character had one purpose.   So do we.   The audience doesn’t come to a movie to see back-office politics.
• XP wars.   So far as I know, PerlMonks is the only forum that provides a means of negative feedback, although a great many offer n people found this post helpful.   When I am looking for answers, especially in unfamiliar spaces, it is helpful to zero-in on what other people find helpful.   But it isn’t coincidence, I think, that these forums don’t tally negativity, let alone bundle them into a singular “total.”   Rotten Tomatoes, the well-known movie review site, tallys, separately, both the fresh and rotten fruits.   (And, guess what, I tend to read only the fresh ones.)   You heard the opinions of both Siskel (R.I.P.) and Eibert (R.I.P.).   Separately.   I think that there were carefully market-researched reasons for that.
• “Anonymous” egg-throws.   No other forum that I know about permits posts to be made anonymously.   You must log-in, and if your session times out, you must re-authenticate to proceed.   The ability to do so, not only prevents someone from following-up offline with the true author of a particular post, but also encourages the other two things that, I aver, participants do not want to get.   Once again, I think there is a reason why every other forum acts differently from this one in this regard.

In the end, movies exist to sell popcorn.   Perlmonks similarly exists to provide on point answers and peer-reviews to people who one-and-all “sing for their supper.”   Whether we change the site software or not, in the end, it is the Monks who define our effectiveness in doing what we do here.   We ought to be “on-point” and “on-message,” collectively, all the time.   That message is never particularly about “any of us,” and I think we all should strive to keep it that way ... for them:   the folks who buy popcorn.

So what is perlmonks definition of "personal attack" and "trolling"? Can a user lose his power to consider nodes?

Being Anonymous Monk can be hard, consider these reapings which according to posted rules should not have been reaped

And consider what the PerlMonks FAQ say on the matter

A definition of personal attack

So what is perlmonks definition of "personal attack" and "trolling"? Can a user lose his power to consider nodes?

"Want Mega XP? Prepare to have your hopes dashed, join in on the: poll ideas quest 2013 (Don't worry; you've got plenty of time.)"

WTF is a 'Mega XP'?

This message has greeted me every time I've visited this website for the past two years, and the string 'Mega XP' is noplace on the poll ideas page.

I guess I'm just too stupid to figure out how to make the regular or 'super' search forms search for 'Mega XP' as a single string rather than returning results containing "Mega" and "XP", but in poring over results I see that "mega XP" seems to mean something like "lots and lots and lots of eXperience Points"??

Or maybe it doesn't. In any case no, I'm not especially dying to have them, I've no hopes so feel free to dash them, and I like a good non-sequiter as much as the next Nerd/Geek so maybe I'll visit the poll page again. Someday.

"XP is just a number"

No, 'XP' is two letters. '3' , '5.918287271' , '-7' , now *those* things are examples of what we commonly call 'numbers'. Absent 'context', that is (and Perl is all about context, isn't it?). You've got yours, I've got mine, and now (after considerable effort) mine actually includes some glimmer of your contextual notion of 'Mega XP'. I think.

How many down-votes can I give to a special fellow monk, w/o them being invalidated at the end of the day?

His constantly spreading nonsense, never provides code to prove his "theories" and is immune to any open critic.

I don't care about loosing XP for down-voting, I just want my votes to count.

So how many per day, or which percentage of my votes can I dedicate to his propaganda?

PS: Not interested in discussing his identity, elections are secret.

One of the minor annoyances (very minor, nothing to get worked up over) is the fact when there is a link in either PM chat or in a posting clicking on it has you leave the page you are on and replace that page with the referenced link.

How much trouble would it be to change the behavior of links inside of square bracket to open a new window using

<a href=".." target="_blank">
[download]

Just a random thought that occurred to me in my sleep deprived state.

G'day Monks,

I'm fairly certain that previews of a posting used to start like this:

preview page

by vroom

However, the posting I'm currently previewing starts like this:

preview page

by PublicAccess

Super Search finds no matches for "PublicAccess" (in titles or text) in the last two years.

Following the links to PublicAccess and then tye , this looks like it may be related to some sort of testing. So, possibly not a problem but, if it is, the issue's been raised. :-)

As one ascends the lofty heights of Monkdom, one gets more and more votes to use, and there is an incentive in using your votes as it helps to increase your own experience.

However, one does not necessarily see nodes that are worth using all your votes on, so I ask what do those of you who do have lots of votes use them on? Or do you leave a large amount of them unspent?

When I use perlmonks shortcuts to the perldocs it goes to the page but not down to the anchor location on the page like the full link does. The apostrophe and the percent symbol are being replaced with things like '%27' and '%25'.

If I link with the full url like this it works. http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq5.html#How-can-I-use-Perl's--i-option-from-within-a-program%3f

However, this goes to the page but not the anchor. The text below shows what I have in the link at the word 'this'.

Update: Interesting; the full link doesn't go to the anchor with an actual question mark in it. http://perldoc.perl.org/perlfaq5.html#How-can-I-use-Perl's--i-option-from-within-a-program?

After the recent heated discussion below How many man-hours would you estimate you have invested in learning Perl?, some suggestions were made with the aim to improve how people could voice their concerns with postings here. Additionally, there was a request from TPF to clarify the relationship between Perlmonks.org and positions and statements of TPF.

I see some need to discuss the potential changes, as I do not want the actions of a few vocal voices to negatively impact the majority of the community here.

Relation to TPF

The relationship between Perlmonks.org and TPF was so far only displayed on every page as a link, but there was no description of what the relationship actually is. I would like to clarify the relationship with text in the Perlmonks FAQ like the following

Perlmonks.org is loosely related to TPF. TPF provides the legal entity representing Perlmonks.org in the real world. The postings on Perlmonks.org represent exclusively the positions of their respective authors and not the positions and opinions of TPF (nor of the site administrators, hosting providers, or anyone else).

This should be fairly obvious to the long-time users of this site, but not everybody is aware of the history of Perlmonks.org and its relationship to TPF.

The official way to contact the Perlmonks.org administators, /msg'ing gods, will also be linked from that FAQ page. As this feature is also available to Anonymous Monk, this provides a reasonable venue to get in contact should one feel the need to do so.

Some people have voiced the idea that anonymous contribution here is detrimental to the level of discussion. The recent discussions at 1024035 have not shown a wide desire or support to enforce accounts for contributing.

Community statement

This statement should be obvious, but it seems that it bears repeating:

While the community of this site welcomes people from all walks of life, we do not welcome postings outside the scope of programming in general. The specific focus of this site lies on the Perl programming language.

We have established methods for determining whether a posting on this site does not belong here, or does belong to a special section. Please review "What is consideration?", "How do I use the power of consideration responsibly?", "Where should I post X?", and "PerlMonks Sections". Please do use the consideration feature if you feel that a posting on this site does not belong here. If you feel in doubt as to whether a posting is within the community guidelines, please contact the administrators before posting.

We appreciate a civil tone here. The self-regulating mechanisms of this site tend to work very well, but when posting or replying to a post, you should respect the other person. Personal attacks are not welcome here. If you think you need to reply to a personal attack in public, consider sleeping over it or otherwise delaying such a missive. Also consider asking other site members to review a draft of your text as to whether it is appropriate before posting.

The following should also go into the Site FAQ:

Advice for long threads

"A discussion has been going on but somebody replies to me every time. How can I close a thread?"

If you get into a prolonged discussion with an individual on this site, please consider whether your discussion actually positively contributes to the topic. After ten or more replies, such a thread rarely brings some technical result and likely has devolved into an emotional battle. As it takes at least two participants in such a thread, consider agreeing to disagree and stop posting to that thread, no matter how good you think your cause is, and no matter how wrong you think the other side is.

I just noticed in Saints in our Book that Corion has topped 100,000 experience points and been admitted to the Papacy.

Congratulations, Corion Pope(28) - well earned.

Hello there. I was wondering if I could get a whole box of PerlMonks cookies when I log onto PerlMonks. I have found six different addresses through which I can get onto PerlMonks, however I need to log into each one separately.

• http://www.perlmonks.org - the one I normally use.
• http://perlmonks.org
• http://www.perlmonks.com
• http://perlmonks.com
• http://www.perlmonks.net
• http://perlmonks.net

Please, can I have the half-dozen cookies on a single log in instead of logging onto each separately?

Update: There is also http://css.perlmonks.org. Any others I may have missed?

Update: There is also http://perlmonks.pair.com and http://ads.perlmonks.org.

Hello Monks.

This question is related to the perlmonk website usage.

The questions I have is when I am viewing any thread, I can see only up to 3 replies on the same as that of the thread. Any other replies beyond 3 replies, I need to open it in new tab/windows to read it. How to display the replies beyond “Re^3” on the page as that off the thread and not opening a new tab/window?

e.g.:

Check this thread: Curious find while comparing grep, map, and smart match...

Scroll down half way through and you will find a lot conversation between users "dbuckhal", "BrowserUk".

The replies went upto "Re^10".

However, I can views only up to reply Re^3. And for further replies, I need to open that particular reply in a new tab/window to read the response.

I have increased the reply depth as well as tried different browsers but it is still the same.

I can view the detailed reply response only up to "Re^3" for any thread and anything after that, I need to open it in a new tab.

Thanks.