Yeah, the whole idea was for noobs, in hopes they may actually read it before posting. I might say put a brief on "how to format your post" with a button that leads one to the posting box, but I'm sure that'd be shot down as just a hindrance. However, perhaps it'd make sense if it was shown only for those who are either anonymonk, or first-time posters (or people with a monk level < N who have had consideration against them for improper formatting in the past).
I've never seen the PM code nor its DB, so I would have no idea if such a thing was even possible (or at least reasonably feasible).
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It might be possible, but it's futile. No matter what you do, you can't get most newbies to read the instructions. After a level, it just doesn't matter how obviously you present the instructions, people will just ignore them no matter what.
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They may, but it might have even a slight impact. I like the idea of codifying some form of validation like ww said in Re: Put the formatting information above the posting text box?, but that might be a bit too heavy-handed without some serious thought. However, a check for things like sub \w+ { or $\w+ = and such could notify a user after submit and prior to post that they may have code that hasn't been wrapped in <c></c> tags, etc.
Clearly, I don't want to lose new people to PM because of restraints/constraints, but on the other hand, if we can't/don't change how we post on PerlMonks, perhaps we should consider a new avenue of approach... an appreciation of sorts. 'Come to PM to be part of a community and learn, not just get your immediate question answered.".
There have to be some out there who still appreciate being part of a community; not just blindly answering questions that have to be precise and perfect in every way, without any means or facility for discussion.
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